Surrealism and Photography in Thirties Japan: The Impossible Avant-Garde

2020 guide by Jelena Stojković

Surrealism and Photography in Thirties Japan: The Impossible Avant-Garde is a 2020 artwork historical past guide by Jelena Stojković on Surrealist images in Japan throughout the Thirties.^[1] It examines the topic by the histories of shinkō shashin (“new photography”), zen’ei shashin (“avant-garde photography”) and zōkei shashin (“plastic photography”), drawing on major sources and archival analysis.^[2] Reviewing the guide in The Burlington Magazine, Lena Fritsch described it as the primary English-language monograph on Surrealist images in Japan.^[3][2] It was named Best Art Publication within the 2021 ICAS Book Prize, whose committee stated that the examine added a brand new perspective to each the historical past of images and Japanese historical past.^[4]

The hardback version was printed in London by Bloomsbury Visual Arts in 2020 with ISBN 978-1-78831-405-3.^[1] A paperback version was first issued in 2021 and is printed by Routledge.^[5] The examine covers the interval between the Manchurian Incident of 1931 and the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, when censorship and political stress more and more affected avant-garde cultural exercise in Japan.^[2]

Stojković locations the guide in opposition to what she describes because the fragmentary therapy of Surrealist images in earlier histories of each images and Surrealism.^[6] She notes that photographers similar to Iwata Nakayama, Ei-Q and Nakaji Yasui had been the themes of retrospective exhibitions, however argues that this had not produced a broader account of their relationship to Surrealism.^[6] Earlier accounts, in her view, extra typically recognized particular person Surrealist images inside broader modernist classes or mentioned explicit photographers individually.^[6]

The guide as an alternative treats Surrealist images as a dispersed subject involving photographers, artists, critics, magazines, exhibitions and photograph golf equipment relatively than because the exercise of a single group.^[7] Its geographical scope contains Osaka and Nagoya in addition to Tokyo, reflecting Stojković’s argument that Japanese Surrealism developed by a decentralized community relatively than round a single nationwide centre.^[7] The examine additionally follows the magazines and photographic organizations by which works and concepts moved between these totally different circles.^[8]

The guide is split into three components, which Stojković presents as interconnected layers of the account relatively than as a strictly chronological historical past.^[8] Part I, “New Photography”, examines the emergence of Surrealist approaches inside shinkō shashin and features a chapter on photo-collage.^[2] It locations this growth within the context of the enlargement of modernist images following the Japanese presentation of the Film und Foto exhibition in 1931 and considers the division between skilled and novice photographic observe.^[8]

Part II, “Avant-Garde Photography”, focuses on zen’ei shashin in 1937 and 1938 and examines photographic criticism, illustration, printed matter and experiments with objects.^[2] Stojković relates this part to the elevated visibility of worldwide Surrealism in Japan and to the political situations surrounding the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War.^[8] She discusses totally different regional approaches, together with experiments with the Surrealist object in Osaka and collaborative exercise in Tokyo and Nagoya.^[8]

Part III, “Plastic Photography”, examines zōkei shashin by questions of materiality, abstraction, photographic expertise and locality.^[2] Stojković argues that the language of photographic “plasticity” offered a technique of sustaining the creative ambitions of experimental images in 1939 and 1940, when an brazenly avant-garde place had develop into more and more tough to maintain.^[8] Among the photographers and artists mentioned throughout the guide are Iwata Nakayama, Kiyoshi Koishi, Ei-Q, Nakaji Yasui, Terushichi Hirai, Minoru Sakata and Kansuke Yamamoto.^[9]

The subtitle “The Impossible Avant-Garde” refers to a number of issues developed within the examine, together with the absence of a unified Surrealist photographic group, the political dangers connected to open affiliation with Surrealism and the problem of making use of European fashions of the avant-garde to fashionable Japanese artwork.^[10] The conclusion strikes past the Thirties to think about the loss and diminished visibility of a lot prewar Surrealist images after the struggle and later makes an attempt to reformulate experimental images in Japan.^[11] Stojković additionally considers connections between the prewar photographic avant-garde and experimental practices that developed after 1945.^[11]

Fritsch described the guide as a well-researched and detailed examine and recognized it as the primary English-language monograph dedicated to Surrealist images in Japan.^[3][2] Her assessment appeared within the September 2021 situation of The Burlington Magazine.^[3]

The ICAS Book Prize committee chosen the guide as Best Art Publication in its 2021 English-language humanities awards.^[4] The committee stated that Stojković’s examine added a brand new perspective not solely to the historical past of images but additionally to Japanese historical past.^[4] It additionally highlighted the guide’s authentic analyses and reproductions of greater than fifty artworks and clippings from newspapers and journals.^[4]