An ambitious new retrospective of the Japanese postwar avant-garde opens at the Paço Imperial in Rio de Janeiro on July 14.
Jointly organized by the Japan Foundation and the Paço Imperial, “The Emergence of the Contemporary: Avant-Garde Art in Japan, 1950-1970” is curated by Pedro Erber — a specialist in Brazilian literature, intellectual history, and visual culture at Cornell University — together with Katsuo Suzuki, curator at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.
The exhibition is divided into four sections. “The Politics of Abstraction” explores the political implications of abstract expressionist painting in Japan, as practiced by artists from the Gutai movement and Jikken Kobo (“Experimental Workshop”), including Kazuo Shiraga, Yasuo Sumi, Atsuko Tanaka, and Saburo Murakami.