Superflat is the name of a postmodern art movement founded by the artist Takashi Murakami at the very end of the last millennium. The term superflat was coined by Murakami to describe the simplified and increasingly two-dimensional forms that have become the staple of a hip, new visual language employed by a generation of young Japanese artists. Whereas the tendency toward superflatness can be traced to the simplified aesthetic of contemporary pop culture and the Japanese cartoon culture of manga and anime, Murakami suggests a direct line of historical descent from the stylistic conventions of 17th, 18th and 19th-century Japanese prints, among other historical sources.
This seminar is organized by the Departments of Art History and of Japanese Studies and is geared toward the exhibition and related activities of internationally renowned artist Yoshitomo Nara in May 2007, which will open in the GEM on June 2, 2007. We will work closely with the GEM in Den Haag, De Lakenhal/Scheltema voor actuele kunst and the SieboldHuis in Leiden.
Rooster
Preliminary Program
Meetings on Wednesday afternoon, 16:00 ~ 17:30; at the SieboldHuis, Rapenburg 19.
Week 9: Wed. 4 april: I.B. Smits: Historical notions of ‘superflat’ (esp. Edo Japan),
interrelations between art and popular culture; High vs. Low in Japan
Week 10: Wed.. 11 april: I.B. Smits: ‘Superflat’, art and popular culture until the present
Week 11: Wed. 18 april: W. van Gulik: ‘Superflat’ and the Japanese print
Week 12: Wed. 25 april: C.S. Goto-Jones: Manga & popular culture in Japan
Week 13: Wed. 2 mei: K. Zijlmans: Japanese art and ‘the West’ (hopefully icw Professor
Markus Neuwirt)
Week 14: Wed. 9 mei: K. Zijlmans; ditto & 2000 exhibition in Leiden ‘Voices from Japan’
Week 15 (or thereafter): Workshop by Yoshitomo Nara (Scheltema complex, Leiden)
Literatuur
(to be expanded):
- Joan Stanley-Baker, Japanese Art. Revised and Expanded Edition. London: Thames & Hudson 2000 [1984] (World of Art Series) isbn0-500-20326-1 – Alexandra Munroe, Scream against the Sky. Japanese Art after 1945. New York: H. Abrams1994 [414 pp.] isbn 0-8109-3512-0 – Takashi Murakami (ed.), Little Boy. The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture, New York: Japan Society & New haven/London: Yale University press 2005 [298 pp.] isbn 0-913304-57-3 (soft cover) – ‘Voices from Japan. Contemporary Japanese Art in Leiden’, Cat. Exhibition: Decorum Vol XVIII, No. 2, Juli 2000 (to be distributed by Kitty Zijlmans) – Marc Steinberg, “Otaku consumption, superflat art and the return to Edo”, Japan Forum 16: 3 (2004), pp. 449-471.
Informatie
TCJK-BA3 and/or doctoraal-students can contact prof dr Smits if they are interested in this course.