From postwar to postmodern: art in Japan 1945-1989 : primary documents

Foreword / Glenn D. Lowry

Japan's postwar and after, 1945-1989: an overview / Harry Harootunian

1. 1945-1957: Postwar reconstruction: from occupation to the Cold War / edited by Michio Hayashi : Ground zero: a new beginnings : A proposal to the artists of Japan (1946) / Matsumoto Shunsuke ; Reestablishing the art world during the occupation 1945-1952 / Bert Winther-Tamaki ; What must "artists as a group" do? (1953) / Katsuragawa Hiroshi

Avant-garde, technology, mass culture : Avant-garde manifesto: a view of art (1949) / Okamoto Tarō ; Artists' groups and collectives in postwar Japan / Ken Yoshida ; A meditation of apples (1950) / Hanada Kiyoteru

In search of the real : For a new realism: the meaning of reportage (1952) / Abe Kōbō ; The realism debate, 1946-50 / Yuri Mitsuda ; On beggar photography: the importance of photographing street urchins and lumpen (1953) / Tanaka Masao ; The problems of modern photography (1953) / Ina Nobuo [and others] ; Depicting "things." not "ideas" (1954) / Saitō Yoshishige [and others]

Modernity and tradition : An introduction to tradition (1955) / Okamoto Tarō ; The Japanese character of Tange Kenzō (1955) / Iwata Kazuo (aka Kawazoe Noboru) ; Calligraphy east and west (1957) / Takiguichi Shūzō

Disfigured corpses or the critique of humanism : Locked-room painting (1956) / Nakahara Yusuke ; The birth of new art criticism / Michio Hayashi ; Ivan the fool (1955) / Kusama Yayoi

The experimental workshop and the Gutai Art Association : The experimental workshop: our contention (1953) / Kitadai Shōzō ; Gutai art manifesto (1956) / Yshihara Jiriō ; The idea of executing the paintbrush (1957) / Shimamoto Shōzō

2. 1957-1964: From postwar to international reemergence / edited by Doryun Chong : Art informel : A mental reckoning of my first trip to Japan (1957) / Michel Tapié ; Material and humans (1957) / Hariu Ichirō ; Arter Informel (1963) / Miyakawa Atsushi

The avant-garde in transition : At the Yomiuri Independent Exhibition: the energy of a young, active generation (1960) / Takiguchi Shūzō ; The Yomiuri Independent Exhibition / Reiko Tomii ; Conditions of the art world and conditions of creation (1960) / Hariu Ichiō

Anti-art : Notes on the "Young seven" (1954) / Tōno Yoshiaki ; Tōno Yoshiaki and the influence of American art / Yasuko Imura ; The spirit of "anti" in anti-art on "'anti-art, ' yes or no?" (1964) / Ordagiri Jō (moderator), Tōno Yoshiaki [and others] ; Anti-art: the descent to the everyday (1964) / Miyakawa Atsushi ; A dissenting view: anti-art, after Miyakawa Atsushi (1964) / Tōno Yoshiaki

Immateriality : The word of a fabricator (1982) / Yoko Ono ; Room as alibi: gentle criminals (1963) / Nakahara Yūsuke ; Jikan-Ha manifesto (1962) / Tanaka Fui [and others] ; A woman alone entering the international art world (1961) / Kusama Yayoi

Photography and film : On the method of avant-garde documentary film (1958) / Matsumoto Tashio ; The new problem of visual language: "the visual image" (1960) / Shigemori Kōen ; The birth of a new photography (1960) / Natori Yōnosuke ; Young photographer's statement: I refute Mr. Natori (1960) / Tōmatsu Shōmei

Urban transformation : The tower-shaped city (1959) / Kikutake Kiyonori ; The era of the World design Conference / Toshino Iguchi ; Preface to Metabolism 1960: a proposal for cities (1960) / Kawazoe Noboru [and others] ; A house is a work of art (1962) / Shinohara Kazuo ; Artists collectives: the city as stage / Doryun Chong ; Eyedrops special bulletin (1964) / Hi Red Center

Plates.

3. 1964-1970: After the avant-garde, an expanding field / edited by Fumihiko Sumitomo : Art and everyday life : The intent of the act based on the intent of the act, before passing through the courtroom (1968) / Akasegawa Genpei ; Between art and design (1966) / Tōno Yohiaki ; The idea of liminal art (1967) / Tsurumi Shunsuke ; FLUXUS International: New York, Tokyo, and beyond / Midori Yoshimoto

Locality and the body : Ankoku Butoh: founded on anxiety of the body (1968) / Shibusawa Tatsuhiko ; Reaction in summer '68: do it without happenings (1969) / The Play ; The hypertheater of individual actionists (1970) / Yoshida Yoshie

Redefining the relationship between humans and the world : Anticivilization exhibition (1969) / Matsuzawa Yutaka ; The shadow debate / Michio Hayashi ; Painting as a theory of painting (1968) / Ishiko Junzō ; Provoke, 1968-1970 / Ryūichi Kaneko ; Provoke manifesto (1968) / Takanashi Yutaka, Nakahira Takuma ; What is possible for photography? (1970) / Taki Kōji ; In search of encounter: the sources of contemporary art (1970) / Lee Ufan ; Existence beyond condition (12970) / Suga Kishio ; Between man and matter (1970) / Nakahara Yūsuke ; Insisting on the "here and now" / Minemura Toshiaki ; On landscape (1970) / Nakahira Takuma, Adachi Masao ; Nakahara Yūsuke (moderator)

Intermedia and Expo '70 : The objective of the From space to environment exhibition (1966) / Environmental Society ; Intermedia / Fumihiko Sumitomo ; A tectonic shift in art: from the Expo to the hippie movement (1967) / Tone Yasunao ; Underground and diagram ; Artists participating in the world expo, Speak out! (1970) / Tōno Yoshiaki ; Tange Kenzō and the building of national identity / Ken Tadashi Oshima

4. 1970-1980 : Restructuring toward the postmodern / edited by Kenji Kajiya : Institutional critique of art : Why are we "artists"? / Hori Kōsai ; The sharpened boundary line (1972) / Hori Kōsai ; Mono-Ha and after / Mika Yoshitake

Alternatives to subjectivity : Why an illustrated botanical dictionary? (1973) / Nakahira Takuma ; The lived system (1974) / Minemurā Toshiaki ; Beyond the closed circle: what can we learn from Gutai's trajectory? (1973) / Hikosaka Naoyoshi ; Multiple eyes and individual vision (1973) / Tani Arata ; Photography and art / Kenji Kajiya

Environment and community : An objection to mega-buildings (1974) / Kōjiro Yūichirō ; Japan's housing conditions and residential architects / Tarō Igarashi ; Temple or prison? (1971-1972) / Hasegawa Takashi ; Communication, not expression: do-it-yourself kit (1972) / Yamaguchi Katsuhiro [and others] ; From rental galleries to alternative spaces / Izumi Nakajima

Painting after the end of the avant-garde : The autumn of Japanese contemporary art: from portrait painting to objets (1971) / Fujieda Teruo ; Beyond modernism: the "return of painting" / Midori Matsui ; The business of taking down the grammar of art (1978) / Chiba Shigeo ; The disappearance of artists (1976) / Usami Keiji

Consumer culture and everyday life : The vertical fair that changed Shibuya: on Parco's cultural cachet (1977) / Tōno Yoshiaki ; Preface to Sentimental journey (1971) / Araki Nobuyoshi ; From literary media to image media (1978) / Hyūga Akiko

Plates

5. 1980-1989 : Postmodernism and global negotiation / edited by Michio Hayashi, Kenji Kajiya, and Fumihiko Sumitomo : The originality of architecture and design in Japan : MA: space-time in Japan (1978-2009) / Isozki Arata ; The Japanese city and inner space (178-2009) / Maki Fumihiko ; A new architecture is possible only in the sea of consumption (1969) / Ito Toyo ; Japanese design in the 1980s / Paola Antonelli

The new wave : For the innocent gods of wind (1984) / Ishihara Tomoaki ; Kansai in the 1980s (1990) / Osaki Shin'ichirō ; The Chō-shōjo movement / Yūko Hasegawa ; Flyer for Plan for sleep #1 (1984) / Dumb Type ; The growth of media art / Barbara London

Minimalism and tradition : Half-hopeless repetition (1984) / Endō Toshikatsu ; Untitled (1990) / Kawamata Tadashi ; Outdoor exhibitions, festivals, and events / Motoi Masaki

Conceptualism and its critical alternatives : Beyond cosmology: the painterly concepts of Arakawa Shūsaku (1984) / Ichikawa Hiroshi ; To prolong the thrilling now (1989) / Okazaki Kenjirō, Usami Keiji

Locality and global art : The depopulated megalopolis (1985) / Itō Junji ; Introduction and postscript to A history of deviations in Japanese contemporary art, 1945-1985 (1986) / Chiba Shigeo ; Japanese art abroad / Miwako Tezuka ; A postscript to Reconstructions: avant-garde art in Japan 1945-1965 (1986) / Kaidō Kazu ; Avant-garde art in postwar Japan (1987) / Tōno Yoshiaki ; Untitled / Tatehata Akira

Postscript: Japanese art after 1989 / Michio Hayashi, Kenji Kajiya, Fumihiko Sumitomo

Chronology : 1945-1989 / compiled by Masatoshi Nakajima with editorial assistance by Doryun Chong.