Parallel Modernism

The burden of “originality” has long plagued modernism in Japan. The portrayal of East Asia as less than in terms of artistic skill was a prejudice that was already evident in the eighteenth century when European scholars had begun characterizing the Japanese as slavish imitators.1Indeed, as art historian Michael Lucken observes, “A French artist in 1900 cannot come too close to copying the work of another French artist . . . but he can take a contemporary Japanese work . . . and breathe new life into it. Non-Western artists, though, are confined to either imitating the past or imitating the West.”2 These sentiments are echoed by Ming Tiampo's analysis of the postwar artistic collective Gutai (est. 1954) when she asks, “How is it that Gutai is considered derivative of Jackson Pollock, but Pollock not derivative of Wassily Kandinsky or André Mason?”3The imperative to transcend this imitation-creation dichotomy figures centrally in Chinghsin Wu's compelling study Parallel Modernism: Koga Harue and Avant-Garde Art in Modern Japan. Eschewing a global approach to the study of modern art movements, Wu seeks to deconstruct Eurocentric concepts of originality by retheorizing the development of modernism in Japan through a parallel frame. Parallel modernism, Wu contends, frees us from monolithic narratives of modern art by reconceptualizing modernism as a multiplicity of distinct parallel movements that occur in multiple locations under similar conditions. As a methodology parallel modernism allows us to examine the ways in which “alternative modernisms are mutually constitutive and entangled with each other without forcing us to demarcate certain modernisms as central and others as peripheral” (7). Thus, Wu contends modernism in Japan coexisted in close parallel with other modernisms around the world but possessed its own internal logic that adapted and responded to outside stimuli while also maintaining an internal cohesion (5). Underscoring this approach, Wu avoids stylistic classifications that situate modernism Japan as either characteristically “Japanese” or “European,” arguing that we must instead examine the artistic development of Japanese modern artists based on their individual interpretations, experiences, and intellectual milieu.To illustrate this point Wu examines the brief but prolific career of avant-garde painter and poet Koga Harue (1895–1933). Using Koga's biography as her narrative thread, Wu structures the book chronologically into five chapters by examining the development of Koga's artistic theory and practice through his exposure to and engagement with cubism, expressionism, and surrealism. In chapter 1 Wu examines the years 1912–20, in which Koga sought to break free from the academicism present in Japan's modern art establishment of the late Meiji and early Taishō periods by experimenting with various artistic media and modes of representation. For Koga this took the form of participation in heterodox art movements, including watercolor and “Meiji Romanticism,” as well as the study of commercial art and design through exposure to Takehisa Yumeji's body of work.By operating outside of institutionalized art spaces Koga (like many of his contemporaries) was introduced to a myriad of avant-garde movements, including cubism and expressionism. In chapter 2 Wu traces the emergence of a parallel cubism in Japan by examining Koga's cubist period from 1921 to 1924. Here Wu illustrates the ways in which Koga's interpretation of the formal elements of cubism ran parallel with his introduction to and appreciation of Western classicism and the work El Greco as well as Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović. In his search for artistic freedom, Koga broke with conventional painting techniques and single-viewpoint perspectives by remixing abstract stylistic elements and modernist idioms with classical compositions and religious themes informed by Buddhist motifs to create a new visual language that was not limited to Eastern or Western iconography. In chapter 3 Wu investigates the changing discourse of expressionism in Japan during the 1920s by analyzing parallels between Koga's views on subjectivity and objectivity and those of Swiss German painter Paul Klee. Prior to his contact with Klee's work Koga was searching for a new visual lexicon and theoretical approach to the medium of watercolor that embraced the spontaneous and expressive qualities of the material without associations to individual self-expression. Encounters with Klee's work, Wu argues, facilitated Koga's conceptual shift away from subjectivity and introspection toward one of objectivity by concretizing an approach to artistic practice in which one must “use objects to overcome objects” (107).Chapters 4 and 5 examine Koga's artistic pursuit of surrealism from 1929 until his death in 1933, a period in which he produced his most famous works. Here Wu interrogates the theoretical development and artistic evolution of a parallel surrealism in Japan—one that ultimately ignored André Breton's emphasis on psychic automatism and embraced theories of “scientific surrealism” that were founded in rationality, science, and technology. To illustrate the development of this parallel surrealism Wu provides crucially important analysis of Koga's surrealist collage paintings by examining the interconnected relationship between the aesthetic of kikai-shugi or “machine-ism” and the human body. Works such as The Sea (1929) (a reproduction graces the cover) and Make-Up through the Window (1930) were created by Koga through a process of cutting ready-made images of machines and female bodies from mass-culture publications and juxtaposing them to create complex relationships. These collages were then integrated into coherent oil paintings with Koga's stated goal of employing ready-made images to concretize abstract concepts. The result of this is a form of collage modernity that visually makes manifest the spectacle of industrialization, mass culture, and urban life through a blending of machines, bodies, and nature. Wu's in-depth analysis of Koga's late-career work, especially her translation and interpretation of Koga's surrealist poetry in relation to his paintings, is one of the greatest strengths of the book.Wu's “parallel modernism” makes clear that debates regarding the nature of cubism, expressionism, and surrealism among Japan's avant-garde were lively, contested, and self-reflexive. Intrigued by Wu's examination of this discursive space, I would have liked to see a deeper engagement with the reception of Koga's paintings by his contemporaries. For instance, during a time in which expressionism was being reevaluated, how was Koga's new theory of watercolor embraced by his peers and the public? Wu writes that unlike his radical avant-garde colleagues Koga's surrealist paintings were displayed in more conventional fine-arts exhibitions such as the Nika Society and thus “occasioned vigorous debates on the definition of fine arts versus popular arts” (130). What did Koga's critics have to say about his artistic and exhibition practices, and how did Koga respond?Leaving these questions aside, however, Wu's scholarship makes a significant contribution to the field of Japanese modern art by elucidating the parallel development of Japan's modern art world through the life and work of Koga Harue. Not only does Wu's book provide a new critical framework for interpreting and understanding the evolution of cubism, expressionism, and surrealism in Japan, but it also highlights the crucial role of watercolor as a medium that enabled a new conception of personal artistic vision. Wu's intervention in the field successfully refutes Eurocentric and monolithic narratives of modern art providing a crucial inflection point to our understanding of the history of modernism in Japan

Art · Art history · Avant garde · Modernism (music) · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · History · Japanese History and Culture

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