“Akasegawa Genpei, Thomasson, and the Comic Spectre of the Capitalist City”
The “end” of the 1960s has been narrated in multiple countries, typically featuring figures of “too far” extremism—Charles Manson and his followers, for example, for the US. In Japan, the 1972 Asama Mountain Villa hostage standoff and subsequent revelations of internal purges and murders by the United Red Army provided similar lurid scenes of carnage to taint prior activism. Marotti’s talk addresses this “end” of the Japanese 1960s from the standpoint of one engaged artist.
In the 1980s, artist Akasegawa Genpei helped to renarrativize his own 1960s art and activism in writings showcasing their playful aspects through a witty, light prose style. His photographs of puzzlingly useless yet preserved urban features, dubbed “Thomasson,” likewise came to prominence in the 1980s. Both seemed shorn of an earlier earnest politics.
Marotti looks back to the genesis of this work in 1972, while Akasegawa was teaching at Bigakkō, the alternative art academy, and facing calls for a political art response to events post-Asama. He locates this new “hyperart” practice within Akasegawa longstanding conviction that creative acts might impinge upon and transform perception—but only on the condition of their exceeding simple intention. Against a moment of pessimism, Akasegawa opened a new practice of observation devoted to exploring an urban unconscious for its “schisms” and possibilities.
William Marotti teaches modern Japanese history, with an emphasis on everyday life and cultural-historical issues, at UCLA, where he is also Chair of the East Asian Studies M.A. Interdepartmental Degree Program. His current project, “The Art of Revolution: Politics and Aesthetic Dissent in Japan’s 1968” (under contract, Duke University Press), follows this work with an expanded consideration of the politics of the 1960s in Japan, and their articulation with the global phenomena of the decade.
If you require accommodation such as live captioning or interpretation to participate in this event, please contact Allison Buenger at buenger.2@osu.edu. Requests made two weeks before the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.
