Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers Film Premiere, CC 5/16

Practice Center
Date / Time
May 16, 2024 / 7:30pm - 9:30pm
Event Type
Special Events & Exhibits
Description

San Francisco Zen Center is pleased to host the SF premiere of the new film, Japanese Avant Garde Pioneers, directed by Amélie Ravalec.

Amidst the profound social change and political turmoil of post-war Japan, a bold generation of avant-garde artists emerged in the 1960s, redefining the boundaries of art through experimental photography, graphic design, underground theatre, performance art, and radical Butoh dance—forever transforming the global art landscape.

The 1960s era in Japan was a time of profound social change, political unrest, and student protests. The turbulent times of the postwar era inspired an artistic explosion in Japan, with the emergence of a revolutionary scene of avant-garde artists who pioneered many disciplines: experimental and erotic photography, “Angura” theatre and underground street performances, apocalyptic Butoh dance, surreal illustrations, and seminal graphic design.

A new aesthetic of photography was born: “Are-Bure-Boke” (rough, dark and out of focus), pioneered by Moriyama Daidō and the Provoke magazine photographers. Araki beautified bondage and Hosoe Eikoh sublimated the male body. Ishiuchi Miyako captured her experience of American military bases. Kawada Kikuji’s era-defining photobook The Map captured the poignancy of Hiroshima.

Master of underground theatre Terayama Shūji produced countless magical, surreal, and vividly colourful films, plays, and photobooks; Yokoo Tadanori and Awazu Kioshi revolutionized graphic design with their incandescent theatre posters; Tanaami Keiichi, Japan’s answer to Andy Warhol, developed his unique kaleidoscopic vision of Pop-Art; and Butoh founders Hijikata Tatsumi and Ohno Kazuo impacted modern dance forever with their dance of darkness and light.

Meanwhile, in the United States in the 1960s, an equally important revolution was taking place, under the guidance of Japanese Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, as American Zen students sat down, and began to follow their breath.

From the director of Art & Mind (2019), Industrial Soundtrack For The Urban Decay (2015), and Paris/Berlin: 20 Years of Underground Techno.

 

 

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  • General ticket price: $15

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