Shinro Ohtake and Post-war Japanese Avant-garde Art

Abstract

Shinro Ohtake was born in 1955 in Japan when the country first entered its period of major economic growth. Post-war Japanese society was being heavily influenced by American consumerism and its cultural hegemony. Ohtake was no exception: American Pop Art, and Andy Warhol in particular, significantly affected his artistic development. The course of his successful debut in the early 1980s, his subsequent fluctuating career and the recent establishment of his artistic status both in Japan and abroad encapsulate the significant issues of Western-influenced, contemporary Japanese art. This article aims to identify the nature of his Pop Art–style creations by examining his key working methods and the underlying concepts relating to the whole body of his extraordinarily diverse work. In particular, the avant-gardism of Ohtake's art will be examined with reference to Gutai and Mono-ha, the recognised ‘traditional styles’ of the country's post-war avant-garde art. The significance of his anarchism will also be discussed in relation to Japanese art of the 1980s and 1990s. By doing so, the article intends to contextualise his creations in the complex development of post-war Japanese avant-garde art, and at the same time explore the potential for transnational engagement of a contemporary artist who lives and practices in the age of globalisation.