Propaganda from 1905- 1945, Tokyo University Museum

[vir-jin]

"Propaganda 1904-45: Between Modernism and Totalitarianism"
in the Tokyo University Museum, presenting selected newspapers between 1905 and 1945.

I wouldn't give any comment on the Japanese side of the view, but the Italian, French, German and American side are worth to have a closer look at. I thought about many things while reading the sick and very emotional 'news' in the exhibition.

Newspaper as well as all the new media stuff gives a view on the moving of selcted people. it is completely impossible to not feel touched by all this insanity that led to the wars. I don't want to imagine where the middle east is going to head, what kind of information war is going to be transported by the internet as well.

The nicest thing was the view of Todai on their own professors, the intelligencia of that time that as well could only think ahead but were not able to rule the streets and by ruling the streets rule the government for a revolution or the end of the war.

my temporary conclusion, since I will do the walk once again, being the prisoner of your senses only able to receipt the input in different ways that you choose means that I must question my environment for not only every second but also for the rules it is made of and nearly not changeable by my individual power. Japanese react on this with agony, like strawling in a wood and knowing that there will be food everytime. no target, no special interest. and we westerner try to attack before somebody can attack us, try to be better faster smarter and cooler than the other .

come on humans of the western race. please attack me in western style or go and see the exhibition! by the way, I'm German, female, art student in tokyo which means I am already on my knees suffering from poverty, poor status in world relations and without any possibility to make a proper living in future ! yoroshiku onegaishimasu !

OLD NEWS: Ingenious professor demonstrates the art of propaganda

Bygone botanists bring the past to life

[Bongo]

[Taro Toporific]

"OLD "Ingenious " ...University of Tokyo professor Yoshiaki Nishino has a way with disinformation. ...."The exhibition title itself is a form of propaganda,'' explains Nishino, who in his turtle shell spectacles looks every bit the museologist. `

Will anybody give me odds that the ingenious, culture-jamming professor is wearing endangered-species "turtle shell spectacles"?

Anyway, that sounds like a great place to take Mr. Sparkle to on his vacation: Kulture-jamming-&-Coeds!

OLD "Propaganda 1904-1945: Between Modernism and Totalitarianism"---


`With digital information you can only pull out what you put in,'' says Nishino. ``It's comparable to seeing the world through a microscope. With a newspaper you can immediately judge an item by its dimensions and position on the page. You're able to see unintended juxtapositions. The human element, the tactile data can't be held in digital media.''

``Propaganda 1904-1945: Between Modernism and Totalitarianism'' runs through Aug. 29 at the University Museum, the University of Tokyo (03-5777-8600). Visit http:http://www.um.u-tokyo.ac.jp .

The museum is located on the university's Hongo campus, an 8-minute walk from Hongo San-chome subway station. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Mondays (except July 19) and July 20. Admission is free.(IHT/Asahi: June 18, 2004) (06/18)

[Charles]

v-j: I think you would be interested in a book I read, it's some of the most recent modern scholarship on propaganda in Japan during the WWII era. You would probably enjoy "War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War" by John W. Dower. Dower is a professor of Japanese History at Harvard and just won the Pulitzer Prize for "Embracing Defeat" which is also a damn amazing book.

It is often useful to use historical studies such as the exhibit you viewed, to help understand the effect of media propaganda during the buildup to war. No doubt, this is part of the intention of this exhibit. We are blind to today's propaganda, but in 50 years when it becomes past history, that propaganda will become as obvious as it is in the 1905-1945 newspapers you saw.

Anyway, good luck with your art studies, I hope you're having the best times of your life. I have a BFA myself, I was never really interested in Japanese art until I started studying the language, and now I think Japanese art is the most fascinating subject ever. Every art exhibit I go to in Japan is an amazing experience full of surprises that I never thought were possible.

[Bongo]

I think you would be interested in a book I read, it's some of the most recent modern scholarship on propaganda in Japan during the WWII era. You would probably enjoy "War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War" by John W. Dower. Dower is a professor of Japanese History at Harvard and just won the Pulitzer Prize for "Embracing Defeat" which is also a damn amazing book.

It is often useful to use historical studies such as the exhibit you viewed, to help understand the effect of media propaganda during the buildup to war. No doubt, this is part of the intention of this exhibit. We are blind to today's propaganda, but in 50 years when it becomes past history, that propaganda will become as obvious as it is in the 1905-1945 newspapers you saw.

Anyway, good luck with your art studies, I hope you're having the best times of your life. I have a BFA myself, I was never really interested in Japanese art until I started studying the language, and now I think Japanese art is the most fascinating subject ever. Every art exhibit I go to in Japan is an amazing experience full of surprises that I never thought were possible.[/quote]

On your art exhibition travels in Japan, have you come across any major exhibits by the two Japanese western style painters Saiki Yuzo or Oguiss Takanorii? Sometimes it is so hard to find exhibits of Japanese artists here who were basically ignored by the Japanese art hierarchy until they were rightfully acclaimed abroad. By which time, most of their work stays abroad. Same old story as Ukiyoe, I suppose.

[Charles]

Bongo, I'm not currently resident in Japan, I don't have years of residency in my past, so my museumgoing is not as broad as I'd like. But I checked into those two artists you mentioned and both are pretty typical of Taisho era artists that studied abroad in Europe. I attended a seminar at my US art school where we studied Japanese Taisho artists that studied abroad, and to my surprise, I had seen those artists all over my art books but had never noticed them before, so they seemed familiar because they WERE familiar.
Anyway, the Taisho era artists that went abroad were a really fascinating study. I was amused to read of some artists who studied the big name Impressionists from muddy black&white reproductions in Japanese art books, and when they saw the real paintings during their European travels, were shocked at the color version and some even hated their former favorite works. ha.. Anyway, it was interesting to see how the Japanese integrated knowledge of Western styles into their work. Your two examples seem familiar, I might have seen them before without noticing them specifically by name. I don't know where you'd even begin to locate their work in Japan. If these were western artists in western museums, I'd know just what resources to use to locate the works, I'd just go down to my Art School and look them up in the Art Index CDRom catalog. But I have no idea how the system works in Japan, how you'd look them up or locate them.

[Bongo]

[vir-jin]

v-j: I think you would be interested in a book I read, it's some of the most recent modern scholarship on propaganda in Japan during the WWII era. You would probably enjoy "War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War" by John W. Dower. Dower is a professor of Japanese History at Harvard and just won the Pulitzer Prize for "Embracing Defeat" which is also a damn amazing book.

It is often useful to use historical studies such as the exhibit you viewed, to help understand the effect of media propaganda during the buildup to war. No doubt, this is part of the intention of this exhibit. We are blind to today's propaganda, but in 50 years when it becomes past history, that propaganda will become as obvious as it is in the 1905-1945 newspapers you saw.

Anyway, good luck with your art studies, I hope you're having the best times of your life. I have a BFA myself, I was never really interested in Japanese art until I started studying the language, and now I think Japanese art is the most fascinating subject ever. Every art exhibit I go to in Japan is an amazing experience full of surprises that I never thought were possible.

Thanks for the recommendation, I think Dower is a historian with an obviously broad view from the stage. I read his book on Japanese Design. Sometimes he is quite conservative though. I will check it out. You might be interested in "speed and politics" by Michel Foucault. It's a brain trainer that relieves! :P

[vir-jin]

I don't know where you'd even begin to locate their work in Japan. If these were western artists in western museums, I'd know just what resources to use to locate the works, I'd just go down to my Art School and look them up in the Art Index CDRom catalog. But I have no idea how the system works in Japan, how you'd look them up or locate them.

That's easy to answer, you can't get any information besides the information on the net if you are not residing in Japan. Best way is to get books on the painters to know where the work is located. The best place to look for those books is the National University of Fine Arts and Music libraries opac system.
http://www.lib.geidai.ac.jp/
Even the Tokyo National Museum uses the old card system for inventory, which is open to the public Monday- Friday 9.00- 12.00, 13.00- 17.00 o'clock. good luck if you stay out of Japan!

[Bongo]

I don't know where you'd even begin to locate their work in Japan. If these were western artists in western museums, I'd know just what resources to use to locate the works, I'd just go down to my Art School and look them up in the Art Index CDRom catalog. But I have no idea how the system works in Japan, how you'd look them up or locate them.

That's easy to answer, you can't get any information besides the information on the net if you are not residing in Japan. Best way is to get books on the painters to know where the work is located. The best place to look for those books is the National University of Fine Arts and Music libraries opac system.
http://www.lib.geidai.ac.jp/
Even the Tokyo National Museum uses the old card system for inventory, which is open to the public Monday- Friday 9.00- 12.00, 13.00- 17.00 o'clock. good luck if you stay out of Japan![/quote]

yeah, I know where I can find the Oguiss Takanori muesem however it is like 200 kilomemeters away.
As for Saiki Yuzo, most of his works are in private collections some of which have dubious reasons for being there and are not displayed to the public.

[vir-jin]

[Taro Toporific]

....'ll try, just went through ... hell at Geidai

You survived Geidai! OMG WTF!
The buildings and infrastucture of Geidai have to be the ugliest DOGDOO of the Universe. I swear it's intentionally ugly and illegally designed in violation of Japanese Building Code to drive foreign artists to insanity.

Taro
(Art Institute of Chicago, industrial design/architecture. 1964-67, highschool advanced placement)

[vir-jin]

yeah, I know where I can find the Oguiss Takanori muesem however it is like 200 kilomemeters away. As for Saiki Yuzo, most of his works are in private collections some of which have dubious reasons for being there and are not displayed to the public.

sounds like yakusa. I would quit or decide for crime. maybe you should try to convince the government to do a special exhibition with all those works sponsored by sony. call the embassy of your state of residence and ask when the next year of friendship with Japan is going to be planned.
yoko ono told us, art is fart- fart more and you will fart less!
Please post a message if you find a way through the jungle!
good luck!

[vir-jin]

I swear it's intentionally ugly and illegally designed in violation of Japanese Building Code to drive foreign artists to insanity.

Taro
(Art Institute of Chicago, industrial design/architecture. 1964-67, highschool advanced placement)

It's bound to tradition, exists in tradition, not to mention that the tradition of placing the professors follows the same rules as 150 ago. My department just got a new very comfortable building, bound to tradition with tiles in rose-skin-whatever and glass . I appreciate the ugliness that makes it easy to say goodbye some seconds before they throw you out into the world of reality. my masterplan is to get strong and overeducated at geidai- before they throw me out. For my recent subject tradition is quite necessary, I guess I will get a lot here.

[Bongo]

Edited......Hope this was it..PM me if you need me to edit anything else.
NP.......Can't have stuff like this going down.

[Charles]

wow, v-j, you attended classes at geidai? That's one of my dreams, to do at least a year at geidai in an MFA program, but that's probably just a dream.

I met an exchange student from Japan at my local art school (we're supposedly the world's #1 printmaking school, that's why he came here to the US) and he told me a story about the geidai entrance exam. He said that you're given a pencil and paper, and you are let into a room with a big table and chairs around it, with a light shining over a glass of water. Your task is to draw the glass of water. He said all the students rush in to grab the seats with the best lighting angles (yeah right, like that would make much difference). You have to draw the glass of water at some specific level of "accuracy" to pass the entrance exam. I heard the story and I knew I'd have trouble, my drawing style is much too smeary and abstract to even attempt to render something with "accuracy." Accuracy is the opposite of expressiveness.
The student artist I met said that if you graduate with an advanced degree from geidai, you are basically guaranteed a living as an artist in Japan. I wish it was like that in the US. I never made one cent off my own art, the local gallery wants to sell my prints for half of what it costs me to make them. But I made plenty of money doing other people's artwork, especially crappy advertising artwork.

Anyway, thanks for the recommendation on the Foucalt, I couldn't find any citations, it must not be translated into English. In any case, I've read far more of the pomos than I can tolerate. I think we're far past the pomo era, my professors called our current paradigm "post ism-ism." That's why I love Japan and modern Japanese art, Japan is too postmodern for postmodernism.

[vir-jin]

[vir-jin]

[quote="&quot"]wow, v-j, you attended classes at geidai? That's one of my dreams, to do at least a year at geidai in an MFA program, but that's probably just a dream.

. Charles,

It isn't that bad, it's worse!My entrance exams took three days, one day- in winter- we had to draw some roman gypsum.In a big hall filled with roman and greece gypsum copies, I remember I thought what a waste, and what a waste of space! I wanna live here! It started at 8 o'clock for 8! hours( this has to drive you crazy! stupid roman gypsum!). we were supposed to be there 15 minutes before beginning. we lined up, 45 people, and one of the assistants read our numbers- you're not human until you get in- while another one checked our faces and compared it to the photographs we had to give in with the application. then everybody had to get a number out of a box that was deciding the seat. it was damned cold, about minus 3 C. at 8 o'clock we were told to begin. everybody drew like crazy and nobody spoke, of course, the light was changing during the day- no way to think about shadows. 10 minutes before the midday break somebody shouted that there were 10 minutes left, and at 12 o'clock somebody shouted that we had to stop immediately. when I got back from the break I was totally shocked because everybody's ( I was the only gaijin )drawing looked the same, differences in quality, but the same style. But mine was completely different. Afterwards they told me that Japanese go to the yobikoo, a drawing school, for the entrance exams. If they fail they spend another year in the yobikoo until they pass. I met people that spend 4-5 years until they passed the exams.
Anyway, I couldn't change my style and went on with my drawing in the incredible cold on a very low chair my back was aking and I began to figure out the similarities of a stalinistic sibirian ballet school and this exam. Oh, I forgot that they got mad at me because I held the pencil in my hand before we were told to do so(I'm not kidding!). When they held the interviews on the last day there were turning up about 20 people. The others had quit I guess. But I don't know. One of the Japanese sitting next to me during the test on the second day tried to read what I wrote and they took away his papers. He stayed in class just looking at his desk until the test was over. Afterwards he told his friends that he had been beaten by a gaijin, what was actually worse than having fallen the exam.
They asked me in the interview whether I had drawn for the first time and I passed though.
The only thing I can recommend to you if you really want to study at Geidai is to do one or two years of kenkyuusei, research student. They will support you in a way that you pass the exam. When I remember the questions in the test- of course in Japanese- I can understand that it must be very hard to pass for students from other universities in Japan. Whatever that University may bring out, whether the students might be brilliant or not, it's a thinktank. You get knowledge that you can't get in another way. You don't have to move anywhere if you enter here. I get classes, a quite international view on any topic, they invite the most famous specialists to give one weak courses at the university. They push you extremely in thinking, I wouldn't say this is very Japanese. On the other hand everybody is socializing out of the campus because they put you into extrem stress situations and everybody is just too busy. It's a crazy place. I am still surching for my way through the many unspoken rules it has. I guess you know that Japan does select humans and considers them being National treasure- ningen kokuhoo. I got this term 7 lectures by different ningen kokuhoo. They were all incredible( not the lectures, the people). Still wanna try it?

And about the rumour that everybody can make his living when he finished Geidai, even with best grades, it is not true. Most of them get neurotic because they leave heaven into the real world, turn up at geidai like stoker and stick together with their classmates more than they did when they were studying. Geidai students are known to be unable to work in a team because they never learned it. You come and go thinking only about your work and don't contact the others, because you would disturb them.Many enter design bureaus and work for others, few make their living with art, and the worst way is to come back after one or two years outside for assistance. That's it, I guess. If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask.

[vir-jin]

[quote="&quot"]wow, v-j, you attended classes at geidai? That's one of my dreams, to do at least a year at geidai in an MFA program, but that's probably just a dream.

. Charles,

It isn't that bad, it's worse!My entrance exams took three days, one day- in winter- we had to draw some roman gypsum.In a big hall filled with roman and greece gypsum copies, I remember I thought what a waste, and what a waste of space! I wanna live here! It started at 8 o'clock for 8! hours( this has to drive you crazy! stupid roman gypsum!). we were supposed to be there 15 minutes before beginning. we lined up, 45 people, and one of the assistants read our numbers- you're not human until you get in- while another one checked our faces and compared it to the photographs we had to give in with the application. then everybody had to get a number out of a box that was deciding the seat. it was damned cold, about minus 3 C. at 8 o'clock we were told to begin. everybody drew like crazy and nobody spoke, of course, the light was changing during the day- no way to think about shadows. 10 minutes before the midday break somebody shouted that there were 10 minutes left, and at 12 o'clock somebody shouted that we had to stop immediately. when I got back from the break I was totally shocked because everybody's ( I was the only gaijin )drawing looked the same, differences in quality, but the same style. But mine was completely different. Afterwards they told me that Japanese go to the yobikoo, a drawing school, for the entrance exams. If they fail they spend another year in the yobikoo until they pass. I met people that spend 4-5 years until they passed the exams.
Anyway, I couldn't change my style and went on with my drawing in the incredible cold on a very low chair my back was aking and I began to figure out the similarities of a stalinistic sibirian ballet school and this exam. Oh, I forgot that they got mad at me because I held the pencil in my hand before we were told to do so(I'm not kidding!). When they held the interviews on the last day there were turning up about 20 people. The others had quit I guess. But I don't know. One of the Japanese sitting next to me during the test on the second day tried to read what I wrote and they took away his papers. He stayed in class just looking at his desk until the test was over. Afterwards he told his friends that he had been beaten by a gaijin, what was actually worse than having fallen the exam.
They asked me in the interview whether I had drawn for the first time and I passed though.
The only thing I can recommend to you if you really want to study at Geidai is to do one or two years of kenkyuusei, research student. They will support you in a way that you pass the exam. When I remember the questions in the test- of course in Japanese- I can understand that it must be very hard to pass for students from other universities in Japan. Whatever that University may bring out, whether the students might be brilliant or not, it's a thinktank. You get knowledge that you can't get in another way. You don't have to move anywhere if you enter here. I get classes, a quite international view on any topic, they invite the most famous specialists to give one weak courses at the university. They push you extremely in thinking, I wouldn't say this is very Japanese. On the other hand everybody is socializing out of the campus because they put you into extrem stress situations and everybody is just too busy. It's a crazy place. I am still surching for my way through the many unspoken rules it has. I guess you know that Japan does select humans and considers them being National treasure- ningen kokuhoo. I got this term 7 lectures by different ningen kokuhoo. They were all incredible( not the lectures, the people). Still wanna try it?

And about the rumour that everybody can make his living when he finished Geidai, even with best grades, it is not true. Most of them get neurotic because they leave heaven into the real world, turn up at geidai like stoker and stick together with their classmates more than they did when they were studying. Geidai students are known to be unable to work in a team because they never learned it. You come and go thinking only about your work and don't contact the others, because you would disturb them.Many enter design bureaus and work for others, few make their living with art, and the worst way is to come back after one or two years outside for assistance. That's it, I guess. If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask.