Japanese Anti-Art: Japanese Society and Influence from the West

• Author / Creator

  Tozawa, Satomi

• Some artists like to create works which do not look and sound like traditional Western art and music. People call those works “anti-art” often, and they were especially popular in the 1960s in Japan. The 1960s was a very important period for Japan because the country was striving to recover from the damages caused by WWII. How did this social and historical background in the country affect anti-art movements in Japan? How did Western culture affect Japanese anti-art movements? These questions will be discussed in this thesis. In contemporary Japan, there are also some works which have very similar characteristics to anti-art works created in the 1960s. However, society in Japan now is very different from the 1960s, and the purposes of those works are different as well. This thesis explores why anti-art artists and musicians adopted unusual methods to create their works, and considers the relationship between society and those anti-art works.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Group Ongaku
  • Hi Red Center
  • 1960s
  • Fluxus
  • Anti-art

• Graduation date

  Fall 2011

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3642V

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.