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Neo-Dada Organizers
Neo-Dadaism Organizers (ネオ・ダダイズム・オルガナイザーズ, Neo-Dadaizumu-Oruganaizāzu), sometimes shortened to Neo-Dada Organizers or simply Neo-Dada (ネオ・ダダ), was a short-lived but influential Japanese Neo-Dadaist art collective formed by Masunobu Yoshimura in 1960. Composed of a small group of young, up-and-coming artists who met periodically at Yoshimura's "White House" atelier in Shinjuku, the Neo-Dada Organizers engaged in all manner of visual and performance artworks, but specialized in producing disturbing, impulsive spectacles, often involving physical destruction of objects, that the art critic Ichirō Hariu deemed "savagely meaningless," and that inspired another art critic, Yoshiaki Tōno, to coin the term "anti-art" (han-geijutsu). Examples included filling galleries with piles of garbage, smashing furniture to the beat of jazz music, and prancing the streets of Tokyo in various states of dress and undress. Using the human body as their medium of art, their violent performances reflected both their dissatisfaction with the restrictive environment of the Japanese art world at the time, as well as contemporary social developments, most notably the massive 1960 Anpo protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.
The Neo-Dada Organizers held three official exhibitions in 1960, as well as a number of bizarre "actions," "events," and "happenings" in which they sought to mock, deconstruct, and in many cases, physically destroy conventional forms of art. Many of the group's members and participants would go on to become noted artists in their own right, including Genpei Akasegawa, Shūsaku Arakawa, Sayako Kishimoto, Tetsumi Kudō, Natsuyuki Nakanishi, and Ushio Shinohara.
Neo-Dada Organizers was formed at a time when Japan was rapidly modernizing after the destruction of World War II. The group positioned themselves in opposition to all established art forms and institutions, especially the strains of humanism and socialist realism that dominated Japanese art circles in the 1950s, but also the recent tendency toward wholesale importation of foreign art trends, such as abstract art and Art Informel. But beyond opposing the dominant art forms of the time, the Neo-Dada Organizers reacted to the efforts by the Liberal Democratic Party government, led by conservative Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, to revise and extend the United States Japan Security Treaty (known as "Anpo" in Japanese), which led to the massive Anpo protests across the country. Because it locked Japan into a quasi-permanent military alliance with the United States, the treaty led many Japanese to fear that Japan would become a target should a nuclear war break out.
At their first exhibition, held at the Ginza Gallery in Tokyo in April, 1960, the Neo-Dada Organizers released a list of their guiding principles:
We are Neo-Dadaists.
—Neo-Daddists are uncultured.
—Neo-Daddists are not Japanese.
—Neo-Daddists are not human beings.
—Neo-Daddists are a group devoted to artistic revolution.
—Neo-Daddists reject the abstract art movement entirely.
—Neo-Daddists have a thirst for killing.
These principles signaled the group's devotion to what group member Genpei Akasegawa would later term "creative destruction" whereby the group sought to create a space for new types of art to emerge by systematically seeking out and destroying all existing artistic norms and conventions.
In June 1960, Akasegawa read out the group's "manifesto" (written by group member Ushio Shinohara) to a group of reporters:
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Neo-Dada Organizers
Neo-Dadaism Organizers (ネオ・ダダイズム・オルガナイザーズ, Neo-Dadaizumu-Oruganaizāzu), sometimes shortened to Neo-Dada Organizers or simply Neo-Dada (ネオ・ダダ), was a short-lived but influential Japanese Neo-Dadaist art collective formed by Masunobu Yoshimura in 1960. Composed of a small group of young, up-and-coming artists who met periodically at Yoshimura's "White House" atelier in Shinjuku, the Neo-Dada Organizers engaged in all manner of visual and performance artworks, but specialized in producing disturbing, impulsive spectacles, often involving physical destruction of objects, that the art critic Ichirō Hariu deemed "savagely meaningless," and that inspired another art critic, Yoshiaki Tōno, to coin the term "anti-art" (han-geijutsu). Examples included filling galleries with piles of garbage, smashing furniture to the beat of jazz music, and prancing the streets of Tokyo in various states of dress and undress. Using the human body as their medium of art, their violent performances reflected both their dissatisfaction with the restrictive environment of the Japanese art world at the time, as well as contemporary social developments, most notably the massive 1960 Anpo protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.
The Neo-Dada Organizers held three official exhibitions in 1960, as well as a number of bizarre "actions," "events," and "happenings" in which they sought to mock, deconstruct, and in many cases, physically destroy conventional forms of art. Many of the group's members and participants would go on to become noted artists in their own right, including Genpei Akasegawa, Shūsaku Arakawa, Sayako Kishimoto, Tetsumi Kudō, Natsuyuki Nakanishi, and Ushio Shinohara.
Neo-Dada Organizers was formed at a time when Japan was rapidly modernizing after the destruction of World War II. The group positioned themselves in opposition to all established art forms and institutions, especially the strains of humanism and socialist realism that dominated Japanese art circles in the 1950s, but also the recent tendency toward wholesale importation of foreign art trends, such as abstract art and Art Informel. But beyond opposing the dominant art forms of the time, the Neo-Dada Organizers reacted to the efforts by the Liberal Democratic Party government, led by conservative Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, to revise and extend the United States Japan Security Treaty (known as "Anpo" in Japanese), which led to the massive Anpo protests across the country. Because it locked Japan into a quasi-permanent military alliance with the United States, the treaty led many Japanese to fear that Japan would become a target should a nuclear war break out.
At their first exhibition, held at the Ginza Gallery in Tokyo in April, 1960, the Neo-Dada Organizers released a list of their guiding principles:
We are Neo-Dadaists.
—Neo-Daddists are uncultured.
—Neo-Daddists are not Japanese.
—Neo-Daddists are not human beings.
—Neo-Daddists are a group devoted to artistic revolution.
—Neo-Daddists reject the abstract art movement entirely.
—Neo-Daddists have a thirst for killing.
These principles signaled the group's devotion to what group member Genpei Akasegawa would later term "creative destruction" whereby the group sought to create a space for new types of art to emerge by systematically seeking out and destroying all existing artistic norms and conventions.
In June 1960, Akasegawa read out the group's "manifesto" (written by group member Ushio Shinohara) to a group of reporters: