Seiki no Kai

Seiki no Kai (世紀の会, The Century Society) was an influential art research and discussion group briefly active in early postwar Japan, from 1947 to 1951. It was established and led primarily by the author Kōbō Abe, and focused on cultural collaboration between its members, all of whom were artists, writers, or critics in their twenties. Because there were few opportunities for young people to publish or exhibit their work in these years, the group primarily focused on organizing lectures and discussion groups on relevant cultural topics – or as they phrased it, "20-something culture by 20-somethings, for 20-somethings." The group was influenced by two senior members, painter Tarō Okamoto, who was interested in Surrealism, and the avant-garde critic Kiyoteru Hanada, whose discourse engaged Marxism, along with the founder Kōbō Abe, who was steeped in existentialism. As a result, most of the group's events investigated topics related to these ideas.

In the later years of the group, members were increasingly influenced by the concept of sōgō geijutsu ("total art"), or multimedia works produced through collective action. They produced several low-cost collaborative publications with limited distribution. The group eventually split up when Abe and others opted to join the Japanese Communist Party and pursue more active involvement in the political sphere. Despite only being active for a few years, the group was nonetheless a key educational source and meeting point for young creative people in Japan, especially at a time when there were few resources available. It is commonly thought to be a precursor to later avant-garde artistic collaborations and collectives in Japan.

Seiki no Kai was founded in 1947 by the author Kōbō Abe and a group of his classmates from the literature department at the University of Tokyo, all of whom were in their early 20s. Their initial group name was Nijudai Bungakusha no Kai / Seiki (二十代文学者の会・世紀, "Association of Literary Scholars / Century"). Its earliest members from 1947 to 1948 included, in addition to Abe: Momo Iida, Tetsurō Morimoto, Tōru Ogawa, Hiroshi Hidaka, Yasuo Nakano, Minoru Tsubaki, Rintarō Endō, Yukio Mishima, Ichirō Hariu, Hiroshi Akutagawa, Kōji Nakada, Minoru Nakamura, Takashi Tatsuno, Takayuki Kiyooka, Tsuneo Watanabe, Shin'ichi Segi, and Kyōsuke Masaki. Many of these early members would go on to become accomplished authors and critics.

Although the initial goal of the group was unclear, its first iteration appears to have been fairly casual and meetings involved the discussion and research of literature.

By 1948, Momo Iida and several group members had split off into a different group that published the periodical Sedai (世代, "Generation"). The remaining members began to participate in meetings of the newly inaugurated avant-garde collective Yoru no Kai. Around this time, author Hiroshi Sekine connected with Abe. Together, Abe and Sekine decided to rebrand the group with the simple name Seiki no Kai ("Century Group"). Until recently, it was commonly believed that Seiki no Kai was an offshoot of Yoru no Kai, but as former group member Shin'ichi Segi explains, their origins were completely different. Interactions with Yoru no Kai did, however, help shape the direction of Seiki no Kai.

Beginning in 1948, Seiki no Kai group members met in an open university classrooms around Tokyo on Saturday afternoons to research and discuss topics in literature, and began publishing essays in their journal Seiki no Kai Nyūsu (世紀ニュース, "Seiki News"). Their 1948 Commemorative Presentation Meeting included over 300 participants, with speeches from Tarō Okamoto and Kiyoteru Hanada, among others. By this point, many new members had joined, including the poet Hiroshi Noma and author Yasuo Nakano.

Following the dissolution of Yoru no Kai in 1949, prominent members of Yoru no Kai, including Okamoto and Hanada, also formally joined Seiki no Kai. Around this time, inspired by Okamoto and Hanada, the group began to expand its focus from literature to art, hosting lectures on avant-garde art, and inaugurating a painting division. The painting division included new artist members Hiroshi Katsuragawa, Shōzō Kitadai, Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, Hideko Fukushima, and Tatsuo Ikeda. The painting division launched research groups, lectures, and an art-focused publication Gashū (画集, "Collection of Pictures"). Topics covered in research groups and lectures included Picasso, Surrealism, technology and the arts, and avant-garde art. Many Seiki no Kai artists also exhibited their works in larger venues, including the early iterations of the Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition.

Seiki no Kai also continued to host regular lectures and research groups on literature and poetry, in which many of the new artists members also participated. Topics covered in these meetings included: Franz Kafka and Jean-Paul Sartre, avant-garde poetry, documentary literature, and Karl Marx and Max Weber.