is a Japanese experimental filmmaker, videographer, director, cinematographer, screenwriter, executive producer, and Professor Emeritus of Cinema at Waseda University. He is credited as one of the earliest figures in the rise of video art in Japan during the 1960s and 1970s, and a pioneer in Japanese experimental filmmaking.“Vital Signals Japanese & American Video Art from the 1960s & '70s.” The Japan Society, 2009. https://tickets.japansociety.org/event/vital-signals-japanese-american-video-art-from-the-1960s-70s.Meigh-Andrews, Chris. “2. Crossing Boundaries: International Tendencies and Influences in Early Artists' Video.” Essay. In A History of Video Art, 2nd ed., 38–38, 2013. https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/2890527/7c8c13ce611e6e973e5d8eac7317ceee.pdf.“Kohei Ando.” IMDb. Accessed July 9, 2021. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4870717/ .
Ando's rich artistic output is heavily influenced by his Waseda University education, participation in Shuji Terayama's avant-garde Tenjo Sajiki theatrical troupe, and interests in film, literature, and theater. He is celebrated as one of the first Japanese directors to employ image processing and video feedback with newly available video technology into the filmmaking process.
Throughout his career, Ando has created a diverse range of films whose narrative structures and visual designs are markedly different from one another, from the abstractionism of Oh! My Mother (1969) to the fusion of Western Art History and Japanese culture in Whispers of Vermeer (1998).“Kohei Ando Biography and Works.” Electronic Arts Intermix. Accessed July 27, 2021. https://www.eai.org/artists/kohei-ando/titles.
As a filmmaker and video artist, Ando's career is largely defined by his multidisciplinary nature in which he actively engaged in several projects that overlapped between his participation in Tenjo Sajiki, employment at the Tokyo Broadcasting System, and pursuit of independent filmmaking.
As of 2021, Ando's most recent film is a 2003 documentary on the French Post-Impressionist painter Henri Rousseau. Soon after his completion of the documentary short, Ando assumed teaching and advisory positions at his alma mater Waseda University in which he taught Cinema and launched the Kohei Ando Film Laboratory production company.
He is a member of the International Committee of the Directors Guild of Japan, and he serves as the Programming Advisor of the Tokyo International Film Festival.
Early life and education (1944–1968) Ando was born on 1 February 1944, in Beijing, China. He entered Waseda University in 1962 where he earned his bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Science and Engineering in 1968. During his undergraduate studies, Ando developed his passions for literature, film, and theater and chose to embark on a career in cinema.Ando, Kohei. “The Demise of the System Known as Film Studios.” Waseda Online. Accessed July 9, 2021. https://yab.yomiuri.co.jp/adv/wol/dy/research/kyoso_080708.html. Additionally, his participation in a UNESCO Foreign Exchange program to the L’Ecole Centrale in Paris in 1965 further informed his decision to pursue filmmaking.“Kohei Ando.” Light Cone: Distribution, Exhibition, and Conservation of Experimental Film. Accessed July 8, 2021. https://lightcone.org/en/filmmaker-5-kohei-ando.
Tenjo Sajiki (1967–1983) In 1967, Ando partnered with fellow Waseda University student and avant-garde dramatist Shuji Terayama in his theatrical troupe Tenjo Sajiki, whose members included graphic artist Tadanori Yokoo and playwright/theater director Yutaka Higashi.Yamaji Smith, Jordan A. “Shuji, Terayama( (1935 - 1983).” Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, September 5, 2016. https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/shuji-terayama-1935-1983.London, Barbara J. “Chapter 12 - X: Experimental Film and Video.” Essay. In Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, 287–87. Yokohama Museum of Art, 1996. https://www.barbaralondon.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/1994_Experimental-Film-and-Video_Japanese-Art-after-1945_barbara_london.pdf. Ando acted in Terayama's theatrical adaptation of Marcel Carne's 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise). Ando was also employed as a Production Assistant in Terayama's company, and he traveled with the troupe during their performances across Japan, Europe, and the United States.Severns, Karen. “Special Screening of ‘Tora-San, Wish You Were Here’, Q&A Session and Japan Now Panel.” The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, October 3, 2019. https://www.fccj.or.jp/index.php/event/special-screening-tora-san-wish-you-were-here-qa-session-and-japan-now-panel. In 1969, Ando, Terayama, and Tenjo Sajiki participated in the Experimenta 3 Festival at Frankfurt's Deutsche Akademie der Darstellenden Künste (German Academy of the Performing Arts) where they performed The Dog God.“The Dog God.” Performing Arts Network Japan. The Japan Foundation. Accessed July 26, 2021. http://13.112.41.4/E/exec/drama_detail.php?id=-26
Ando's collaboration with Tenjo Sajiki ended following Terayama's death in 1983.Tachiki, Akiko. “Labyrinth of Illusions in the City beyond Boundaries.” Critical Stages/Scenes critiques, no. 9 (February 2014). https://www.critical-stages.org/9/labyrinth-of-illusions-in-the-city-beyond-boundaries/.
Early film career (1968–1978) In 1968, Ando purchased a 16mm camera while in Paris with Tenjo Sajiki to officially launch his filmmaking career.“Kohei Ando.” Collaborative Cataloging Japan. Accessed July 9, 2021. https://www.collabjapan.org/kohei-ando.“Oh! My Mother.” Electronic Arts Intermix. Accessed July 9, 2021. https://www.eai.org/titles/oh-my-mother.
The following year, Ando created his first film, Oh! My Mother (1969). He encountered multiple challenges in the production process as there were aesthetic limitations to the available video technology and there were few colored televisions in the late-1960s. However, the filming of Oh! My Mother coincided with Ando's recent employment at the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS); he entered the studios after-hours to experiment with their equipment to explore the visual possibilities of video technology in a filmic context. The finalized film was accomplished through Ando's use of a feedback effect in which segments of the projected video proceeded through an infinite loop.Sakamoto, Hirofumi. “A History of Japanese Video Art.” Ligeia 27, July 2014. Upon its completion, Oh! My Mother won an award at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival in Germany and was lauded as one of Japan's first films to utilize electronic imaging and video feedback.Sakamoto, Hirofumi. “The Self-Referential Tactics of Early Video Art in Japan.” Collaborative Cataloging Japan, 2007. https://www.collabjapan.org/essay-sakamoto-self-referential-english?rq=kohei%20ando.
Video Hiroba In the early-1970s, Ando became a member of the video art collective Video Hiroba. The organization's aims were to experiment with the aesthetics of video technology to create new types of images that responded to current social and political issues, present an alternative method to disseminate information, and fuse the mediums of video and performance art.London, Barbara J. “VIDEO IN THE LAND THAT PRACTICALLY INVENTED IT.” ARTnews, September 1981. https://www.barbaralondon.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/1981_ArtNews-Japanese-Art_barbara_london-1.pdf.“Video Hiroba - Reexamining the 1970s Experimental Video Art Group.” VIDEO ART CENTER Tokyo, 2016. http://www.vctokyo.org/en/2016/07/videohiroba-atmam.html.“Nobuhiro Kawanaka.” Ludwig Forum Fur Internationale Kunst Video Archive. Accessed July 10, 2021. http://www.videoarchiv-ludwigforum.de/artists-detail/nobuhiro-kawanaka/.
Ando's films of the 1970s appeared to lean in the direction of video and performance art combinations as he filmed his subjects in theatrical compositions. Ando's 1973 short film Les Fils/The Sons is a visual representation of a gay poem on the relationship between a man and his adopted adult sons.The Sons. Alexander Street, 1973. https://search.alexanderstreet.com/preview/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cvideo_work%7C2067765. Entire scenes are washed in deep blue or fluorescent yellow lighting to convey the sensuality of the characters’ interactions with one another.Hunter, Jack. “Punk Generation: Notes on the Japanese Underground.” Essay. In Eros in Hell: Sex, Blood, and Madness in Japanese Cinema, 188–88. Creation Books, 1999.
La Valse/Waltz (1976) focuses on an older woman seated at a table drinking tea before she rises to perform a waltz when classical music begins to play in the background.La Valse (The Waltz). Alexander Street, 1976. https://search.alexanderstreet.com/preview/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cvideo_work%7C2070163.“The Waltz.” Light Cone. Accessed July 28, 2021. https://lightcone.org/fr/film-37-la-valse. The careful organization of the scene – a centrally placed table framed by windows and columns before an open-floor space – is visually reminiscent of a proscenium stage set.
Later film career (1978–2003) Over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, Ando continued to film with a 16mm camera.
The official Japanese release of George Lucas's Star Wars (1977) in 1978 generated public enthusiasm and Mark Hamill's promotional visit to the country the same year led to extensive media coverage.Star Wars Debuts in Japan (1978). YouTube, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gmZR0UoSoE. Ando's short film Star Waars! (1978) reflected the popularity of the film in which individual men and women address the camera by excitedly shouting “War”. The short simultaneously demonstrated Ando's rising stature as a filmmaker through his procurement of multiple high-profile actors from popular 1970s Japanese film & television programs: Hiromi Go, Ikue Sakakibara, Tetsuya Takeda, Junko Ikeuchi, Haruko Mabuchi, Yoshiko Mita, Keiju Kobayashi, Kirin Kiki, Kiyoshi Kodama, Masao Komatsu, Chu Arai, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, Yukari Itoh, Katusko Kanai, Kinya Aikawa, Midori Utsumi, Ikkei Kojima, and children's animated icon Leon the Lion.“Membership Feature: Kohei Ando Part 2.” Collaborative Cataloging Japan, 2021. https://www.collabjapan.org/events/2020/10/1/members-feature-ando-kohei-2.
In the mid-1980s, Ando's exposure to HD video technology at TBS compelled him to switch from 16mm formats to HD formats for his films; My Collections (1988) was the last film he completed in 16mm.
By the 1990s, Ando's films were more narrative-driven, had longer running times (roughly 25 to 50 minutes in length), and displayed more Surrealist imagery. After Twilight (1995) was one of the films that encapsulated the shift in his directorial style as the film's storyline progression is framed by photographic still images and the airbrush paintings of Kozo Mio while a man in voiceover narration discusses his love for a mysterious woman in a dream-like world.
In the late-1990s and early-2000s, Ando created several documentaries on the lives of European and Japanese artists, including: Sandro Botticelli, Caravaggio, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Rousseau, and Kozo Mio.
Tokyo Broadcasting System (1968–2004) Concurrent with his video art and experimental filmmaking, Ando established a steady career for himself with the Tokyo Broadcasting System where he was employed from 1968 to 2004.
Shortly after his arrival at TBS, Ando requested a three-month vacation to commit to Terayama's theatrical productions. While he anticipated his employment would be terminated before his return, Ando was surprised to learn that the company wanted him to stay and he surmised they felt “it might be good to keep a strange person like this [Kohei Ando] around”.