Video Gallery SCAN was the first Japanese art gallery exclusively dedicated to the exhibition, preservation, and promotion of video art. Founded in 1980 by the female performance artist and fog sculptor Fujiko Nakaya, SCAN was an independent, artist-run organization situated in Tokyo's Harajuku neighborhood.Kurosawa, Ayako. “The Fujiko Nakaya Art Exhibition: The Power of Soft Resistance.” JAPAN Forward, December 4, 2018. https://japan-forward.com/the-fujiko-nakaya-art-exhibition-the-power-of-soft-resistance/. While small in scale, the Gallery was a multifunctional space whose services included a video distribution service, video archive & library, screening studio, and exhibition area.Parrish, Jane. “Background Video - The View from Tokyo.” Performance, no. 33, 1985.Munroe, Alexandra. Japanese Art After 1945: Screams Against the Sky. Abrams, 1994.
As SCAN's founder and curator, Nakaya was among a number of artists who regularly featured her video art in solo exhibitions.
According to the Gallery curator Keiko Sei, SCAN's mission was to "[raise] the status of video art into the realm of art, television, and film". Video Gallery SCAN's foundation coincided with the maturation of video technology in the 1980s and critic Akira Asada's introduction of postmodernism to Japan.“Video to New Media Art in Japan/1980s.” Japan Foundation. Japan Foundation Los Angeles, November 5, 2021. https://www.jflalc.org/ac-exhibit32-mediaart.Ivy, Marilyn. “Critical Texts, Mass Artifacts: The Consumption of Knowledge in Postmodern Japan.” Essay. In Postmodernism and Japan, 26–26. Duke University Press, 1989. Consequently, these shifts in contemporary art compelled SCAN to equate video art's technical and aesthetic qualities as a viable fine arts medium to the artistic merits of film and television.Kimura, Hiroko. “Video Gallery SCAN as Video Activism in Tokyo of the 1980s.” L.I.S.A. Wissenschaftsportal Gerda Henkel Stiftung, February 1, 2019. https://lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/video_gallery_scan_as_video_activism_in_tokyo_of_the_1980s?nav_id=7960?focus_comments=1&language=en.
Since Tokyo museums, galleries, and universities did not exhibit video art nor possessed any videoworks in their collections, SCAN marketed itself as a center that could promote video artists within Japan and from abroad.Ross, Julian. “13: Experimental Film: Forms, Spaces, and Networks: A History of Japanese Experimental Film.” Essay. In The Japanese Cinema Book, 195–95. British Film Institute, 2020. During its twelve-year run, the Gallery exhibited a diversity of artists from across the nation, the United States, Europe, and Australia.Nornes, Abe Mark. “Experimental Film and Video.” Essay. In The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture, 132–32. Routledge, 2009. To expand their reach and secure additional funding, SCAN later organized several video festivals, multimedia events, and exhibitions with affiliate institutions.
Origins (1966 - 1979) Nakaya's artistic career of the preceding decades influenced her decision to launch a gallery that focused on the quickly burgeoning video art medium.
In 1966, Nakaya joined the Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a collective that encouraged creative collaborations between visual artists and engineers.[Official Video] Fujiko Nakaya, 2018 Laureate of Sculpture. YouTube. Praemium Imperiale, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNaxRjETkeI.“Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.).” Tate Modern. Accessed September 12, 2021. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/e/experiments-art-and-technology-eat. Nakaya's involvement in the collective exposed her to the fusion of newly developed video technologies into artistic projects.Da Costa, Valerie. “Fujiko Nakaya.” AWARE Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions. Accessed September 12, 2021. https://awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/fujiko-nakaya/.Gleason, Alan. “The Foggiest Notions: Fujiko Nakaya at Art Tower Mito.” artscape Japan, 2019. https://artscape.jp/artscape/eng/ht/1812.html.
As video art started to gain momentum in Japan's avant-garde communities, Nakaya became a founding member of the collective Video Hiroba from 1972 through the mid-1970s.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. Video Hiroba's objective followed a different path from E.A.T. as members were more interested in the exploration of video technology's capacity to serve as a tool for public communication rather than purely artistic functions. The production of alternative media inspired Nakaya to utilize video as a form of observation.
In conjunction with her involvement in Video Hiroba, Nakaya furthered her interest in video art after she read Michael Schamberg's seminal 1971 text Guerilla Television.Okazaki, Kenjiro. “What Overflows.” Kagakuukan, April 20, 2018. https://kagakuukan.org/eng/archive/what-overflows. Schamberg criticized broadcast television and advocated for alternative video. She agreed with Schamberg's stance on video art's legitimacy, and she soon published a Japanese translation of his book in 1974. Today, Nakaya and other Japanese artists hail the text as “the bible” of video art. Art historians surmise that Guerilla Television's support for video art networks was one of the underlying motivations for Nakaya's decision to open Video Gallery SCAN.Roquet, Paul. “Moving with the Rhythms of the City: Ambient Video Attunements.” Essay. In Ambient Media: Japanese Atmospheres of Self. University of Minnesota Press, 2016.
However, Nakaya's work was not solely focused on video art; she frequently merged video art with other mediums and partnered with individuals from disparate creative disciplines.Anne-Marie Duguet, “Naturally Artificial,” in Fog/Brouillard, op cit., 31 (2012). In 1980, Nakaya incorporated her signature fog sculptures into the visual designs for Trisha Brown's choreographed Opal Loop/Cloud Installation.“Opal Loop/Cloud Installation #72503.” Trisha Brown Dance Company. Accessed September 10, 2021. https://trishabrowncompany.org/repertory/opal-loop-cloud-installation-72503.html.Rosenberg, Susan. “Accumulating Vision: Trisha Brown and the Visual Arts.” Fourth Wall. Walker Art Center, March 11, 2014. https://walkerart.org/magazine/susan-rosenberg-trisha-brown. That same year, the American video artist Bill Viola collaborated with Nakaya for her fog sculpture KAWAJI at the Festival of Light, Sound, and Fog in Kawaji-Onsen, Tochigi.“Fujiko Nakaya, Fog Artist.” FOG. Accessed September 12, 2021. http://processart.jp/nakaya/e/profile_e.html.
Video Gallery SCAN (1980 - 1992) By the late-1970s and early-1980s, the majority of museums, galleries, and universities in Tokyo did not exhibit any form of video art. The lack of financial support for contemporary art - especially video and mediaworks - was a systemic issue that further compounded the invisibility of video art in Japan.
In 1980, Nakaya used her own money to purchase a gallery in Tokyo's bustling Harajuku neighborhood. Video Gallery SCAN was located on the ground floor of a building called the Greenland Harajuku, and it was also where Nakaya lived and worked.“Process Art Co., Ltd. - Company Profile.” Process Art, Co., Ltd. Accessed September 20, 2021. http://www.processart.jp/?mode=about. The gallery space itself was a small, one-room area whose dimensions were an estimated .
SCAN's name was conceived by the video artist and Nakaya's close friend Bill Viola, who remarked that the title evokes the appearance of scan lines on video monitors, and it reinforced the Gallery's focus on video and media artworks.Birnbaum, Alfred. “Japan Video: Remembering an Art of Memory.” Mediamatic Magazine, 1988. https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/196980/japan-video. Subsequently, Bill Viola: Selected Work 1976 - 1980 (April 1980 - October 1980) became one of the first solo exhibitions held at SCAN.Bill Viola: Selected Work 1976 - 1980. Tokyo: VIdeo Gallery SCAN, 1980.
In addition to its unique status as the only arts institution in Japan to exhibit video art, SCAN was an entirely female-run organization. Nakaya worked at the Gallery in both artistic and curatorial roles, and she recruited two female curators throughout SCAN's tenure. Keiko Sei, a curator and media activist, was employed at SCAN from 1983 to 1987 and later left for Eastern Europe to study how video artists employed independent creative expression in Communist-controlled centers.“Keiko Sei CV.” Internet Archive. Accessed September 10, 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20071201130655/http://www.labinary.org/media.art.theory.week/Keiko-CV-more.txt. Keiko Tamaki, a musicologist, took over Sei's position in 1988 and remained with the Gallery until its 1992 closure.
While SCAN's operations existed for a little over a decade, it reinvigorated the Japanese video art movement and stimulated a domestic and international video art network that launched the careers of young video and media artists, and connected them to a roster of world-renowned multidisciplinary creatives.“Fujiko Nakaya.” Praemium Imperiale, 2018. https://www.praemiumimperiale.org/en/laureate-en/laureates-en/nakaya-en.
However, the blossoming of digital art and technology in the early-1990s led to a surge in museum and gallery exhibitions that rivaled the activities of SCAN and contributed to its closure in 1992.Sakamoto, Hirofumi. “A History of Japanese Video Art.” Ligeia 27, no. 133 - 136, July 2014.
Success The reasons behind SCAN's success and long-standing influence in global contemporary art are multifold.
At the time of SCAN's establishment, Nakaya was 47 years old and already a well-known figure in Japan's art community. Consequently, her involvement in Japanese and American art extended as far back as the mid-to-late 1950s, which led to productive professional relationships with prominent artists (Robert Rauschenberg, Bill Viola, Hakudo Kobayashi), institutions (Electronic Arts Intermix and Museum of Modern Art, New York), and collectives (E.A.T. and Video Hiroba).Markopoulos, Leigh and Marina McDougall. “Biography.” Essay. In Over the Water: Fujiko Nakaya, 47–47. Solstice Press, 2013. https://www.exploratorium.edu/files/arts/over-the-water-catalog.pdf .
Nakaya combined her artistic/curatorial vision with strategic marketing. She utilized Video Gallery SCAN to function as a nexus to connect the Japanese video art scene with video artists abroad in major contemporary art centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. She procured multiple international artists to participate in SCAN's exhibitions and included their works in the Gallery's video library, such as the Australian Peter Callas and the American Gary Hill (whose association with SCAN coincided with his involvement in a Japan-U.S. Artists Exchange Fellowship).Furlong, Lucinda. “A Manner of Speaking: An Interview with Gary Hill.” Afterimage, March 1983, 9–9. http://www.vasulka.org/archive/4-30c/AfterImageMar83(1005).pdf.