Yusuke Nakahara (August 22, 1931 – March 3, 2011) was a Japanese art critic, curator, scholar, lecturer, university president, art festival organizer, and cultural administrator.Gardner, Anthony, and Charles Green. Biennials, Triennials, and Documenta: The Exhibitions That Created Contemporary Art. 1st ed. Wiley-Blackwell, 2016.
He is perhaps best known as the figure who spearheaded the influential 1970 Tokyo Biennale, Between Man and Matter at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum."Talking about Art: The Viewpoint of Yusuke Nakahara." Time Out Tokyo, February 5, 2016. https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/art/talking-about-art-the-viewpoint-of-yusuke-nakahara. The exhibition was a watershed moment in Post-1945 Japanese art for its promotion of avant-garde Japanese and international art practices as demonstrated by disparate artists who worked in varying mediums within the then-underrepresented movements of Arte Povera, Conceptual Art, Minimalism, and Mono-ha. The exhibition is seen as a reaction against the concurrent Expo ‘70 in Osaka for embodying the attributes of Japan's Post-World War II economic resurgence and ascension to major world status.
Nakahara was a prolific writer in the Japanese art world as he published innumerable exhibition reviews, books, academic essays, magazine articles, and chapters. His writings have appeared in journals such as Bijutsu Techo, Mizue, and Geijutsu Shincho.
Originally trained as a physicist, Nakahara's approach to art criticism and curation was grounded more in scientific methodologies than art historical pedagogy based on his frequent incorporation of references to human perception, physical spatiality, and kinetics, among other theoretical ideas."Tatsuo Kawaguchi: Relation - Yusuke Nakahara, or Critique as Creation." Art Front Gallery, 2019. https://artfrontgallery.com/en/exhibition/archive/2018_12/3763.html.
Since his passing in 2011, contemporary Art historians and critics consider Nakahara a significant figure in Post-1945 Japanese art history and is likened to other critics of his generation, including Ichiro Haryu, Yoshiaki Tono, and Shinichi Segi.
Early life and education Nakahara was born on August 22, 1931, in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan.
In the early 1950s, Nakahara graduated from Kyoto University's Faculty of Science where he studied theoretical physics. During and after his studies, he worked in the laboratories of Kyoto University's Division of Physics and Astronomy as a researcher under the supervision of Hideki Yukawa, a physicist who became Japan's first Nobel Laureate.
Early career In 1955, Nakahara penned his first piece of art criticism that coincided with his research on theoretical physics, "Criticism for creation". The text operates as both a work on art theory and the physical sciences as he expresses disapproval for both the emerging field of cybernetics and the emphasis placed on mechanization as signifiers of scientific and civilization's progress. Contextually, Nakahara's research occurred during an increasing interest in Japanese academia and politics to invest more money and resources into the study of atomic energy and nuclear reactor technology. Colleagues of Nakahara commented in recent years that this text likey demarcated the reasons for why Nakahara shifted his career from the Sciences to the Arts.
"Criticism for creation" was submitted in an open essay contest sponsored by the art magazine Bijutsu Hihyo (Art Criticism), to which he won first prize and attained employment as a writer for the magazine. Nakahara's sudden acceptance into art criticism was a major turning point as Bijutsu Hihyo was a subsidiary of the arts publishing house Bijutsu Shuppansha, which distributed the equally influential Bijutsu Techo (Art Notebook) and Mizue (Watercolor).
In his early writing career from the mid-1950s to the early-1960s, Nakahara wrote extensively on avant-garde Japanese artists and movements, including On Kawara, Anti-Art, and Surrealism.Kang, Eunhee. "On Kawara's Nomadic Mind: Autobiography of ‘A Citizen of the World,'" Dissertation, The City University of New York, 2004.
Subsequently, Nakahara began to curate exhibitions of Japanese and international artists. He placed emphasis on creatives who worked along the periphery of the Japanese art world and were affiliated with avant-garde movements and styles.
Rooms in Alibi: Gentle Criminals was a group exhibition that marked the opening of the Naiqua Gallery in Shinbashi, Tokyo in 1963."TAB Event: Talking About Art: The Viewpoint of Yusuke Nakahara." Tokyo Art Beat, 2016. https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2016/A898.en. With ten participating artists, the exhibition displayed furniture and related domestic items to subtly critique the power and influence of commodity systems and consumerism on Japanese home life. The Conceptualist Genpei Akasegawa and members of the Hi-Red Center were among the artists who featured works in the exhibition.
Recognized as a major proponent of the latest developments in Japanese avant-garde art of the 1960s, Nakahara was simultaneously intent on the promotion and exhibition of international artists who also worked in non-traditional mediums and styles. Solo exhibitions of rising global artists such as the German painter Hans Richter (1966) and the Italian ZERO movement painter Enrico Castellani (1968) at The Tokyo Gallery introduced Japanese spectators to contemporaneous trends in global Modern Art.
In 1968, Nakahara partnered with fellow art critic Junzo Ishiko in the curation of the group exhibition Tricks and Visions, which featured 19 artists between two galleries (The Tokyo Gallery and Muramatsu Gallery).Hayashi, Michio, and Miryam Sas. Tokyo 1955 - 1970: A New Avant-Garde. Edited by Doryun Chong. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012. Like Nakahara, Ishiko expressed a deep fascination for non-mainstream media as diverse as gadgets and kitsch works. The exhibition addressed the lack of attention surrounding the little studied sub-movement of "tricky art", a style and idea that examines the nature of sight and its susceptibility to encounter visual tricks. Works on view engaged with the relationship between optical illusions and perception via mirrors, trompe l'oeil, and visual distortions. An eclectic range of artists participated to underscore the frequency of "tricky art" across mediums: Jiro Takamatsu, Nobuo Sekine, Yoshinori Suzuki, et al.Ono, Masaharu. "On ‘Tricks and Vision.'" Shizuoka University of Art and Culture Bulletin 2 (2001): 70–70.Nakahara, Yusuke. "Jiro Takamatsu and the World of Ambiguity." XXE Siecle (France) 38, no. 46 (September 1976): 121–27.
Mid-career (1970–1995) 1970 marked an important year for Japanese art as the Expo ‘70 world's fair was held in Osaka to commemorate Japan's Post-World War II exponential economic recovery and rise to major global power status. Although the fair attracted a record-breaking attendance of 64 million people to witness the modern technological, artistic, and cultural marvels of 77 countries (including Japan), Nakahara's organization of the 10th Tokyo Biennale, Between Man and Matter, is perceived as a reaction against Expo ‘70.
He described the concept behind the exhibition as an exploration of how "man and matter [are joined] together inseparably with mutual influences and control". By applying his background in theoretical physics, Nakahara centered the exhibition around how objects and people interact with one another in a physical space. Since it was held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Nakahara deemed it imperative for the museum itself to be an integral component in the display of the artworks. These site specific pieces purposefully engaged with the structural parameters of the museum's gallery spaces and encouraged audience interactions.Melvin, Jo. "Seth Siegelaub and Studio International: Conceptual Art and Production." Essay. In Seth Siegelaub: Beyond Conceptual Art, 466–77. Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 2016. For example, Takamatsu's Thirty-six Oneness is a sculptural assemblage of cedar logs stacked atop one another in a columnar composition to signify the materiality of the wood. In another example, the French environmental artist Christo blanketed a massive gallery space in fabric that entailed collaboration between the artist and his team of assistants.
In defiance of traditional art festival regulations, no juried prizes were awarded and an international pool of artists chosen to participate not as representatives of their respective countries, but for their individualized artistry. Of the 40 artists, 13 of whom were native Japanese while the rest hailed from the United States and Europe. The participating artists comprised established figures and future luminaries: Hans Haacke, Bruce Nauman, Jiro Takamatsu, Richard Serra, Hitoshi Nomura, Mario Merz, et al.Tan, Eliza. "Tokyo Biennale 1970 as Contact Point." Tate Modern, 2016. https://www.tate.org.uk/research/research-centres/tate-research-centre-asia/tokyo-biennale-1970-as-contact-point.Zernik, Clelia. "Japanese Art after Fukushima through the Prism of Festivals." Critique d'Art, no. 49 (2017). https://journals.openedition.org/critiquedart/27197.
Due to the ephemerality of the predominantly site specific works, Nakahara commissioned photographer Shigeo Anzai to document the entirety of the exhibition for the sake of photographic preservation.Gattiglia, Ambra. "Shigeo Anzai and the 10th Tokyo Biennale." Afterall, June 21, 2016. https://www.afterall.org/article/shigeo-anza-and-the-10th-tokyo-biennale.Thorpe, Harriet. "Shigeo Anzai: Index." Studio International, December 29, 2015. https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/shigeo-anzai-index-i-review-white-rainbow-gallery-london.
Following Between Man and Matter, Nakahara was invited to oversee and manage the Japanese pavilions at multiple international art festivals throughout the 1970s. Of note, he led the Japanese pavilions at two São Paulo (1973 and 1975) and two Venice Biennales (1976 and 1978).Tomii, Reiko. Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art: Experimentations in the Public Sphere in Postwar Japan, 1950 - 1970. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute, 2007.Adriasola, Ignacio. "Japan's Venice: The Japanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and the ‘Pseudo-Objectivity' of the International." Archives of Asian Art 67, no. 2 (2017): 209–36.