Japanese underground art and avant-garde art share similarities in their experimental nature and rejection of traditional norms, but they are not the same thing. While there is significant overlap between the two, particularly in their rebellious and countercultural tendencies, they represent distinct realms within Japanese art and culture, each with its own context, purpose, and methods.
Key Differences Between Underground Art and Avant-Garde Art in Japan
1. Context and Origins
• Avant-Garde Art:
• Emerged from intellectual and artistic movements seeking to challenge and redefine established art forms and aesthetics.
• Often tied to formal art institutions or collective groups (e.g., Gutai, Mono-ha).
• Rooted in broader global art movements and influenced by Western avant-garde trends like Dada, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism.
• Underground Art:
• More closely linked to counterculture movements and alternative spaces outside mainstream or academic art institutions.
• Often developed in the context of youth culture, political protests, and subcultures, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s.
• Influenced by a mix of global pop culture, punk, anarchism, and Japanese societal shifts, including postwar disillusionment.
2. Goals and Intentions
• Avant-Garde Art:
• Focused on aesthetic and conceptual innovation, often exploring new forms, materials, and artistic processes.
• Engaged with philosophical, metaphysical, or universal themes (e.g., time, space, materiality).
• Example: Gutai artists explored the relationship between materials, the human body, and physical action.
• Underground Art:
• More explicitly political and subversive, often critiquing societal norms, capitalism, and authoritarianism.
• Sought to shock, provoke, or disrupt mainstream sensibilities and challenge the boundaries of art, often incorporating taboo or transgressive themes (e.g., sexuality, death, rebellion).
• Example: Angura theater and Butoh explored grotesque, surreal, or taboo subjects as part of their critique of postwar Japanese society.
3. Venues and Audiences
• Avant-Garde Art:
• Typically exhibited in galleries, museums, or formal art spaces, even as it sought to break traditional norms.
• Aimed at intellectual or academic audiences interested in the evolution of art and aesthetics.
• Underground Art:
• Flourished in nontraditional venues like small theaters, clubs, zines, or underground exhibitions.
• Targeted a broader countercultural audience, including youth and subcultural groups like punks and anarchists.
• Example: The Shinjuku underground scene in the 1960s, where experimental theater, music, and visual art intersected.
4. Methods and Media
• Avant-Garde Art:
• Often emphasized experimentation with materials, forms, and techniques in painting, sculpture, and performance art.
• Influenced by global art movements like Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art.
• Example: Mono-ha’s use of raw, natural materials to explore the relationships between objects and their environments.
• Underground Art:
• Frequently employed low-cost, DIY methods such as zines, graffiti, experimental film, and punk aesthetics.
• Example: Japanese underground comics (gekiga) and zines like Garo featured subversive, often politically charged content.
5. Relationship to Politics
• Avant-Garde Art:
• Not always overtly political, though some movements (e.g., Gutai) indirectly responded to the trauma of World War II and Japan’s modernization.
• Often engaged in a philosophical critique of traditional art and aesthetics rather than explicit political activism.
• Underground Art:
• Explicitly political and anti-establishment, often tied to protest movements such as student activism in the 1960s.
• Example: The Angura (underground) theater movement critiqued postwar Japanese capitalism and authoritarianism through surreal and grotesque performances.
Points of Overlap
Despite their differences, underground and avant-garde art in Japan frequently intersected:
1. Shared Rebellion Against Norms:
• Both sought to disrupt traditional forms and societal conventions, though avant-garde art often worked within institutional spaces, while underground art existed on the cultural fringes.
2. Experimental Techniques:
• Both movements embraced experimentation, blending performance, visual art, and multimedia in innovative ways.
• Example: Butoh, often associated with underground art, drew on avant-garde ideas of body and movement.
3. Countercultural Energy:
• Both reflected the discontent and questioning spirit of postwar Japan, responding to rapid modernization, Westernization, and the lingering trauma of the atomic bombings.
4. Cross-Pollination:
• Artists and ideas often moved between the two realms. For example:
• Tatsumi Hijikata’s Butoh performances had roots in underground theater but were informed by avant-garde visual and performance art.
• The Provoke photography movement shared underground energy while aligning with avant-garde aesthetics.
Examples of Movements and Figures
• Avant-Garde Art:
• Gutai Art Association: Experimentation with material and performance.
• Mono-ha: Philosophical explorations of object and space.
• Underground Art:
• Angura Theater: Radical performances critiquing modern Japan (e.g., Shuji Terayama’s Tenjo Sajiki).
• Butoh Dance: Grotesque and existential performances (e.g., Kazuo Ohno).
• Blurring the Line:
• Tatsumi Hijikata (Butoh): Bridged avant-garde ideas with underground energy.
• Daido Moriyama (Provoke): Gritty, anti-aesthetic photography captured both avant-garde and underground sensibilities.
Conclusion
Japanese underground art and avant-garde art were distinct but deeply intertwined cultural phenomena. While avant-garde art focused on aesthetic and conceptual innovation within broader philosophical or artistic traditions, underground art emerged as a countercultural, politically charged rebellion against societal norms. Together, they created a dynamic and multifaceted landscape of creativity, shaping Japan’s cultural identity and leaving a profound legacy in global art.
