Art Radar unpacks the phenomenon of Micropop: a philosophy, form of expression and aesthetic movement in the younger Japanese postwar generation.
Makiko Kudo, ‘Might Fly At Night’, 2007, oil on canvas, 117 x 117 cm. Image courtesy the artist, The Japan Foundation and Tomio Koyama Gallery.
What is Micropop?
Micropop represents a playful, often child-like style of art which masks a deeper philosophy of the inventive power of the banal and the forgotten. The term was coined by independent art critic and curator Midori Matsui in 2007. While some comment that the philosophy behind the movement was elusive and difficult to understand (PDF download), it can be summarised simply as an art practice that:
reinvent[s] everyday life to give new meanings to commonplace things.
The above description was used by Australia’s M16 Art Space, who recently hosted the travelling exhibition “Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art”. Curated by Midori Matsui, the show was co-presented by the Japan Foundation and the Embassy of Japan in Canberra.
The philosophy
As Japan’s Art Tower Mito Gallery states, Matsui began tracking the emergence of Micropop expressions in the Japanese art scene as early as 1995. Employing literary analytical methods, Matsui gathered together a selection of young artists who came onto the scene during the latter half of the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s. These were artists whom Matsui believed embodied her concept of Micropop and who would be responsible for the further development of the genre.
Masanori Handa, ‘Turnoff Paradise sense-surfing part 1 & 2′, 2007, oil, felt-tip pen on tile, mounted on two wood panels, 148 x 148 cm. Image courtesy the artist, The Japan Foundation and Ota Fine Arts.
Whether using drawings, paintings or video works, the artists’ diversified expressions harbour a common philosophy:
“a small-scale, avant-garde” approach or attitude that attempts to create a new aesthetic consciousness and norms of behaviour through the combination of fragments of information gleaned through one’s own experience.
A lucid, illuminating essay by Matsui rephrases it in simpler terms:
The term “Micropop” describe[s] the attitude or approach to life that creates a unique and original path of living or aesthetics by combining fragments gathered from various places, without relying on institutional morals or major ideologies. It refers to the stance taken by people who have been relegated to a “minor” position vis-a-vis the major culture that surrounds them, in the same manner as immigrants and children do.
“Minor-pop”
Such a focus on the minor comes from French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s concept of “minor literature”, which originally referred to modernist novels by Kafka, Joyce and Beckett. With Kafka, for example, Diacritic writes that:
[he] was all about making a quietly subversive niche for oneself in between all sorts of major power blocs – the German and Czech languages, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Jewish and Gentile worlds, the major capitals of Europe and the provinces, capital and labour […]
Masaya Chiba, ‘Crying face’, 2008, oil on canvas, wood, 160 x 93.3 x 30.7 cm. Image courtesy the artist, The Japan Foundation and ShugoArts.
As such, Micropop focuses on everyday, forgotten things or places in the city and inserts or appropriates them playfully within a new chain of relationships, and in doing so evokes a hidden meaning and a new consciousness of community.
Often, inexpensive and expendable materials and techniques are used in Micropop works. Where technological devices are employed, they are accessible even to amateurs. The Asia Pacific Reader also states that a playful, childlike perspective pervades the works, accompanied by the use of “banal commodities, outmoded fashions, obscure or defunct places as resources for unique productions and performances.”
Taro Izumi, ‘Curos Cave’ (still from DVD), 2005, DVD 8 min. 37 sec. Image courtesy the artist and The Japan Foundation.
According to Matsui, the term “pop” was also used by Deleuze to demonstrate the stance of “minor” creations – it is “pop” with a small “p”, in contrast to the “Pop” in American Pop Art. “Minor-pop” encourages the emergence of non-mainstream forms of culture which in turn initiate new forms of social and political awareness.
The artists
The “Winter Garden” exhibition featured the following artists:
GMA News Online describes these Micropop artists as belonging to a generation:
whose collective memories of divine rule and racial superiority has slowly eroded, whose faith in society was shaken by the natural and manmade catastrophes of the late 20th century: economic recession, the homogenisation of lifestyles, and the disappearance of community cultures.
Makiko Kudo, ‘Sky-flying Fish’, 2006, oil on canvas. Image courtesy the artist, Tomio Koyama Gallery and M16 Art Space.
Born into this age, the Micropop artists attempt in their own way to make sense of, express and interpret life in an increasingly globalised and homogenised world. As Art Tower Mito observes, what the Micropop artists are doing can be seen as a “small-scale attempt at survival” that:
aims to acquire a solid sense of being “alive” in the turbulent global era of today, in which people, information and things move around the world at an unprecedented speed and scale, and where faraway events can impact the basic foundations of one’s own lifestyle, forcing each person to form the basis for his or her own judgment in response to a situation that is always changing fluidly.
Criticism
The Micropop movement has not been without its criticisms. The first concerns the overwhelming breadth of styles, practices and forms encompassed by the concept of Micropop. As The Tokyo Art Beat writes, although Micropop is characterised “more as an attitude than a set of practices“, the visual diversity dilutes the concept’s explanatory power.
A second criticism, put forth by David Balzer (PDF download), asserts that the banal and the expendable are not new focus points in contemporary art, nor is it exclusive to Japan. Balzer argues that the “primitive” techniques and concepts are only saved by the minor literature theory Matsuri draws from Deleuze.
Hiroshi Sugito, ‘Starry Night’, 1992, acrylic, pigment, paper on panel, 182 x 242 cm. Image courtesy the artist, Tomio Koyama Gallery and M16 Art Space.
Thirdly, The Tokyo Art Beat ponders upon the ironic phenomenon whereby “marginality is becoming universal.” Although Matsui describes Micropop artists as “cultural immigrants” within Japan, they are being exhibited in an extended international touring exhibition funded by the Japan Foundation. To a certain extent, this seems to contradict the idea of these artists as marginalised subjects occupying a non-institutional position.
Exhibitions
“Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art” has toured for an impressive six years from 2009 to 2014, covering Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Hungary, Russia, Egypt, Finland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia.
Prior to “Winter Garden”, the exhibition “The Door into Summer” showed at the Art Tower Mito Gallery in 2007. Matsuri’s book The Age of Micropop: The Door into Summer was published at the same time.
Michele Chan
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