A journey through Asian art
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The performative works of Atsuko Tanaka’s Electric Dress and Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece both promoted ‘gesture’ over the end result. They were not ‘object’ artworks that could hang in a gallery.
Create an artwork that involves gesture and focuses on the creative process, instead of the outcome. How did you interact with your audience? How did you use your own body?
- Shozo Shimamoto cut into his painting. He saw beauty in the ruin and he said of the work, “Something great has been accomplished.” What did he mean by this?
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Tatsumi Hijikata created Butoh form of dance/performance. Yumi Umiumare explains it as a form of continuous movement based on what you cannot do which challenged the idea of South Asian calm and steady movement, and European idea of heading towards an ‘ending’.
What did she mean when she said that it was good to misunderstand because it opens another possibility? Would you welcome a reading of your work that “misunderstood”?
Resources - Shozo Shimamoto
- A short article about Shozo Shimamoto by Katherine Tong in ArtAsiaPacific magazine
- Website of the Shozo Shimamoto Association
- YouTube clip of a collage of still images of a Shozo Shimamoto performance in Italy
- Yoko Ono
- Butoh
- Tatsumi Hijikata
- Yumi Umiumare
- Atsuko Tanaka