noon−1:30pm
Unearthing Cultural Layers
Supported by JINTEC Corporation
- Speakers: Justin Jesty, Yamaguchi Yozo, Yamamoto Hiroki, and others
Held at the ACK venue with the support of Jintec, the Kyushu-ha (Group Kyushu) Exhibition shines a spotlight on an art movement in postwar Japan that has long remained on the margins of cultural history, offering a reinterpretation of Japanese art history from a new perspective. Such rediscoveries of history and culture are not merely a reinterpretation of the past, but can be seen as a vital act of shaping the culture of the future. In this talk, we welcome Yozo Yamaguchi, curator of the Kyushu-ha Exhibition; Justin Jesty, a scholar of Japanese avant-garde art; and cultural studies researcher Hiroki Yamamoto to discuss how, much like unearthing layers of accumulated time, history and culture can be reinterpreted and given new meaning.
Speakers:
Justin Jesty (Associate Professor in Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington)
Yamaguchi Yozo (Independent Curator)
Yamamoto Hiroki (Cultural Studies Scholar)
and others
Speaker’s Profiles
- Justin Jesty
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Justin Jesty researches the relationship between art and social movements in postwar Japan. His book Art and Engagement in Early Postwar Japan (Cornell University Press 2018) was awarded the 2019 ASAP Book Prize by the Association for the Study of Arts of the Present and has been translated into Japanese and Russian. He is currently researching contemporary socially engaged art. In 2017 he edited a two-part special issue on the topic in FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism. He has also published several articles on postwar social documentary. All articles are available for download at
https://washington.academia.edu/JustinJesty -
- Yamaguchi Yozo
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Representative of Office Goncharov. Yamaguchi Yozo became independent in 2024 after serving as curator at the Fukuoka Art Museum and chief curator at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. He is currently engaged in planning and producing exhibitions spanning contemporary art to subculture. Recent roles include curator of Kyushu-ha in Tokyo (Mikke Gallery, Tokyo, 2024), project advisor for LINKS—Kikuhata Mokuma (2024–25), and supervisor for Giant Robots: The Core of Japanese Mecha Anime (2023–25, Fukuoka Art Museum and other venues).
- Yamamoto Hiroki
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Born in Chiba in 1986, is Cultural Studies Scholar and Associate Professor at Jissen Women’s University. Yamamoto graduated in Social Science at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo in 2010 and completed his MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts (UAL), London in 2013. In 2018, he received a PhD from the University of the Arts London. His publications include The History of Contemporary Art: Euro-America, Japan, and Transnational (Chuokoron-Shinsha, 2019), Media Culture in Transnational Asia: Convergences and Divergences (Rutgers University Press, 2020), Socially Engaged Public Art in East Asia: Space, Place, and Community in Action (Vernon Press, 2022), Art of the Post-Anthropocene (Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha, 2022), and De-Imperializing “Japanese Art History”: Art and Legacies of Empire in Modern and Contemporary Japan (co-edited with Nodoka Odawara, Getsuyosha, 2023).
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Live Stream URL
https://www.youtube.com/@artcollaborationkyoto4277 -