The renowned Japanese art critic Noi Sawaragi will situate Japanese art in the specific geographical context of Japan, where natural disasters befall frequently and wreak havoc, and explicate his theory on the relationship between the uniqueness of Japanese art and a country that is never freed from the fear of disaster. Professor Sawaragi will touch upon The 500 Arhats, an immense breathtaking work that can be seen as Takashi Murakami’s response to the 3.11 tsunami and earthquake, as well as discussing issues in Japanese anime and manga culture in the panel.
Moderator and Translator: Lim Kah Wai (Independent Filmmaker, Film Programme Curator)
Free Admission; please register to secure your seat
*The lecture will be conducted in Japanese, with consecutive interpretation into Cantonese available
About Noi Sawaragi
Born in 1962, Noi Sawaragi graduated from the Culture Department in the Faculty of Literature at Doshisha University and began work as a critic in Tokyo. His first collection of critical essays, Simulationism prompted broad discussion as a work that guided cultural trends in the 90s. People like Takashi Murakami, Kenji Yanobe and Norimizu Ameya curated challenging exhibitions at the same time.
In his most famous work, Japan, Modernity, and Art, Sawaragi refers to post-war Japan a “bad place” and questions the fundamentals of Japanese art history and art criticism. He has authored numerous other publications including War and the World’s Fair, a critical re-examination of the 1970 Osaka World’s Fair, and two volumes, Post-Art Criticism and Earthquake Art Criticism, written in response to the 3.11 Great East Japan Earthquake.
Noi Sawaragi is now a professor in the Tama Art University Art Faculty, and a member of Institute for Art Anthropology, Tama Art University.
