Seattle Art Museum Arnold Board Room 1300 First Ave, Seattle, WA 98101 206-625-8900 This lecture is free to attend but please RSVP here. Justin Jesty joins us to discuss Art and Engagement in Early Postwar Japan. Jesty's newest book reframes the history of art and its politics in Japan post-1945. It centers on a group of social realists on the radical left, a liberal arts education movement, and a regional avant-garde group split between ambition and local loyalty. In each case, Jesty examines writings and artworks to demonstrate how art became a medium for collectivity and social engagement. He reveals a shared, yet varied, effort to create a culture founded in amateur-professional interaction, expanded access to the tools of public authorship, and participatory cultural forms. Highlighting the transformational nature of the early postwar, Jesty contrasts it with the homogenization of the 1960s. About the Presenter Justin Jesty is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington. He is author in Japanese of several catalogue exhibitions for the Meguro Museum of Art and of articles in the Nishi Nihon Shinbun and Gendai Shiso (Contemporary Thought), and author in English of articles in Japan Forum and Art in America. |