Reflex
Published on 1. June 2003
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-0-9542648-6-4 (ISBN)
Description
Bringing together the work of forty young artists, Reflex seeks to present the voice of young Japan through their own unique brand of self-portraiture. From a gay sumo wrestling couple, subverting the usual masculinity of the Manga culture, to amateur photography of Geishas, there are bewildering and fantastic concepts at play here, highlighting the pressures at work in Japanese teenage minds.
For Japan the existence of the 20th century was announced apocalyptically by the hydrogen bomb at Hiroshima. Whatever clothes the Emperor wore that day, they were useless to him now. And no sooner had the revelation of Western civilisation been so awesomely visited upon the Rising Sun than came the 21st century, gizmoid and insensible, surreal and plastic.
In Reflex, 40 urban young artists and performers realise the manifestations of modern Japan through their own unique brand of self-portraiture. Superficially many of them seem simply weird - two gay Sumo wrestlers fighting in a bathhouse, for instance, thereby subverting the parameters of traditional, male-orientated Manga culture, or amateur photography of Geishas and phallic steam trains. But they are more than that.
By identifying six distinct Japanese reflexes to the 21st century, namely the Kid Reflex, Naked Reflex, Manga Reflex, Group Reflex, Amateur Reflex and the Imaged Reflex, these artists have provided, in a myriad of self-representations, the concerns of young Japan, shocking to anyone ignorant of the pressures at work in their society.
The amateur auteur seeking to explain; the group methodology seeking to conform; the liberated innocence of nakedness at odds with nudity; the mass-market phenomenon of a strictured teenage audience; the professional artist and above all, the powerful Manga culture - these are bewildering and fantastic concepts, illustrated by images both sublime and confusing.
For Japan the existence of the 20th century was announced apocalyptically by the hydrogen bomb at Hiroshima. Whatever clothes the Emperor wore that day, they were useless to him now. And no sooner had the revelation of Western civilisation been so awesomely visited upon the Rising Sun than came the 21st century, gizmoid and insensible, surreal and plastic.
In Reflex, 40 urban young artists and performers realise the manifestations of modern Japan through their own unique brand of self-portraiture. Superficially many of them seem simply weird - two gay Sumo wrestlers fighting in a bathhouse, for instance, thereby subverting the parameters of traditional, male-orientated Manga culture, or amateur photography of Geishas and phallic steam trains. But they are more than that.
By identifying six distinct Japanese reflexes to the 21st century, namely the Kid Reflex, Naked Reflex, Manga Reflex, Group Reflex, Amateur Reflex and the Imaged Reflex, these artists have provided, in a myriad of self-representations, the concerns of young Japan, shocking to anyone ignorant of the pressures at work in their society.
The amateur auteur seeking to explain; the group methodology seeking to conform; the liberated innocence of nakedness at odds with nudity; the mass-market phenomenon of a strictured teenage audience; the professional artist and above all, the powerful Manga culture - these are bewildering and fantastic concepts, illustrated by images both sublime and confusing.
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Mark Sanders was a founding member and acting Arts Editor for the popular style and arts magazine Dazed & Confused throughout the 1990s graduating to the Senior Editor of the Dazed Publishing Groups flagship title Another Magazine from 2000 until 2006. In the late 1990s he was active in other areas of publishing in Europe and the United States. Amongst other roles, he edited a number of books on art and fashion as the Commissioning Editor for Contemporary Culture for Phaidon Press. In 2001 he formed the arts commissioning agency RS&A Ltd. launching internationally renowned arts project The Art of Chess in 2003, followed by specially commissioned projects by a number of the world's leading contemporary artists including Yayoi Kusama, Damien Hirst, Barbara Kruger and Maurizio Cattelan. Mark is also a recognised curator and historian in reportage photography and has built museum quality collections on the Cuban Revolution, Apartheid South Africa and the Student Protest Movements of the 1960s - exhibiting in leading institutions including the International Centre of Photography, New York and the Garage Centre of Contemporary Culture, Moscow.
Kyoichi Tsuzuki was born in Tokyo in 1956. From 1976 to 1986, he was a freelance editor for the influential men's fashion and lifestyle magazines Popeye and Brutus, where he wrote on contemporary art, design, urban living, and related topics. From 1989 to 1992, he published Art Random (Kyoto Shoin), a 102-volume series covering 1980s trends in global contemporary art. He continues to write and edit works on contemporary art, architecture, photography, design, and more. In 1993, he released the photobook Tokyo Style (Kyoto Shoin), which depicts the living spaces of Tokyoites in a raw, unfiltered context; in 1997, he received the Kimura Ihei Award for his photobook Roadside Japan (Aspect, 1997), which marked the start of a still-ongoing project to document roadside subjects both in Japan and abroad.
Kyoichi Tsuzuki was born in Tokyo in 1956. From 1976 to 1986, he was a freelance editor for the influential men's fashion and lifestyle magazines Popeye and Brutus, where he wrote on contemporary art, design, urban living, and related topics. From 1989 to 1992, he published Art Random (Kyoto Shoin), a 102-volume series covering 1980s trends in global contemporary art. He continues to write and edit works on contemporary art, architecture, photography, design, and more. In 1993, he released the photobook Tokyo Style (Kyoto Shoin), which depicts the living spaces of Tokyoites in a raw, unfiltered context; in 1997, he received the Kimura Ihei Award for his photobook Roadside Japan (Aspect, 1997), which marked the start of a still-ongoing project to document roadside subjects both in Japan and abroad.