'Tokyo 1955-1970' Previewed in 'W' Magazine

DATE: 10/19/2012 | BY CORY REYNOLDS

The November issue of W magazine devotes a full page to The Museum of Modern Art's forthcoming exhibition catalog, Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant Garde.

Fan Zhong writes, "In 1964, the same year Bob Dylan released 'The Times They Are A-Changin,' Tokyo was having its own cultural accelerator pinned to the floor. Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant Garde, opening November 18 at New York's Museum of Modern Art (through Februrary 25, 2013) looks back at the multidisciplinary art that emerged during the city's tumultuous postwar era. A new artistic language was fomenting in the cultural chaos: from the work of Yoko Ono to the gritty photography of Moriyama Daido to the radical advances made by its architects, designers, and filmmakers. 'In less than 20 years, Japan went from complete devastation to having the world's second largest economy,' says Doryun Chong, the exhibition's organizer. 'That's a jarring experience. It was very confusing - but also exhilerating for artists.' There was no establishment - few galleries and no art market to speak of - so artists pollinated across disciplines and threw themselves into the fray, at times literally. 'They were really using their bodies for performances,' Chong says. 'That was where much of the avant-garde energy was.' The art that emerged reflected its place and time: 'The terms that we usually use, like figurative or abstract,' Chong says, 'don't even apply here.'