Interview with Julian Ross
Mia Parnall
Julian Ross is co-curator of Community of Images: Japanese Moving Image Artists in the US, 1960s-1970s. Lee Stabert chats with him from his home in Amsterdam about what drew these Japanese artists across the world to New York City, the contemporary issues reflected in the featured works, and the power of cross-cultural collaboration.
So what can you tell me about the cultural scene in Japan in the 1960s?
It was a moment when different art forms were coming together. A younger generation of artists were emerging and collaborating with one another, and looking for different ways of exploring their artistic disciplines. For example, a lot of theater was beginning to be taken out onto the streets instead of being staged on stage. Musicians were exploring improvised music and electronic music. And similarly, film was being presented outside of the movie theater in smaller gallery environments, sometimes together with dancers and performers, and in bigger environments than a usual movie theater.
This was also a time when arts and politics were more overtly coming together. So you see a lot of filmmakers who are also activists documenting protests and featuring that in film. There are protests against the U.S./Japan Security Treaty, as Japanese land was being used by the U.S. military for U.S. foreign policy around the Cold War.
For Japanese artists, what access did they have to international work, including American and French avant-garde film?
It was much harder to see these films compared to what it's like today. In this period, there are theaters in Japan that show arthouse European cinema and independent American film, but they were select theaters and specific initiatives. There was one called the Art Theatre Guild; they had ten theaters across the country. You also have the Sōgetsu Art Center. This is a place where experimental music and theater was being presented. They also screened films: They had the first animation festival in Japan and the first experimental film festival in Japan. But it's not like it is today — most people are watching Japanese cinema and then the big titles that come out abroad.
“Many of the works are collaborative and emerged out of conversations and discoveries and encounters that took place. That's exciting. I don't think these are works that could have been made if they had just stayed at home in a familiar place — they had to take a deep dive into somewhere totally different.”
So obviously each of these artists has their own story. But can you talk about some of the forces that might have inspired young Japanese people in this era to travel to America? We just profiled one of the artists, Masanori Oe, and something he talked about was that this was a new opportunity to be able to travel after the post war period.
Exactly. It was a new opportunity. There were these initiatives like the Harvard University International Seminar and the Japan Society, based in the U.S., that were offering residencies for Japanese artists. There were artists from Japan going to the U.S. in the '50s, but basically they came from rich families. So people like Yoko Ono, Toshi Ichiyanagi, and Yayoi Kusama. But it became more affordable and there were more opportunities through these kinds of initiatives for people to travel to the U.S.
People were interested in the U.S. because in the post World War II years, the center for contemporary art was New York City, specifically. Whereas it was Paris in the 1920s and ’30s, in this period New York was where everything seemed to be happening.
Artists moved there to find people who were working on similar things and also to get recognition outside of their local context. I think for women, in particular, it was very important because Japan was — and still is — a very patriarchal society. So I think many [female] artists moved to the U.S. in the hope that they would be recognized in a way that they weren't getting recognized in Japan. And that's what happened to Yoko Ono, Yayoi Kusama, Shigeko Kubota, all these artists.
“I think all the questions around how to document protests and political activity — what's the difference between an activist film versus a creative experimental film — these kinds of questions I think still persist today and were very relevant back in the '60s.”
If someone is interested in American avant-garde film from this era, why should they be interested in this exhibit and its cross-cultural dialogue?
First of all, Japan had a rich, experimental film scene prior to all these filmmakers moving here. In a sense, it was through these people moving from Japan to the U.S. that American audiences became acquainted with Japanese experimental film and vice versa. [Artists] would then go back to Japan and screen American experimental films in these theaters and in these small art centers.
If you're interested in an American filmmaker or an artist like, for example, Alvin Lucier or Jud Yalkut, who are featured in this exhibition, you get a fuller picture of their life and their artistic practice. They were in touch with filmmakers from abroad, including Japan, and making work together. I think it's a pretty unique case where there's already this cross-cultural conversation taking place not just at bars and through conversations, but artistically.
John Cage, who was hugely influential in these post-war years for experimental arts and music, very much conceptualized his ideas around music on Japanese ideas of “Ma” [negative space]. So there was that kind of cross-cultural influence as well — not just of contemporary Japanese artists, but Japanese life and culture in general.
There are some strong connections between this artistic era and our contemporary moment. What would you say are some of those throughlines?
I think all the questions around how to document protests and political activity — what's the difference between an activist film versus a creative experimental film — these kinds of questions I think still persist today and were very relevant back in the '60s. Some of the works in this exhibit feature filmmakers exploring those questions.
The other thing is, when Japanese artists moved to the U.S., it's the first time they see themselves as an ethnic minority. Because in Japan, at that time and still today, there's mostly Japanese people. And maybe, for most people, it's impossible to tell whether you're Japanese or Korean or Chinese, so it becomes more like “Asian American.” This consciousness of identity and ethnicity really becomes a point of concern and interest for artists in Japan.
“Artists moved there to find people who were working on similar things and also to get recognition outside of their local context. I think for women, in particular, it was very important because Japan was — and still is — a very patriarchal society. So I think many [female] artists moved to the U.S. in the hope that they would be recognized in a way that they weren't getting recognized in Japan.”
And many of the female artists featured in the show are exploring feminism. And it's not that there wasn't feminism in Japan, of course, but I suppose in that moment, you're an ethnic minority and also you're a woman, so there's intersectionality emerging. You see that playing out with Shigeko Kubota, who, together with some other [female] artists, formed this group “Red, White, Yellow, and Black.”
Working on this project, I feel just nostalgia for something I didn't even experience. In these creative communities, you had to go someplace to experience something. You had to go to a theater. You had to go to an art group. Now we can experience everything through our phones — and that's an incredible gift — but there's also something lost when you're not in a room with people. And I think the cool thing about this exhibit is it's a room that you go to and something you experience with other people.
That's a nice way of putting it. Many of the featured works were originally presented in discotheques, like early clubs basically, and at protests. And we're really interested in this dialogue and communication taking place. Many of these artists from Japan who were moving to the U.S. initially didn't speak a word of English. So it was really another world. A few of them just had an inkling or, you know, one film that they made was reviewed positively by an American filmmaker or critic. That was enough for them to be convinced, okay, this is a place where I can finally get recognition or find kindred spirits.
These are the works that materialized out of that desire and the kindred spirits that they did find in the U.S. Many of the works are collaborative and emerged out of conversations and discoveries and encounters that took place. That's exciting. I don't think these are works that could have been made if they had just stayed at home in a familiar place — they had to take a deep dive into somewhere totally different. Hopefully the works are proof that it was worth taking such a kind of leap of faith.
“It was a moment when different art forms were coming together. A younger generation of artists were emerging and collaborating with one another, and looking for different ways of exploring their artistic disciplines.”
Are there any specific works in the show that have a special connection?
There are many, but for me, it's probably the first work that people will see when they enter the show: “Shelter 9999.” It's a work that was made by Japanese filmmaker Takahiko Iimura together with Alvin Lucier, the American sound artist. This collaborative work was a performance with film projection and presented in discotheques and even a church in Chicago.
For me, it was an exciting process to pull the pieces together because each time it was performed differently. We have some instructions, but there are things crossed out or changed every time. And we have many elements, but we're not sure if it's everything. We found some of the films in the New York Public Library in the Alvin Lucier collection and some in Takahiko Iimura’s studio. So just like with the works, one was in New York, one was in Tokyo. It's been really exciting to bring everything together and trace what this project was. ●
Julian Ross
Julian Ross is a researcher, curator and writer based in Amsterdam. He is co-programmer of Doc Fortnight at The Museum of Modern Art (2023-24) and co-programmer of the 69th Flaherty Seminar. Previously, he was programmer at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Locarno Film Festival, and guest programmer at Singapore International Film Festival. His curatorial work has been presented at Tate Modern, Art Institute of Chicago, e-flux Video & Film, Kunsthal Rotterdam, Eye Filmmuseum, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Harvard Film Archive and British Film Institute. He is an Assistant Professor at Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, where he is co-director of the interdisciplinary research centre ReCNTR. He is editorial board member of Collaborative Cataloging Japan and co-curator of the exhibition Community of Images.