Book ID: CBB986972023

Tsuchi: Earthy Materials in Contemporary Japanese Art (2022)

unapi

Bert Winther-Tamaki (Author)


University of Minnesota Press


Publication Date: 2022
Physical Details: 438
Language: English

Collectively referred to by the word tsuchi, earthy materials such as soil and clay are prolific in Japanese contemporary art. Highlighting works of photography, ceramics, and installation art, Bert Winther-Tamaki explores the many aesthetic manifestations of tsuchi and their connection to the country’s turbulent environmental history, investigating how Japanese artists have continually sought a passionate and redemptive engagement with earth.In the seven decades following 1955, Japan has experienced severe environmental degradation as a result of natural disasters, industrial pollution, and nuclear irradiation. Artists have responded to these ongoing catastrophes through modes of “mudlarking” and “muckracking,” utilizing raw elements from nature to establish deeper contact with the primal resources of their world and expose its unfettered contamination. Providing a comparative assessment of more than seventy works of art, this study reveals Japanese artists’ engagement with a richly diverse repertoire of earthy materialities, elucidating their aesthetic properties, changing conditions, and cultural significance. By focusing on the role of tsuchi as a convergence point for a wide range of creative practices, this book offers a critical reassessment of contemporary art in Japan and its intrinsic relationship to the environment. Situating art within the context of ecology and urbanization, Tsuchi shows artists striving to explore and reprocess raw forms of earth beneath the corruptions of human activity.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB986972023/

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Authors & Contributors
Avenell, Simon
Black, Megan
Johnson, Matthew P.
Mitchell, Mary X.
Sarah Teasley
Colin Hoag
Concepts
Environmental pollution
Environmental degradation
Nuclear reactors
Environmental history
Disasters; catastrophes
Nuclear power; atomic energy
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
Places
Japan
United States
Virgin Islands (U.S.)
Lesotho
Czechoslovakia
South Africa
Institutions
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; Partial Test Ban Treaty; Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963)
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