Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with the phenomenon of high school calligraphy competitions in early 21st-century Japan, with particular focus on its two paradoxical dimensions of collaboration (shift from individual creation to team work) and competition.

Paper long abstract:

During the early years of the 21st century, Japanese calligraphy enjoyed a revival through the craze for high school calligraphy performance competitions, known as shodô kôshien. Popularity reached its peak in 2010 with the film Shodô girls !!, which enjoyed international acclaim.

In these competitions, loosely inspired by the high school baseball equivalent (from which they drew the name kôshien), teams vie against one another to produce a calligraphic work in a limited time. The result is then assessed by a jury, with the subsequent attribution of prizes.

A short introduction will first inscribe these competitions into the broader perspective of calligraphy performances.

Our first point of interest are the new conditions established by calligraphy competitions. How are teams created ? How is the attribution of prizes decided ?

We will then put the notion of collaborative creation into historical perspective : collaboration was indeed common practice in pre-Meiji calligraphy, but was then superseded by a Western conception of artistic creation as a solitary process. Did calligraphy competitions put collaboration back on the map, or did they give rise to a whole new concept ?

In a last part, we will broaden the scope of our study to the theoretical questions raised by calligraphy : are prize-winning high-school calligraphies works of art ? And if so, who is the author ? What place is there for individual artistic development within the team framework ?

Our conclusion will interrogate the evolution of this movement : is the popularity of shodô kôshien sustainable in the long run ? What happens to calligraphy performers once they leave high-school ?

Paper short abstract:

I will explore the influence of Japanese matchbox labels on the work by artists who were essential to the collaborative spirit of the 1960s. Akasegawa Genpei, who stressed the idea of collectivity, and Yokoo Tadanori, who praised the anonymity of the craftsmen in opposition to modernist authorship.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I will outline the influence of Japanese matchbox labels on popular culture from the end of the 19th Century to the 1970s. I will demonstrate how this apparently insignificant object changed the concept of design in Japan from the mid-1960s, contributing to the appearance of a Japanese style "pop design" perfectly recognizable even today. Reacting against modernism and abstraction, several artists of that period turned to the exploration of a "traditional popular culture" and directed their attention towards Meiji period matchbox labels, that were mostly and anonymously made by craftsmen who had to adjust their skills to the newly emerging sectors after the industrialization of Japan.

After considering some socio-economic issues related to the matchbox industry, I will focus on the work by artists of the 1960s such as Akasegawa Genpei and Yokoo Tadanori, whose poster designs were inspired by matchbox labels, not only visually but also conceptually. Yokoo Tadanori praised the anonymity of the craftsmen in opposition to modernist authorship and Akasegawa Genpei created the Alliance of Revolutionary Match Activists, thus stressing the idea of collectivity. Both artists, whose art became a turning point in the aesthetics of Japanese design, were also active in the underground theatre movement, and they became essential figures to understand the collaborative spirit of the 1960s and 1970s.

Between these collaborations, I will focus on the posters that Yokoo Tadanori designed for the theatre troupe Tenjo Sajiki, founded by Terayama Shuji, whose works of poetry, cinema, and theatre also use elements such as matches and matchboxes. Finally, I will analyze the link between matchboxes and art under the light of critic Ishiko Junzo, who stressed the importance of matchbox labels in the formation of a kitsch spirit that is essential to understand Japanese popular culture.