Paper short abstract:

This essay examines Hiroshima-based artist, Goto Yasuka’s (b.1982), contemporary portraits as historical portals that encourage viewers to imagine Japanese war painters as they were active in the 1940s, thereby making it difficult to support the notion that the painters were only “being artists.”

Paper long abstract:

Long Story Short: Militarism and Japan’s Art Historical Present

Goto Yasuka, a Hiroshima-based artist, born in 1982, has created portraits of renowned Japanese artists such as Fujita Tsuguharu, Miyamoto Saburō, and Koiso Ryohei, who were active as war artists or military men in the Fifteen-Year War, raising the sensitive issue of war-time responsibility that many in Japan would rather evade. Over two hundred visual artists were sent to the front between 1938-1945, many of whom resumed their artistic lives after the war with ease. Retrospectives on these artists often exclude paintings done during the war (or re-situate the artists as unfortunate victims of the times), but I argue Goto’s portraits return us to these historical elisions, thereby raising questions about how the current rise in Japanese nationalism is built upon the refusal to accept responsibility for Japanese Imperialism and all its violent consequences. Her works are not concerned with determining the degree of complicity for each artist; on the contrary, her works illustrate the quotidian nature of each artist-soldier’s activities, how they shared time together, how they survived, and how they created. At the same time, these small, everyday acts of painting, smoking, and existing on colonized land were still very much a part of the Japan’s fascist movement and enabled and abetted the violence and oppression that characterized Japan’s Fifteen-year war. Goto’s contemporary portraits invite viewers to learn more about each artist’s individual stories, including, rather than erasing, their involvement with fascism. Set within the contemporary gallery space, the framed artworks ask us to be critical about how these artists are situated in the present. This essay examines Goto’s contemporary portraits as historical portals that encourage viewers to imagine Japanese war painters as they were active in the 1940s, thereby making it difficult to support the notion that the painters were only “being artists.” By extension, I argue, Goto’s portrayal of these artists asks viewers to reconsider the “passive” role of the population as a whole during the war, and perhaps edges some to consider what a “neutral” political position might be risking in Japan today.