Japanese cinematic and artistic experiments gained an international recognization during the 1950s. The excitement and attention was noticed in Europe and especially in France through articles and critics published in “ les Cahiers du cinema” . The future characters of the “Nouvelle Vague” were already praising the potentials of the content and the form of those Japanese images eventually with “Rashomon” . Directed by Kurosawa , the movie released in 1950 introduced to the western world the Japanese cinema. And won consecutively the golden lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Academy Honorary Award at the 24th Academy Awards. As a consequence, the number of films produced, and the cinema audience reached a peak in the 1960s and emerged as long as the Japanese new wave movement, major avant garde filmmakers and fine artist such as Takahiko iimura: and Toshio Matsumoto moving from documentary into fiction film, to experimental videos.
PIONEERS OF VIDEO ART IN JAPAN
‘MONA LISA ‘ TOSHIO MATSUMOTO 1973
Toshio Matsumoto is a pioneer of avant-garde movies and video in Japan. Graduated from Tokyo University he first broke out the scene with abstract and experimental short was film called “Song of the Stones “ released in 1963. Toshio Matsumoto’s best known film indeed, still remain the 1969 masterpiece “Funeral Parade of Roses” . Most of his works were financed by The Art Theatre Guild. The well known subsidiary of TOHO, the Japanese film, theatre production & distributor compagny, that seeked to promote independent filmakers and surprising experimental materials, that bigger compagnies wouldn’t financed.
INTERVIEW WITH MATSUMOTO “COURT-CIRCUIT” AIRED ON ARTE (3/9/8)
Unfortunatly , it was transmitted in japanese .
TOSHIO MATSUMOTO ” ENGRAM” 1987
TAKAHIKO IIMURA
Takahiko Iimura has been a pioneer artist of Japanese experimental film and video, working with film since l960 and with video since 1970 while residing in New York and Tokyo. He is a widely established international artist, having numerous solo exhibitions in major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum, New York, Anthology Film Archives, New York, Centre George Pompidou, Paris, the National Gallery Jeu de Paume, Paris, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo in addition to an artist residency at the German Academy of Arts, Berlin, and Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation Study Center, Bellagio, Italy.
(sources http://www.takaiimura.com)
映画的黙想のために＊FOR FILMIC MEDITATION
ヨーコ・オノ：これはここにない＊YOKO ONO : THIS IS NOT HERE
A document of the Yoko Ono retrospective art exhibition with John Lennon as guest artist, “This is not here” held at Everson Museum, New York, 1971.
1971, 18min. English and Japanese versions on the sound track, NTSC/Region ALL
Home use : US$150. (Institutional use US$400)
ISBN-13: 978-4-901181-26-6
ISBN-10: 4-901181-26-2
Written by D.M
ARTE VIDEO 