青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

Artist-women briefly enjoyed prominence in the Japanese avant-garde art scene of the 1950s and 1960s, helped in part by the influx of the Art Informel abstract art movement and its attendant critical vocabulary from Europe. These same women would, however, be patently excluded from critical discourse once Action Painting entered from the United States, prompting Japan’s male critics to take to the concept of “action”—with its ties to dynamism, strength, and other such “masculine” qualities—and bring about a renewal of traditional gender hierarchies.

“Anti-action” is the key concept in this catalogue and companion volume to an exhibition reexamining the output of Japanese artist-women in those decades. Based on the gender-studies perspectives put forward by art historian Nakajima Izumi (an exhibition contributor) in Anti-Action (2019), the book presents some 120 works by fourteen artists including Kusama Yayoi, Tanaka Atsuko, and Fukushima Hideko. An “Anti-Action Chronology,” an interview with pioneering feminist art historian Griselda Pollock, and essays on such topics as criticism, materials, and gender balance in Japanese art exhibitions deepen the exploration and analysis of artist-women’s singular endeavors to counter the dominance of “action” with alternative forms of expression.

Artists featured (in order of appearance)
Akana Keiko, Akutagawa (Madokoro) Saori, Enomoto Kazuko, Emi Kinuko, Kusama Yayoi, Shiraga Fujiko, Tada Minami, Tanaka Atsuko, Tanaka Tazuko, Tabe Mitsuko, Fukushima Hideko, Miyawaki Aiko, Mori Mami, Yamazaki Tsuruko