{"id":1700,"date":"2018-08-04T15:55:53","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T06:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/_sys2024\/?p=1700"},"modified":"2018-08-09T18:52:23","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T09:52:23","slug":"fujita-in-the-1940s-tributes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/exhibition\/fujita-in-the-1940s-tributes\/","title":{"rendered":"Foujita in the 1940s: Tributes
The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts
2018.7.28-8.15"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ozawa Tsuyoshi Lab.\u00a0\u201cThe Return of Painter F, again\u201d\u30002018, photo: Shohei Noguchi<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A re-exploration ofTsuguharu Foujita with a focus on his work in the \u201840s\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone came into the classroom enthusing loudly about something exciting he had witnessed. If you go to the museum, you can see Tsuguji Fujita bow whenever someone puts 10 sen into the offertory box, he said. It was true. [\u2026] Next to the giant \u2018Final Fighting on Attu,\u2019 its creator Tsuguharu Foujita was standing up straight and motionless.\u201d (Gyoji Nomiyama, \u201cA Four Hundred Character Sketch (Yonhyaku-ji no dessan)\u201d 1978).<\/p>\n

This episode is from the time of the \u201cAll-out War Art Exhibition\u201d at the Tokyo Prefectural Art Museum (which later became the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum) in September 1943, where Foujita exhibited \u201cFinal Fighting on Attu,\u201d a large work that he voluntarily made and donated to the army once it was completed. The lines quoted above are the beginning of an essay about Foujita by Gyoji Nomiyama, who was enrolled at Tokyo Fine Arts School (now the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Tokyo University of the Arts) at the time of writing. It is at once the text that greets the visitor at the entrance to this exhibition.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(left)\u00a0Tomoko\u00a0Yoneda \u201cPath \u2014 Path to the cliff where Japanese committed suicide after the American Landings, Saipan\u201d 2003 \/ (right)\u00a0Tomoko\u00a0Yoneda\u00a0\u201cFujita\u2019s Glasses \u2013 Viewing a telegram he sent to GHQ officer Sherman who helped him leave Japan 2015, photo: Shohei Noguchi<\/small><\/p>\n

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Tsuyoshi Ozawa had made Foujita the subject matter of his \u201cThe Return of Painter F\u201d exhibition, and here, in the ground floor exhibition, space Ozawa\u2019s Lab presented \u201cThe Return of Painter F, again.\u201d Six monitors on a minitruck illustrate various events involving Foujita between September 1941 and his departure from Japan in March \u201949. The videos of these reconstructed events were shot at and around the respective original locations (such as in front of Mitsukoshi Ginza, the venue of the private view of the \u201cFutsuin junkai nihonga (“French Indochina Japanese Art Exhibition\u201d tour)\u201d exhibition; the site of the former Tokyo Prefectural Art Museum; and the remains of Foujita\u2019s house and evacuation home), all set on a stage in the form of the minitruck\u2019s loading platform. Especially funny (well, sorry!) was the \u201dFinal Fighting on Attu 3D version\u201d in scene 2. It was precisely a \u201cliving painting\u201d featuring students in military guise complete with paper uniforms, helmets and bayonets. The gangway of the Pan Am airplane that Foujita boarded to bid farewell to Japan was recreated using a silver stepladder, and the way it was shaking and wobbling on the truck\u2019s platform evoked ambivalent feelings as it looked totally unstable and at once just downright ridiculous.<\/p>\n

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O JUN\u00a0\u201cSaigyo ya Saigyo ya Tabishi Koromo wo Nuishi Hari, Izuko e Ittemo Kaerubeshi\u201d 2018, photo: Shohei Noguchi<\/small><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Exhibited at the stair landing was O JUN\u2019s work themed on Fujita\u2019s sewing kit, and on the first floor, works by Haruko Sasakawa illustrating the sky as it must have appeared to the soldiers in Foujita\u2019s war paintings; Kota Hirakawa\u2019s versions of Foujita\u2019s \u201cCompatriots on Saipan Island Remain Faithful to the End\u201d and \u201cThe Fall of Singapore (Bukit Timah),\u201d painted entirely in black; Tomoko Yoneda\u2019s photographs of Foujita\u2019s spectacles and the path up to the Banzai Cliff on Saipan island; Makoto Murata\u2019s paintings of the upper half of Foujita\u2019s \u201cTenno heika Ise no jingu ni gosanpai (The Japanese emperor worshipping at Ise Shrine);\u201d and Takayuki Akimoto\u2019s works painted onto small canvases using special materials so that the faces of soldiers who died in the war gradually appear over time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(center)\u00a0Kota\u00a0Hirakawa \u00a0\u00a0\u201cTrinitite \u2013 The Fall of Singapore (Bukit Timah) 2018 <\/small><\/p>\n

(both sides)\u00a0 Takayuki\u00a0Akimoto\u00a0\u201c KA \u201d 1997-98, photo: Shohei Noguchi<\/small><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cFinal Fighting on Attu\u201d is shown at Ueno for the first time in 75 years. The return of this masterpiece to Ueno is certainly also an occasion for the spirit of Tsuguharu Foujita to return to the Tokyo Fine Arts School that he loved so much. This is a quiet yet dense exhibition that inspires contemplation on the past and the present, as the age that Foujita lived in recurs here once again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ozawa Tsuyoshi Lab.\u00a0\u201cThe Return of Painter F, again\u201d\u30002018, photo: Shohei Noguchi   A re-exploration ofTsu […]","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":1721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[73],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1700"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1794,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions\/1794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}