After the Second World War, one of the largest Japanese communities in Western Europe emerged in Düsseldorf in the course of Japan’s economic expansion. At the same time, Düsseldorf developed into one of the most important centers for contemporary art. Examples include art movements from the 1960s to the 1980s such as Zero, Fluxus, Conceptual Art and Neo-Expressionism. Since then, not only Japanese businessmen but also Japanese artists have been attracted to Düsseldorf and NRW.
Since the modernization in the late 19th century until the present, “Japanese art” has developed mainly in the interplay between demarcation and opening to Western art as “the other”. In this respect, whether consciously or unconsciously, the reflection of one’s own cultural identity has been an inevitable process for Japanese artists working in the “West”.
In a sequence of exhibitions and actions, the project “Resonances of DiStances” addresses the individual “borders” and transcultural experiences of Japanese artists who were or are active in Düsseldorf and NRW. The exhibitions create a resonance space for these unique experiences through concepts such as “nature and civilization,” “center and periphery,” “self and other,” “tradition and reinterpretation,” and “memory and myth”. The project offers the opportunity to explore the question of what is “Japanese” in relation to the “mainstream” of Western art.
Parallel to the exhibitions and actions, the project will be accompanied online. Films, events, exhibitions and interviews with the artists will thus be successively made publicly accessible, regardless of the status of the pandemic.
