Nakamura Hiroshi: Art and Political Crises in Postwar Japan

Namiko Kunimoto, Assistant Professor of Japanese Art History, Ohio State University

This presentation explores the artwork of Nakamura Hiroshi (b. 1932) in terms of gender, nation, and political contention in postwar Japan. In the early 1950s, the working man was an idealized symbol for those who sought to legitimize a new democratic, consumer society in Japan, as well as for those who fought to establish a socialist form of government. In this context, the representation of the male body became an implicit battleground in art and visual culture. An examination of Nakamura’s oeuvre shows how he negotiated the shifting political spectrum through a gendered lens that constructed the male body as a site of labor, struggle, and active movement.

Sponsored by: Department of History, Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs, East Asian Studies, Department of Japanese Studies, History of Art and Architecture Department, Academic Enrichment Fund