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Popular Protest in Postwar Japan: The Antiwar Art of Shikoku Gorō

Overview

This exhibit explores the vibrant grassroots artistic culture of Hiroshima, known as the atomic bombed city. From 1949 through the 1990s, local artist Shikoku Gorō advanced a bold and democratic vision for cultural life by bringing poetry to the streets & mobilizing visual arts to represent the vitality, beauty, and complexity of Hiroshima. The exhibit explores a set of influential books, along with other examples of socially committed art. Shikoku and his circles of collaborators illuminated pathways to civic engagement for the citizens of Hiroshima—hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors), vets, & younger generations.

Each of the sections of “Popular Protest in Postwar Japan” explores a significant book created by Shikoku Gorō (1924-2014) in collaboration with networks of artists and citizens around Hiroshima. The last section presents examples of socially engaged art found in Hiroshima’s public spaces that aimed at mobilizing diverse audiences against war. The exhibit situates this grassroots art--books and related paintings, poems, posters, sketches, plays, and photographs--in the context of local and transnational social movements from 1945 to 2018.

How did Shikoku and other artists make their art and poetry visible and meaningful, despite their exclusion from the art and literary establishments?
How did these books, pictures, and poems challenge viewers to envision their hometown in different ways from the atomic desert imagined from afar?
How did Shikoku and other local activist artists advocate for social justice and oppose the nuclear arms race in the face of unresolved debates about Japan’s militarist and imperialist past?

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2. Overview This exhibit explores the vibrant grassroots artistic culture of Hiroshima, known as the atomic bombed city. From 1949 through the 1990s, local artist Shikoku Gorō advanced a bold and democratic vision for cultural life by bringing poetry to the streets & mobilizing visual arts to represent the vitality, beauty, and complexity of Hiroshima. The exhibit explores a set of influential books, along with other examples of socially committed art. Shikoku and his circles of collaborators illuminated pathways to civic engagement for the citizens of Hiroshima—hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors), vets, & younger generations.

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