By the 1960s, developments in communications and travel technology connected Japan and the rest of the world to Marshall McLuhan’s “Global Village.” Building upon the transnational collaborations and connections of the prewar period and the 1950s, artists in the 1960s worked in a much larger international field of contemporary art than had previously existed. Mediated through travel, print technology, and emerging forms of mass communication, this expanding art world allowed artists to participate in an international dialogue. Tadasky, a pioneer of Op Art, and Ay-O, a key member of Fluxus, are two examples of international contemporaneity in this exhibition.

           Although the contributions of artists from politically marginal nations such as Japan and Canada are often framed as being derivative of artists from centres such as New York and Paris, Resounding Spirit demonstrates the international context of art being produced in Japan, as well as its distinctive innovations within its national borders.

           Signal Works:  Nobuya Abe’s Writing in White, encaustic on wood (1963); Tadasaky’s (Tadasuke Kuwayama) Not for Darts (Concentricity), acrylic on canvas (1964); Nobu Fukui Optical Square, acrylic on canvas (1966); Takeshi Kawashima’s New York W2, acrylic on canvas (1971); and Ushio Shinohara’s Combs, serigraph (1969).