Book Section
Reiko Tomii traces the evolution of Japanese collectivism since the 1960s. From art groups connected to dantai, to postwar shūdan and performative networks, she proposes the notion of ‘operation’ to describe artists’ social labour, alongside ‘expression’ to demonstrate how strategic alliances forged modern and contemporary art infrastructures. Through theory and historical examples, she argues that collectivism merges aesthetic and social practice in Japanese modernisms.
Keywords: collectivism; Japan; expression; operation; strategic alliances; dantai collectivism; kōi; shūdan collectivism
Rights: © by the author(s). Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Part of Thinking Collectives / Collective Thinking Containing:
Thinking Collectives/Collective Thinking: Introduction / Eva Bentcheva, Annie Jael Kwan, Ming Tiampo
Questionnaire on Collective Practices: December 2022–March 2023 / Gudskul: Collective Study and Contemporary Art Ecosystem, Mai Ling, Nhà Sàn Collective, Projek Rabak, Republic of the Other, Tomorrow Girls Troop
what kind of we can we be?: collective futures / various contributors
what kind of we could we be?: the poetics of we / various contributors
Thinking Operationally: Collectivism in Modern Japan and Its Contemporary Evolution / Reiko Tomii
Artist-Curator Collectives in Southeast Asia / Eva Bentcheva
‘The Only Art Form that Works’: Reflections on Collectivity from South Korea [2023] / Soyoon Ryu
what kind of we could we be?: collective thinking by collectives / various contributors
Title
Thinking Operationally
Subtitle
Collectivism in Modern Japan and Its Contemporary Evolution
Author(s)
Reiko Tomii
Identifier
https://doi.org/10.37050/wpc-co-01_05
Description
Reiko Tomii traces the evolution of Japanese collectivism since the 1960s. From art groups connected to dantai, to postwar shūdan and performative networks, she proposes the notion of ‘operation’ to describe artists’ social labour, alongside ‘expression’ to demonstrate how strategic alliances forged modern and contemporary art infrastructures. Through theory and historical examples, she argues that collectivism merges aesthetic and social practice in Japanese modernisms.
Is Part Of
Thinking Collectives / Collective Thinking
Place
Berlin
Publisher
ICI Berlin Press
Date
28 October 2025
Subject
collectivism
Japan
expression
operation
strategic alliances
dantai collectivism
kōi
shūdan collectivism
Rights
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Language
en-GB
page start
59
page end
76
Source
Thinking Collectives / Collective Thinking, ed. by Eva Bentcheva, Annie Jael Kwan, and Ming Tiampo, Worlding Public Cultures (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2025), pp. 59–76

References

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  • Tezuka, Miwako, ‘Jikken Kōbō and Takiguchi Shūzō: The New Deal Collectivism of 1950s Japan’, Positions, 21.2 (2013), pp. 351–81 <https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-2018283>
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  • Tomii, Reiko, ‘After the “Descent to the Everyday”: Japanese Collectivism from Hi Red Center to The Play, 1964–1973’, in Collectivism After Modernism, ed. by Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette (University of Minnesota Press, 2007), pp. 44–75
  • Tomii, Reiko, ‘Introduction: Collectivism in Twentieth-Century Japanese Art with a Focus on Operational Aspects of Dantai’, Positions, 21.2 (Spring 2013), pp. 225–67 <https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-2018256>
  • Tomii, Reiko, ‘An Experiment in Collectivism: Gutai’s Prewar Origin and Postwar Evolution’, in Gutai: Splendid Playground, exh. cat., ed. by Ming Tiampo and Alexandra Munroe (Guggenheim Museum, 2013)
  • Tomii, Reiko, Radicalism in the Wilderness: International Contemporaneity and 1960s Art in Japan (MIT Press, 2016)
  • Tomii, Reiko, ‘Localizing Socially Engaged Art: Some Observations on Collective Operations in Prewar and Postwar Japan’, FIELD, 7 (Spring 2017) <https://field-journal.com/issue-7/localizing-socially-engaged-art-some-observations-on-collective-operations-in-prewar-and-postwar-japan/> [accessed 14 March 2025]
  • Tomii, Reiko, ‘“A Test Tube” of New Art: Naiqua and the Rental Gallery System in 1960s Japan’, Afterall, 47 (Spring/Summer 2019)
  • Tomii, Reiko, ‘Collectivism in Japan Reconsidered: Exploring Its Operational DNA in the Spirit of DIY in the Prewar and Postwar Periods’, Between Collectivism and Individualism: Japanese Avant-Garde in the 1950s and the 1960s, exh. cat. (Zachęta — National Gallery of Art and The Japan Foundation, 2021)
  • Tomii, Reiko, ‘Psychophysiology Research Institute (1969–1970): Envisioning an “Invisible Museum”’, in Charting Space: The Cartographies of Conceptual Art, ed. by Elize Mazadiego (Manchester University Press, 2023), pp. 158–81
  • Wang, Victor, Performance Histories from East Asia: 1960s–1990s, exh. cat. (David Roberts Art Foundation, 2018)
  • Yoshida Yoshie, ‘Matsuzawa Yutaka: Yami o tōtetsu suru kyōdōtai’, Bijutsu techō, 360 (November 1972), pp. 5–11; in English as ‘A Community That Penetrates the Darkness’, trans. by Reiko Tomii <https://artplatform.go.jp/resources/readings/R202228> [accessed 15 March 2025]
  • Yoshiko, Shimada, William Marotti, and Peter Alexander van der Meijden, Niruvāna kara katasutorofī e: Matsuzawa Yutaka to kyokūkan no komyūn = From Nirvana to Catastrophe: Matsuzawa Yutaka and his ‘Commune in Imaginary Space’, exh. cat. (Ota Fine Arts, 2017)

Cite as: Reiko Tomii, ‘Thinking Operationally: Collectivism in Modern Japan and Its Contemporary Evolution’, in Thinking Collectives / Collective Thinking, ed. by Eva Bentcheva, Annie Jael Kwan, and Ming Tiampo, Worlding Public Cultures (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2025), pp. 59-76 <https://doi.org/10.37050/wpc-co-01_05>