This text refer to question.
Godzilla’s grandchildren
In Japan there is no kudos in going to jail for your art. Bending the rules, let alone breaking them, is largely taboo. That was one reason Toshinori Mizuno was terrified as he worked undercover at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear-power plant, trying to get the shot that shows him in front of the mangled third reactor holding up a referee’s red card. He was also terrified of the radiation, which registered its highest reading where he took the photograph. The only reason he did not arouse suspicion, he says, is because he was in regulation radiation kit. And in Japan people rarely challenge a man in uniform.
Mr. Mizuno is part of ChimPom, a six-person collective of largely unschooled artists who have spent a lot of time getting into tight spots since the disaster, and are engagingly thoughtful about the results.
It is easy to dismiss ChimPom’s work as a publicity stunt. But the artists’ actions speak at least as loudly as their images. There is a logic to their seven years of guerrilla art that has become clearer since the nuclear disaster of March 11th 2011. In fact, Noi Sawaragi, a prominent art critic, says they may be hinting at a new direction in Japanese contemporary art.
Radiation and nuclear annihilation have suffused Japan’s subculture since the film Gojira (the Japanese Godzilla) in 1954. The two themes crop up repeatedly in manga and anime cartoons.
Other young artists are ploughing similar ground. Kota Takeuchi, for instance, secretly took a job at Fukushima Dai-ichi and is recorded pointing an angry finger at the camera that streams live images of the site. Later he used public news conferences to pressure Tepco, operator of the plant, about the conditions of its workers inside. His work, like ChimPom’s, blurs the distinction between art and activism.
Japanese political art is unusual and the new subversiveness could be a breath of fresh air; if only anyone noticed. The ChimPom artists have received scant coverage in the stuffy arts pages of the national newspapers. The group held just one show of Mr. Mizuno’s reactor photographs in Japan. He says: “The timing has not been right. The media will just want to make the work look like a crime.”
Mr. Mizuno is part of ChimPom, a six-person collective of largely unschooled artists who have spent a lot of time getting into tight spots since the disaster, and are engagingly thoughtful about the results.
It is easy to dismiss ChimPom’s work as a publicity stunt. But the artists’ actions speak at least as loudly as their images. There is a logic to their seven years of guerrilla art that has become clearer since the nuclear disaster of March 11th 2011. In fact, Noi Sawaragi, a prominent art critic, says they may be hinting at a new direction in Japanese contemporary art.
Radiation and nuclear annihilation have suffused Japan’s subculture since the film Gojira (the Japanese Godzilla) in 1954. The two themes crop up repeatedly in manga and anime cartoons.
Other young artists are ploughing similar ground. Kota Takeuchi, for instance, secretly took a job at Fukushima Dai-ichi and is recorded pointing an angry finger at the camera that streams live images of the site. Later he used public news conferences to pressure Tepco, operator of the plant, about the conditions of its workers inside. His work, like ChimPom’s, blurs the distinction between art and activism.
Japanese political art is unusual and the new subversiveness could be a breath of fresh air; if only anyone noticed. The ChimPom artists have received scant coverage in the stuffy arts pages of the national newspapers. The group held just one show of Mr. Mizuno’s reactor photographs in Japan. He says: “The timing has not been right. The media will just want to make the work look like a crime.”
Internet: <www.economist.com> (adapted).
According to the text, judge if the following item are right (C) or wrong (E).
Some Fukushima Dai-ichi employers have turned into political activists after the accident of 2011.
Some Fukushima Dai-ichi employers have turned into political activists after the accident of 2011.
