The Power of Art in the Post-3/11 World

Abstract

The final chapter examines not documentary cinema but rather contemporary art in Japan. Why should a cinema scholar contemplate contemporary art? The answer can be found in the many things artists and filmmakers had in common as they struggled to deal with Fukushima and grappled with where they should stand. Many works of contemporary artists are like doppelgangers—other selves—of filmmakers. Can the characteristics of the post-3/11 era drawn from analyses of films be applied to “culture” in general? Namely, focusing on Chim↑Pom, who continues to lead the radical movement in Japanese contemporary art, I also analyze the works of Yanobe Kenji, Murakami Takashi, Tsuboi Akira, Fukuda Miran, Akagi Shuji, and turn my ear to their “warnings.”