Namiko Kunimoto
Namiko Kunimoto is a specialist in modern and contemporary Japanese art, with research interests in gender, race, urbanization, photography, visual culture, performance art, transnationalism, and nation formation. She is the Director of the Center for Ethnic Studies at Ohio State University and Associate Professor in the Department of History of Art.
Her essays include “Olympic Dissent: Art, Politics, and the Tokyo Games” in Asia Pacific Japan Focus, “Tactics and Strategies: Chen Qiulin and the Production of Space” in Art Journal and “Tanaka Atsuko and the Circuits of Subjectivity” in Art Bulletin. Dr. Kunimoto’s awards include a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Fellowship, Japan Foundation Fellowships (2007 and 2016), a College Art Association Millard/Meiss Author Award (2017), and the Ratner Distinguished Teaching Award (2019). She has been a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and is the Vice-President of the Japanese Art History Forum. Her book, The Stakes of Exposure: Anxious Bodies in Postwar Japanese Art, was published in February 2017 by the University of Minnesota Press and she is currently working on her next book, Transpacific Erasures: Contemporary Art, Gender, Race, and the Afterlives of Japanese Imperialism.
Phone: (614) 688-8193
Address: Namiko Kunimoto, Associate Professor
History of Art Department
The Ohio State University
201 Pomerene Hall
1760 Neil Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210
Her essays include “Olympic Dissent: Art, Politics, and the Tokyo Games” in Asia Pacific Japan Focus, “Tactics and Strategies: Chen Qiulin and the Production of Space” in Art Journal and “Tanaka Atsuko and the Circuits of Subjectivity” in Art Bulletin. Dr. Kunimoto’s awards include a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Fellowship, Japan Foundation Fellowships (2007 and 2016), a College Art Association Millard/Meiss Author Award (2017), and the Ratner Distinguished Teaching Award (2019). She has been a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and is the Vice-President of the Japanese Art History Forum. Her book, The Stakes of Exposure: Anxious Bodies in Postwar Japanese Art, was published in February 2017 by the University of Minnesota Press and she is currently working on her next book, Transpacific Erasures: Contemporary Art, Gender, Race, and the Afterlives of Japanese Imperialism.
Phone: (614) 688-8193
Address: Namiko Kunimoto, Associate Professor
History of Art Department
The Ohio State University
201 Pomerene Hall
1760 Neil Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210
less
InterestsView All (23)
Uploads
Books by Namiko Kunimoto
Anxious Bodies in Postwar Japanese Art
Namiko Kunimoto
The first major English-language study of some of Japan’s most important postwar artists
How would artistic practice contribute to political change in post-World War II Japan? How could artists negotiate the imbalanced global dynamics of the art world and also maintain a sense of aesthetic and political authenticity? While the contemporary art world has recently come to embrace some of Japan’s most daring postwar artists, the interplay of art and politics remain poorly understood in the Americas and Europe. The Stakes of Exposure fills this gap and explores art, visual culture, and politics in postwar Japan from the 1950s to the 1970s, paying special attention to how anxiety and confusion surrounding Japan’s new democracy manifested in representations of gender and nationhood in modern art.
Through such pivotal postwar episodes as the Minamata Disaster, The Lucky Dragon Incident, the budding anti-nuclear movement, and the ANPO protests of the 1960s, The Stakes of Exposure examines a wide range of issues addressed by the period’s prominent artists, including Tanaka Atsuko and Shiraga Kazuo (key members of the Gutai Art Association), Katsura Yuki, and Nakamura Hiroshi. Through a close examination of their paintings, illustrations, and assemblage and performance art, Namiko Kunimoto reveals that, despite dissimilar aesthetic approaches and divergent political interests, Japanese postwar artists were invested in the entangled issues of gender and nationhood that were redefining Japan and its role in the world.
Offering numerous full-color illustrations of previously unpublished art and photographs, as well as period manga, The Stakes of Exposure shows how contention over Japan’s new democracy was expressed, disavowed, and reimagined through representations of the gendered body.
Essays by Namiko Kunimoto
Readers: Please note this essay contains graphic close-ups of surgeries on a child
Book Reviews by Namiko Kunimoto
Anxious Bodies in Postwar Japanese Art
Namiko Kunimoto
The first major English-language study of some of Japan’s most important postwar artists
How would artistic practice contribute to political change in post-World War II Japan? How could artists negotiate the imbalanced global dynamics of the art world and also maintain a sense of aesthetic and political authenticity? While the contemporary art world has recently come to embrace some of Japan’s most daring postwar artists, the interplay of art and politics remain poorly understood in the Americas and Europe. The Stakes of Exposure fills this gap and explores art, visual culture, and politics in postwar Japan from the 1950s to the 1970s, paying special attention to how anxiety and confusion surrounding Japan’s new democracy manifested in representations of gender and nationhood in modern art.
Through such pivotal postwar episodes as the Minamata Disaster, The Lucky Dragon Incident, the budding anti-nuclear movement, and the ANPO protests of the 1960s, The Stakes of Exposure examines a wide range of issues addressed by the period’s prominent artists, including Tanaka Atsuko and Shiraga Kazuo (key members of the Gutai Art Association), Katsura Yuki, and Nakamura Hiroshi. Through a close examination of their paintings, illustrations, and assemblage and performance art, Namiko Kunimoto reveals that, despite dissimilar aesthetic approaches and divergent political interests, Japanese postwar artists were invested in the entangled issues of gender and nationhood that were redefining Japan and its role in the world.
Offering numerous full-color illustrations of previously unpublished art and photographs, as well as period manga, The Stakes of Exposure shows how contention over Japan’s new democracy was expressed, disavowed, and reimagined through representations of the gendered body.
Readers: Please note this essay contains graphic close-ups of surgeries on a child