The original PowerPoint slide can be view on this link: http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/merlin357329-2785008-team-haniwa-art-histories-project-proposal/
Team Member: Merlin, Amy, Devanshi
Topic & Objectives
- Commentary on consumerism and how it distorts traditional culture
- Haniwa combined with Pop Art
- Why Haniwa?
- Haniwa is a symbol of traditional culture under specific contexts (use in ritual and burial)
- Haniwa has been used in popular culture (i.e video games) and has now been stripped of their traditional cultural context
- Why Pop Art?
- We want to talk about how popular culture is distorting traditional objects
- The colourful visual is a good contrast to the morbid nature of the Haniwa
- Why Haniwa?
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Research
DAAS. Takatsuki Mural: Haniwa. 2015. Takatsuki Art Expo 2015, Takatsuki City, Osaka. Accessed March 25, 2016. http://jacquelinemhadel.com/tag/haniwa/.
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Miwako Tezuka. “Points of Departure: Haniwa”. YouTube video, “JapanSocietyNYC”, 27 May 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T52Gyhezkz8.
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Karin. “Jomon, Yayoi, Kofun Period | Japanese Art History | Little Art Talks”. YouTube video, “Little Art Talks”, 25 Aug 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBs3aFM3cjM.
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“The most familiar of the Kofun-period arts are the haniwa (see fig.), hollow, low-fired cylinders manufactured to line the outer periphery of the tombs and modelled to represent secular and religious objects, figures and animals.”
Bonnie Abiko. “Kofun period.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed March 25, 2016, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/subscriber/article/grove/art/T047126.
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“Heiwadai Park.” Japan-guide.com. July 28, 2015. http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e8002.html.
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Research
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“a guide to POP ART”. YouTube video, “Art Gallery of NSW”, 4 Dec 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsY4ihZCJL8..
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“They focused their attention on “mass-produced urban culture: movies, advertising, science fiction, Pop music.” They did not feel “the dislike of commercial culture standard among many intellectuals, but accepted it as a fact, discussed it in detail, and consumed it enthusiastically.” The result was that they “took Pop culture out of the realm of ‘escapism,’ ‘sheer entertainment,’ ‘relaxation,’ and instead treated “it with the seriousness of art. These interests put them “in opposition both to the supporters of indigenous folk art and to anti-American opinion in Britain,” and, he might have added, both Marxist notions of how popular culture fostered false consciousness and elitist ideas of culture’s transcendence.”
“Moreover, contemporaries puzzled over the attitude of pop artists to American consumer culture, unsure what combination of mockery, appreciation, celebration, criticism, irony, and ambivalence they offered. They wondered whether artists were corrupted by a commercial culture they embraced too uncritically or if through their art they were lodging a vigorous social protest against mass culture.”
“To some critics, pop art lazily embraced the commercial. “Instead of cul-tivating the good, the true, the beautiful or the socially significant in under-standable terms,” wrote John Canaday, art critic for the New York Times, in 1964, it “has tied its wagon to a curious star, indeed—the bad, the false, the ugly and the socially deplorable.” In Partisan Review Peter Selz, curator of painting at the Museum of Modern Art, echoed this judgment.”
Horowitz, Daniel. “Chapter 6: Pop Art from Britain to America.” In Consuming Pleasures: Intellectuals and Popular Culture in the Postwar World, 199-234. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.
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Gallery Visit
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Visual Respond
Mock-ups:
By Amy
By Devanshi
By Amy
By Merlin
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Main Point
- Initially a few subject matters and pop art poster, but now filtered down to focus on one
- Main Subject now: Hello Kitty
- Japanese Pop Icon, but also well known internationally: widespread appeal/ recognition
- Commentary on how the representation of Haniwa as ceremonial figures has been put out of its original context and distorted in popular media today
- A tribute to these legendary figures and their undying influence on us, from then till now
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Medium
- Actual Idea – Life-size sculpture of a Pop Art-inspired Haniwa: portray the loud, confrontational nature of pop art
- Prototype on paper – Detailed sketch of how the Haniwa sculpture will look like in a gallery
- Will also include a mini-terracotta clay prototype
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Work Allocation
- Merlin – General Research, Bibliography, Haniwa Colors, Clay Prototype
- Amy – Pop Art & Haniwa Research, Sketch and Ideation of Haniwa designs
- Devanshi – Pop Art Research, Artist Statement draft, Final Prototype sketch
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Artist Statement Draft
This artwork will comment on how the representation of Haniwa as ceremonial figures have been put out of their original context and distorted in popular media today. Haniwa are clay figures that were originally used for rituals and burial of the dead in Japan during the Kofun period (3rd to 6th centuries AD).
Modern popular culture has since played a huge influence on the image of Haniwa and appropriation of these ghastly figures can be seen in forms such as game characters, figurines and collectible toys. Ever since these forms of appropriation were made known to us, the oscillating relationship between popular culture and traditional figurines has left us both fascinated and puzzled.
We will continue this distortion and give a new face to Haniwa as a response to this phenomenon. It would deal with consumerism not only in Japan but worldwide as a result of globalization.
As such, we have decided to sculpt Hello Kitty in Haniwa form with influence from Pop Art; with the universal appeal of Hello Kitty as a character in pop culture, this work becomes more relatable and understandable to a wider audience. Yet at the same time, Hello Kitty as a Japanese character holds unique aspects of Japanese pop culture in direct contrast with its rich traditional culture found in the Haniwa, and thus, the work can also be seen as culture-specific commentary.
Through this work, we hope to convey to our audience the widespread nature of the appropriation of traditional figures in popular culture, and the commercial nature of this phenomenon.
At the same time, we hope that this work would pique the interest of our audience and encourage them to find out about the Haniwa figure, and by extension spreading interest and knowledge of ancient Japanese cultural heritage that is so often forgotten.
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Bibliography
Horowitz, Daniel. “Pop Art from Britain to America” in Consuming Pleasures: Intellectuals and Popular Culture in the Postwar World, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. http://www.jstor.org.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/stable/j.ctt3fhnkt.11.
Frost, Andrew. “Pop to Popism review – shock and social critique, with an Australian thread”, The Guardian. Last modified 3 Nov 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/australia-culture-blog/2014/nov/03/pop-to-popism-review-shock-and-social-critique-with-an-australian-thread.
Rosenberg, Karen. “Navigating the Art of Japan From a Different Direction”, The New York Times. Last modified 10 Apr 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/arts/design/points-of-departure-at-japan-society-gallery.html?_r=0.
Bonnie Abiko. “Kofun period.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed March 25, 2016, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/subscriber/article/grove/art/T047126.
Marco Livingstone. “Pop art.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed March 25, 2016, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/subscriber/article/grove/art/T068691.
Appignanesi, Richard, and Chris Garratt. Introducing Post-Modernism: A Graphic Guide. Cambridge: The Old Diary, 2007.