Flores: They were not avowed Marxists , and , in face, the term was neverused by the artists. Maybe at the most they were populists and they wereappealing to chis kind of populist demand within their public. Actually
the theme of labor emerged earlier. It started with a foundationalmodernist painting , The Builders.So in a way there was no dichotomy
between modernism and social reality, between forma lists and maybe
moral or ethical sensibility. It was all there and then it intersected withnation building, the notion of democracy, and the notion of progress.
The development of Manansala's arc is rooted in that context. We
must point out the layer of the folk because I chink chat is very strong in
Filipino art . It is also very strong in discourses on Filipino arc as espousedby critics and theorists.
The search for identity in the 1970s was very strong but that search
was also encouraged by the Marcos dictatorship. So the appeal of Cubism
coincided with all these political projects. The dictatorship promoted it
and the dictatorship also stimulated the arc market , because under Marcial
Rule , the arc and the market were quite strictly coordinated. So what
Imeld a Marcos promoted, as you know , were the exemplary artists who
were patronized by the market. I think chis was the same case in Indonesia, because for a long time the five-volume catalogue of the Soekarno
co llection was the main reference of collectors in Indon esia. I chink that isa parallel case.
Moderator(Hayashi): Was it sold to the public ?

Flores : Our of print. They are being auctioned.
Moderator (Hayashi): Well I chink one thing which fascinates me about
those murals in the Marcos period is that somehow the Cubistic stylecontinued to be used for these pub lic monuments. Professor Clark, youtalked about the use of the Realistic style in the public murals as a means offorming of national allegories . And you seem to have suggested that theneed for building a national allegory demanded the use of a Realist stylerather than pursuing an avant-garde style which is more difficult to read.
Clark: Are you talking about China?
Moderator(Hayashi): I am talking about the Philippines. Why did chosemural painters in the Philippines not go back co the Realist style ofAmorsolo and continue to use Cubistic style for the pub lic monuments.
The Amorso lo style may have been easier to understand for the generalpublic .

284

Ushiroshoji Masahiro: We had just discussed how works by Manansala,
who is an important

artist in the Philippines , went through a kind of

kitschfication as means of nationalization

led by dictatorship. Certainly, if

you walk through Mabini Street in Manila , you see an array of souvenir
paintings rendered in Manansala-like Cubism. Alice Guillermo calls themMabini art. A typical example ofMabini art is Manansala 's Cubistic
works. Everytime I see them , I am deeply concerned with what art entails.
So, my question to Professor Flores is whether or not such kitschfication
is inherent in Manansala 's Cubist works , or is it common in art or among
artist to have this propensity for kitschfication ?
Flores: Of course I am not insinuating that we reduce the career ofManansala to kitschfication. It was an aspect of his career , and maybe tosome significant extent , beyond his control, as some artists were asked to
produce things for the regime. They were in a way forced into doing
certain things for Mrs. Marcos. Manansala also had to meet a certain
demand from a public that wanted his art. So in a way his career resembled the career of Amorsolo , who was also very popular during histime. C lients who went to his house would ask for his works, and healready had an album of certain themes from which the customers would
simply choose their favorite theme.
Moreover , as to whether or not there is something inherent in
Manansala's Cubism that lent itself well to kitschification, is a difficult
question to answer. Maybe the folk sensibil ity was amenable tokitschfication because the folk element cou ld be overplayed by the State.
It became exotic and touristy to some extent because Manansala was, in away, serious in negotiating a local Cubist langua ge, and , therefore , had toint egrate folk vocabulary. Maybe that is where the kitschfication set in ,plus, of course , the demand of the market. So there is no strict line or
straight lin e between the art history of Manansala and thecommodificationor co-optation by the State. It is just maybe aconfluence of socia l forces that constituted the style.
Moder ator (Hayas hi ): I think it is very important to consider the issue ofaudience here. Because murals are created for the genera l public and notfor connoisseurs , there is inevitably the need for making it accessib le tothe public which lends itself to the process of kitschfication. So in thatregard , I would actua lly like to pose a question to Professor Cordero. You
are from Mexico and familiar with the Mexican mural movement. I
wonder if the same problem of ki tschfication exists in Mexico.
Karen Cordero: Thank you. It was not clear to me that the murals reflect285

kicschificacion.
Flores: I was referring co the Im elda mural.
Cordero: Okay, about the Im elda mural. I thought it was interesting coquestion the image shown in che Soekarno collection by Diego Rivera,
whic h seemed like an extraordinary example of kitschfication , Mexican
style. l think what happens in Mexican murals, particularly in Diego
Rivera's style, is a certain pattern of academicization.
l will talk a little more about this tomorrow and its relation to
Cubism which was reproduced and becomes, in a sense, precisely a "style,"
as opposed to something which has some kind of et hical basis or int egra lrelationship between style and content. Even in the case of artists whoor igin ally had chat integral relationship, they themselves begin co repeat
their own style and turn into a kind of caricature of themselves , although
this is not always the case.
In relation co this issue, then , of art and ethics , we tend co demandof artists , from an art historica l point of view, that they be comp lete ly
co herent and ethical. But, in face, there are a number of market issues andalso issues of art practice in different times. Artists in art history or postRenaissance art history worked for patrons, so I think there has always
been some kind of negotiation between the demands of patronage andeconomic survival versus the ethics or integrity of an artist. Ju st thinkingof contemporary artists l know, this continues to be the case. Often artists
are very clear about what they are doing, and there is a difference between
what they do because of market demands and what they do for themselves or in terms of their own creative development or search forsign ificance. The problem is that sometimes in arc history , we are looking
for all art co be a kind of proposal for cultural communication , and I
think we are maybe demanding something of it which it has not been forquite a few centuries.
So I think we have co learn co distinguish between these different
aspects on the basis of a more comp lex sense of what art is.
Moderator (Hayashi): Thank you. Going back to the issue of ethics andmorality that Professor Tsuji raised , I think one of the problems here ischat when you talk about morality in relation co art, you really have cothink about the level at which you are addressing chis issue. For example ,autonomy. The pursuit of the autonomy or purity of arc can be very
ethical and can be very moralistic. If you think about how C lement
Greenberg denounces all the "impure" artists, there is a strong moralistic
cone in his ideological insistence on the autonom y of art. So there is a286

qu estio n wheth er it is a m orality which refers to spec ific, po litical, ethi cal
messages encoded in art o r mor ality in th e sense of purs uit of form al
int egrit y. So we have to procee d rath er carefully as to what kind ofm orality we are talkin g about. And th ere is also a da nger that when you
stress th e issue of mo rality to o mu ch. Th ere is a kind of tende ncy toessenti alize art or cultur e o f a given reg io n o r period. This q uest ion leads
us back to th e co ncept o f kagunan th at Mr. Sup angkat talked about.
Does n't it pose thi s risk of essenti alizing all th e int ern al di fferences
existing in Ind o nesian art?
Supangkat : I realize from the beg innin g th at talkin g about th e relatio nship betwee n art and mora lity is a diffi cult to pic for di scussio n . I agree
that art in genera l can always be related to searchin g for value and thu s
mo rality. In th e develop m ent of Western art, th ere are up s and dow ns inth e relatio nship betwee n art and mo rality, w hich we can also find in oth er
soc ieties. Ho weve r, we co uld not deny th at, fund am ent ally, Western art
believes th at art is above mo rality and social con venti o ns. So, co nsiderin g
this, mo rality should be seen as somethin g related to social life.
In my opinion , seein g art as somethin g beyo nd m ora lity and soc ial
co nvention s is reflected clearly in th e m oderni st tend ency to search forpurit y. Thi s is essenti ally tru e in C ubi sm and in m oderni sm , particul arly
fro m Greenb erg's po int of view.
C ubism and m oderni sm in some sense reflect th e efforts to traceback th e fund am ent al premises of art within th e fine art co nt ext. Thi s is
why th ese mod erni st effo rts cr iticized th e Realist traditi o n of Western art,
particul arly th e develo pm ent from Rom aticism to Realism in th e 19th
centur y. Th e representi o nal tend ency in Realism related to social mo rality
was accused o f being a deviatio n in Western art. As matt er of fact, Rea lism
becam e a very co mpli cated di scour se in art hi story, and th e no n-representatio nal tend ency in moderni st art result ed as a consequence of thi s
criti cism. In th e world of phil osop hy, th is no n-represent ational tend ency
does no t m ake sense .
Thi s is wh y it is signifi cant to use an ideolog ical concept th at lies
beyo nd Cubi sm and m oderni sm as a sour ce of co mp arisons betwee ndiffere nt ideo log ies. If we co mp are th e Rea list tradi tion in Western art toth e art developm en t in Ind onesia based o n kagunan ideo logy, we will not
be able to find any co ntr ast. If C ubi sm is ta ken as somethin g th at provesth e thin gness of art as its essence, th e cont rast can be seen clea rly.
Cordero: I ju st wa nt ed to say somethin g else also abo ut thi s qu estio n of
medium . We tend to thin k as you said th at a m ur al is for th e publi c, but
as Professo r C lark just m enti o ned, we also have to take int o acco unt287

ideology. Murals, in one sense, are manifestoes, in the case of Mexico , bypainters who believed that an is for the public and that artists are workers
or providers of an for the public.
But I think that the history of these ideas also has its own history ,which paves the way for muralism to become an ideological tool. The
mural commissioned by Imelda Marcos was not intended to serve thepublic, but to serve as the most blatant type of political propaganda. The
same thing happened in the Mexican case, when mural ism becomes avehicle and even a kind of fashion, you could say. All public offices had toinclude a mural , for example. Also , murals became not only ideologicaltool , but also an object of private consumption ; people would havemurals painted in their homes if they could afford to pay for it.
Hence , the relationship of the medium to the public cannot
necessarily be derived only from the medium. Regarding the relationshipof the mural to Cubism, it also occurs to me that pan of the issue perhaps this is the case in the Philippines -is that , although the title ofBarr's book seems to suggest that there is a relationship between Cubism
and abstraction as we were mentioning a moment ago , in fact, as I looked
again at his chart which was shown this morning, I noticed he has themon two different sides of the diagram. So they may be in opposition.
Cubism, in fact, is a retinal an. It has to do with appearance and perception , not with the kind of construction of an inner reality which is what
Barr has on the side of neo-Impressionism, Surrealism, and so on. The
relationship between Cubism and Realism in that sense could be thelogical conclusion of Realism , as we know it.
Thinking along the line of Socialist Realism could be more logical ,because Cubism is a type of Realism seen from a new perceptual
perspective.
Moderator (Hayashi): Yes, actually that 's a very interesting idea. In terms ofthe new Realism used in the Philippines , what seems very important isthat the Cubist method of fragmenting the object and reorganizing all
the units on the surface makes it easy for the artist to construct a narrativein a particular way, so it functions as a device to liberate artists and enable
them to organize a narrative in a very inventive way and that 's why, I
think, Manansala as well as the Mexican muralists really prefered to use
Cubistic idioms. Yes, Professor Winther-Tamaki.
Bert Winther-Tamaki: I might be repeating some of Professor Cordero
and Professor Hayashi's thoughts , but I think our discussion is moving
back to the earlier discussion about kitsch , because there is a dimensionof Cubism which allows for a kind of a reification of the image into288

something that can be communicable

to a broad audience . Once it

circulates in society, it becomes somewhat popular. I'm thinking of
Cubism in the American context where, for example , Lyonel Feininger
transformed the rays of Cubist lines into something that weaves in andout of a church steeple and becomes a sign for spirituality , and a similar
point could be made about the planometric treatment by Georgia
O 'Keefe of flowers and steer antlers . Kitsch is very perspectival ; it reallydepends on who is looking and who is not aware of the potential of animage for being judged as "bad taste~ From the perspective of somebody
like Clement Greenberg, perhaps everything that we are looking at today
would be judged very, very kitsch.
Moderator(Hayashi): Professor Tsuji, please.

Tsuji: I agree with Professor Cordero's observations. Art usually emerges
from , or in parallel to, an ideological or mythological discourse. But inthe case of Cubism, the relationship between ideology and image weretied in a unique relationship. As demonstrated

by later historicaldevelopments, Cubism unfolds in a highly apolitical and non-textual
context. In an American examp le, the Three A Group , although deriving
their approach from Cubism , regressed into an entirely apolitical andextreme ly simp le form of abstract art that one would hesitate to evencategorize as Perceptionalism. However , the historical development of
Cubism seems from the outset to have accepted the Cubism of Picasso
and Braque as an icon for the purpose of producing a sociopoliticalmanifesto, thus tending to advocate Realism rather than Perceptionalism.
So, I thought it was very interesting to hear Professor Hayashi's commenton how Cubism in the 1930s was moderated , because as result, innocuous
Cubism survives history and is justified through history. Then what
happened to the subversive Cubism ) l think it was actually the menacing
Cubism that corresponded to Realism. So, when I was informed about
the mural movements in Mexico and America , I thought we should study
these cases in relation to ideologies in art history, as well as literature, andalso in relation to the conflict within the Cubist movement.
Moderator(Hayashi): Thank you. Well, we are nearing the end of the time

allocated for this session and need to close our discussion quite soon. Yes,
Mr. Tatehata.
Tatehata Akira: I would like to ask Professor Flores a question in relation
to what Professor Tsuji just mentioned. In the current exhibition , I found
Manansala to be the focal point in our selection of Cubist artists from the289

Philippines. In 1950, Manansala painted Madonna of the Slums, which is akind of social commentary. In 1957, he painted Stationsof the Cross.As
Professor Ushiroshoji pointed out, there is a phase in his career when the
Cubist style backslides into kitschification , but in 1979, very late in his
career, he paints Conquistador.This is probably the only work in the styleof ana lytical Cubism produced in Asia. Manansala 's case exemplifies how
Cubism could be actively adopted by an artist working in stages anddeve loping a broad range of styles. It is interesting to see how, in a single
artist's career , one could find versatility in Asian Cubism that stems fromits original formal concerns.
The other point I would like to address is about common formal
concerns, including the Vertical Fragmentation and Transparent Cubismthat are seen in different locations in Asia. The former renders form infacets, resulting in Vertical Fragmention , and the laner renders multilayered surfaces with semi-transparent color areas. These styles are typicalofManansala's works. He has experimented with painting a still life,
cuning it into vertical parts, and then organizing them on the pictorial
plane again. In the course of reorganizing the vertical pans , he shifts themso that they do not fit each other. He carried out this experiment in 1969,
which is quite late in his career. He also experimented with Transparent
Cubism applied to nude figures. He layered several semi-transparent nude
figures, creating an overlap of outlines that effectively became facets. This
experiment was based on his forma l interests.
An earlier observation claimed that Transparent Cubism wasincorporated as a kind of lyrical expression , but Manansala may have hada different motive for creating works featuring Vertical Fragmentation
and Transparent Cubism . For Manansala, it may have been more than aformal experiment. I am just speculating, but Cubism may have inspired
him at a more personal level, or it may have motivated him to explore art
within the context unique to the Filipino society. Professor Flores , do you
have any comments?
Flores: It's difficult to speculate on those possibilities. The thick book on
Manansala doesn't really remark on the motivations of Manansala as an
artist, but it affords us a survey of the wide range of experimentations

that

Manansala engaged in. If you read the book of Rod Paras Perez, you will
notice that Manansala had an array of series from early Cubism, his
Carlos Francisco-like folk style to a certain proletarian style, and then to
Cubism. He went to France and then to Canada to study, and when hecame back , he developed Transparent Cubism , followed by the series on
those striping or striped canvases that Mr. Tate hara mentioned. He also
produced a series of homages to the Dutch masters. He had a series called

290the whirr series of birds in flight, and also the shibui series.
So, althou gh he was working within certain constraints of themarket and, maybe, State co-option , he was an artist of very broad
sympathies with a very lively imagination. He experimented a lot, butwhat motivated him to do this , I cannot really answer. It's important toponder how a very popular artist was ab le to engage so many different
experiments.
Mashadi: I think you would have laid a ground in terms of where thosemotivations would have perhaps come from. One possible answer
perhaps will be the proliferation of iconographic images that were
emerging as early as the 20th century through the works of the Amorsolo
and so on and so forth. Those provide the series of iconographies that arereally believed to be unpacked by an art ist like Manansala and hisforma listic concerns. So cou ld that be an indicative way in which Cubism
itself or Transparent Cubism itself had developed which is true ponderingof those earl ier forms of iconography being placed in circ ulation .
Flores : Well, in a cu ltur e that thrives on im ages, I think that might be oneof the possible explanations and if we try to understand Filipino culture ,we can also offer answers to that. It's a culture of visual parody andexcessive imit ation with a lot of posing and pretending. So I think thesethings are seen sometimes in a serious context and sometimes in asarcast ic con text. Professor Clark and I were looking at that the
Manansala painting that was taken from Juan Luna's BloodCompact.
Professor Clark was remarking that this might well be a sarcastic work,
making fun of the kitsch. So it might be that it's within that cultural
system and it's always acceptab le to parody , to make certain pretensions ,to imitate the surface. It all comes in a package. But I'm not trying toessentialize Filipino cu ltur e or to repackage it as an exoticism.
Moderator (Hayashi): Thank you. Unfortunately we are running out oftime. Now, I would like to devote the remaining time to questions fromthe audience. We have about ten minutes left for the entire session. So we
can take maybe two or three questions from the floor. If anybody wants
to ask questions , please raise your hand.
Question (Ohnishi): I'm a scho lar of Japanese art history. The issues ofkagunan, kitschfication, and spirituality have been discussed and I'm very
impressed by the wide range of subjects this session has covered. But theseissues, I think , have to be considered in relation to the interaction
between the museum and society. Today 's discussion seems to have291

focused mainly on art activ ities within the boundaries of the museum.
Cubism's impa ct on the artistic activities outside the museum context was
not given sufficient consideration. When you investigate the issue ofkitshfication or eth ical value in everyday context, I think it is essential toana lyze how Cubistic style was appropriated by mass media activities
including advertisement and design. In that regard, it is interesting tonote that the style of Realism was emp loyed rather aggressive ly by thenation-states such as Soviet Union and China , while the Cub istic style wasmore aggressively appropriated by market-oriented

propaganda. There-

fore, it seems important to cons ider the aspect of spectacu larization under
the logic of capita l when you analyze the transformationof Cub ism. And

the relationship between museum and society outside the museum seems
to play a key role in this process. I wonder if any of the panelists havesome thoughts on this.
Moderator(Hayashi): The use of Cubistic style for the "spectacles" (Guy

Debord ) in modern urban env ironm ent is very important. And as I
understand Professor Ohnishi's question , we have not really devoted
much time in this discussion to the use of Cubist ic style outside themuseum. But since Mr. Supangkat pointed out the import ance of therelationship between art and life by referring to the concept of kagunan, I
wonder if you have anyt hing to say about this use of Cub ism in thecontext of market capita lism.
Supangkat : This is adding information

now. Cubist ic styles were also

in corpo rated in producing murals in Indon esia in the 1960s. There weresevera l banks wit h murals for some time, and after 1965 when Soehartocame into power , a Cub istic mural was placed in the parliament hou se.
We are talking about Cubism as a kind of"idiom " so, yes, of course , it isdifficult to say they are Cub ist. They are Cub ist ic forms or Cubistic
paintings in which Cubism is used as idiom and adopted in various
moralistic ways.
Question (Ohnishi): Now on the issue of kagunan per se, what has been
discussed is whether it is kagunan or seni rupa,or whether it is to the rightor the left. What has been left out from the discussion is the thingness ofob jects. If you look at the advertisement , the breakdown of the illusionistic structure through the introdu ction ofCubistic

method foregrounded

objects themselves in a stimul ating manner. Too much emphasis on
spiritua lity in terms of kagunan makes us forget this dimension ofthingness of "artist ic" objects .

292

Moderator (Hayashi): Thank you. I think the question which has beenraised now is very imp ortant in relation to the mural as wel l. I emp hasize
this because , on the one hand , as we have already discussed , the Cubist
idiom was adopted for the mural for its capacity of fragmenting and reed itin g reality for the representation of condensed narratives ; but , on theother hand , as Professor Winther-Tamaki pointed out earlier, once this
idiom was established and made legib le to a general audience , it provided
much fun and enjoyment for them . It think this is an important aspect roconsider as a reason why Cubist idiom in a broad sense becam e so
popular and common ly used in the technique of advertisement andpropaganda. It is capab le of involving the audi ence to participate in theactive reading of repr esented images as if they are the ones to construct or
re-construct the suggested narratives . An ybody wants to add or commenton this question?
Flores : In relation to the advertisement , I think we have to exp lore thelink between Cub ism and Art Deco because it was Art Deco that
popularized Cubism to a certain extent as a motif. As Professor WintherTamaki was saying , over time certain Cubi st devices would be reduced tomotifs that were very accessible. Art Deco mingles with so many provenances from jazz to Hollywood cinema, so I think the link becomesstronger in this context.
Moderator (Hayashi): If there are no further questions , we would like tobring our session to a close. Thank you very much indeed for being with
us for such a lon g time.

293

294

Session 3"Body/ Gender / Color / Decoration"
In this session , the discussion will be based on an
charact eristics of Cubist works in Asia. This do es not mean , however,that a "formalist " approach will be adopted. Rather , the purpose of this
discussion will be to determine the configuration of forces tha ( gfve
rise to these formal characteristics . Female figures, both nude andclothed , were common . The use of bright colors and decorative
treatment of the pictorial surface were more common
Europe. Transparent grid patterns were found acrossboundaries . There were many works with an extremely
long horizontal format. In adopting Cubism, painterstheir own varied ways to obtain a modern eye and tostyle and make it their own. The participants in thiscarefully at the evidence left by these artistic struggles
the common theme of determining the role of Cubism
artistic identities rather than simply as a problem of style.
Moderator : Matsumoto Tohru
Presentation 1 Representation of Women in "Cubism
Kim Young-na
Presentation 2 Representation of Women and Im aginary Power
Tanaka Masayuki
Presentation 3 Asian Possessions of the Cubist Body:"Home from Home "Bert Winther-Tamaki
Discussion (Q&A )Session 3- Presentation 1

Representation of Women in "Cubism in Asia"
Kim Young-na[Professor, De partment of Archaeology and Art History, Seo ul National University ]This exhibition contains many paintings which deal with the subject of
the female nude and th e mother and child. The subject of the nud e was amodern , and indeed shocking , concept when it was first introduc ed toJapan , China and Korea . And while the works presented in this exhibition
were produc ed around th e tim e that thi s initial shock began to fade, it isclear that the female bod y, in particular th e female nud e, continued to
grab th e attention of Asian male Cubist painters. In these paintings th efemale figur e is approached as an abstract subject , rather than as a specificindividual. The body is explored from different perspectives, which arethen merged with the surrounding space in a dynamic rhythm , and in
this process capacities of light are evoked. However , it can be noted that inseveral of the paintings , the relationship between the figure and thesurrounding space has not been able to go beyond the traditional
perception of space. The female body is analysed in geometric forms, andthus composed of basic structural parts. Yet, as if they are hesitant toanalyse the body into fragments , the contours of the body are still
maintained and legibl e. Is this because the painters were not able todigest the Cubist art style? Or rath er, is it because they did not want tocommit a ruthless analysis on the female form ? Many of the nude
paintings give a strong impression of having been painted in front of an
actual nude model , and so it may have been difficult to maintain theconceptual approach of Cubism in thi s context. Interestingl y enough , inmany of the nudes , the focus is not on a structural analysis of the body.
Rather, specific body parts , such as the hips or brea sts, are stressed or
exaggerated , or the body and the surrounding space are combined
through a prism of colors, invoking a sense of eroticism or producing
decorative effects.
One noticeabl e aspect of Korean paintings in which th e female
figur e appears , as well of other such paintings from Asia in general, is thatman y deal with the subj ect of the mother and child. In the case of Koreanart , th e subject of the family or the mother and child rarely appear before
the Modern period. It was with the introduction of Western art that "theMadonna and Child; portrayed in Western religious painting s, became
the source of th e imag e of"the mother" in Asian art. However, although
this may not be the case for th e Philippines where Catholicism remains
strong, in Korea at least, this ima ge has lost its religious meaning and is296

Kim Young-na

I

now perceived as an expression of "motherly love" (e.g. Chae Yong-sin,
fig.1).
The archetype image of"the mother " or "the family " from themodern period onwards was also influenced by photography. In thissense, Pai Un-sung's Family (1930-35 , fig.2 ) deals with a very modern
subject in that the members of a large extended family are portrayedstaring forward , as if the family was having its photograph taken in astudio . In this painting , it is the hierarchy of each member within thefamily that is important , and little of familial affection or closeness is
portrayed. Here , the child sits on the lap of the grandmother, rather thanthe mother. Indeed , it was only after the Korean War that the image of the"mother and child" became more common. This is because the Korean
War, in which death and injury of family members or the loss of parents
occurred with such frequency, lead to a fundamental transition in Korean

fig. I: Chae Yong-sin, Portraitof
Wtmnangja, 1914,co lored ink on
Korean paper

society, in which the traditional concept of an extended family group was
no longer viable and the nucleated family became the center of everyday
life instead. This can be understood in a similar light to the fact thatmany postwar novels contained themes such as motherly love or theabsence of men or fathers. It is also interesting that "the family' ; inparticular, was a popular subject in postwar painting and sculpture. Whilethe image of the "wise mother and good wife" was used from the Japanese

fig.2: Pai Un·sung,Family,1930-35,oi lon canvas

colonial period, it was after the Korean War that more focus began to be
put on the image of the "wise mother; as opposed to the "good wife:' In
the art works of the 1950s, motherly love is expressed through the imageof the mother embracing, giving a piggy-back ride to , or holding the handof, a child. The fact that the image of the "mother and child" appear in
conjunction with the subject of war in many of the paintings in the
exhibition may be understood in this context, although in many cases, thedirect influence for the motifs comes from Picasso's Guernica. Picasso wasindeed the most well-known and influential painter in Asia in the 1950s.
Although most of the works are by male painters , the exhibition
also contains paintings by several female artists , one of whom is Park Rehyun. One common aspect of these female artists is that unlike many
male painters who generally approached the female figure, nudes , andmother and child as still and quiet subjects, they are more interested in
the vitality and movements of the female subjects , who most often arefemale labourers. Rather than studying the female body, these female
painters were more interested in the everyday existence of women or theactivity of women engaging in labour. While the difficulty of getting
formal jobs following the Korean War lead to mass unemployment
among men , it was the women who came , with their children in theirarms or back , and set up stalls along the streets and began selling various
goods. It was within this visual environment of a city being rebuilt thatPark Re-hyun created the image of the modern woman using the297modernist style that was Cubism (fig.3 ). Park Re-h yun attempted a
subjective interpretationof Cubism. Her paintings are not the result ofcareful analyses of the body and the surrounding space. Rather, rounded
and diagonal lines are used to form planes which create her distinct ,decorative pictorial surfaces.
It can be suggested that color is one important element whichreflects the differences between French and Asian Cubism. If Picasso andBraque attempted to suppress sensuous and emotional reactions to theobject by limiting color almost to a monochrome,

maintaining an ascetic

and intellectual approach, and fragmenting the form into geometricshapes, in Asian Cubism paintings , the colors contain a sensuous appeal

fig.3: Park Re- hyun, Open Stalls,
1956, colored in k on Korean paper[color plate 10 ]and reflect the color palette of each country. Especially, the use of primarycolors and the juxtaposition of complementarycolors are more prevalent

in the paintings of India or the Philippines , as opposed to those of Korea
and Japan , and this appears to be connected with the color traditions ofeach country. It is true that, as Cubism underwent a series of phases ,colors were introduced by several Cubistic painters; Picasso 's Synthetic
Cubistic works from 1912, Fernand Leger and Robert Delaunay's works
around 1912 and 1913 are good examples of these . This brings out
another important issue of Asia Cubism, that is, with which Cubistic
works these Asian Cubists were in contact. In case of Korea, it is primarily
Picasso , and then Russian Constructivism came next.
Maybe Nena Saguil from the Philippines knew about some colorful
Cubistic works from the West (fig.4 ). But her rich, sensuous, and almost
tropical palette is quite striking and may have come from her own
sensitivity.
To conclude, this analysis on the Asian Cubist paintings of thisexhibition illustrates the various different ways in which Cubism
developed in Asia. In particular, the fact that the mother and child or thefemale labourer are subjects which appear frequently in Asian Cubism
can be understood as an expression of Asian modernity . Some paintings
contain elements (such as the use of rich , sensual color ) which make it
difficult to determine whether or not they can actually be defined as
Cubist paintings , an issue which the organisers of this exhibition would
also have struggled with. And in a way, this may be what makes thisexhibition on Asian Cubism such an interesting one , as it is an excellent
example of the way in which a specific style, once transported from thearea of its original conception to a different environment , can develop in
new and different directions.

298

fig.4: Ne na Saguil,Tindera,1952,oilon plywood

Session 3- Presentation 2

Representation of Women and Imaginary Power
Tanaka Masayuki[Curawr, The Nat io nal Museum of Western Art]

Here I would like to comment on several works representing women chatappear in the exhibition "Cubism in Asia~ I would particularly like tolook at Lady in Black (1962, fig .I) by Francis Newton Souza , Malay

Woman (1950 , fig.2 ) by Cheong Soo Pieng , and A Lady (1959, fig.3 ) by
Sompot Upa-ln. Some features of these paintings are related to issues
raised by studies of images in Western modern arc based on gender theory .
I do not wish to maintain chat the gender theory of the United States andEurope can be applied directly to these works. Rather , I hope to have you
consider whether this sore of Western gender theory is applicable or not.
TanakaMasayuki

Discussions of gender theory, or more precisely, the modernist criticism ofearly 20th century modern arc (especially, the works of Matisse andPicasso) informed by the viewpoint of gender theory, which have been
carried out in the lase decade, are based on the premise that painting still
lifes and landscapes is completely different from painting women 's
bodies. Writers using this approach hold that representations of thefemale body are deeply enmeshed with the desire and power of the malesubject. I would like to begin by briefly outlining the issues involved here.
The following argument is often given to justify the academic nude. The
academic nude represents the female body as an "idealized body depictedaccording to certain norms'. ' It is not a pornographic, naked body.
According to chis view, the female nude is treated as a "higher " aesthetic
form , removed from the sexual desire that is so obvious in pornography.
For the nude in arc, plastic form is very important. Refined color, line , anddraftsmanship create an ideal body, saving the nude from vulgar desire.
However, the traditional concept chat justifies this sore of nude has often
been criticized as an "aesthetic ideology " that conceals th e desires behind
it. Also, the critical discourse on the issues contained in this "aesthetic
ideology " has been applied to modern art as well as academic art, and it
has been pointed out chat exactly the same ideology is operating there.
Modern arc does not depict idealized bodies like the academic nude, butjust because its images of women might be described as "ugly" does notmean that it can evade the charge of "concealing desire'.' The reason forchis is that it still reduces the nude female figure to a formal problem.
Whether the figure is an academic nude or a modernist image , the body
is not depicted realistically. Whether it is idealized or abstracted, the299

form al o peration of m akin g it int o an im age chat transcends the real o robserve d form is co nsidered hi ghly signi fica nt.
Of co urse, chis view does not co mpl etely ban di scussio n of form al
pro blem s in relation to th e represent ation of wo men . Since th ese
o bserva tion s are co ncern ed w ith wo rks of arc, th ey cann ot elimin ate
form al an alysis. Th e probl em is how co avoid ignorin g th e factors ofdesire and powe r and di scuss chem in relat ion to form .
In chis exhibiti o n, th e text pa nels in the galleries and th e catalog ue
essays state chat C ubi sm created th e body as some thin g "neutr al:' Thi s
wo rd is often di scussed in co nn ect io n w ith th e aesth etic ideo logy referred
to above in gend er th eo ry d iscourse . In chis exhibition , it seem s to be
used in th e proce ss of loo kin g at poss ibiliti es for m akin g observat io ns

fig.I: F.N.Sou1.a,
Ladyin Black,1962,
tem pera on pape r [color plate 12}

abo ut th e issues of desire and powe r after first dea lin g with prob lem s ofplastic form related to th e body. Wh at does it m ean for th e body to betreated th e sam e as a still life? How should we rega rd cases in w hich thesexual di fference betwee n m en and wo m en is represe nt ed ambi guously?
I have learn ed from chis exhibiti on chat it is necessary to rethink th ese
qu estio ns. Now chat I have intro d uced th e issues, I wo uld like to express
my th o ught s o n them .
Returnin g to th e thr ee paintin gs th at I have m enti o ned above, myimpr essio n is chat th e wo m en are no t depict ed as beautiful , refin ed
figur es chat are pleasant to th e eye. In addition to chis, I also feel som ethin g un cann y, intimid atin g, and un settl ing about th e fem ale figur es th at

fig.2: Cheong Soo Pieng, Malay
Woman, 1950,o il on board [color
plate 14]

app ear in th ese work s. (For exampl e, C heon g Soo Pieng's Malay Woman isrend ere d with "sharp lin es chat seem to cut throu gh th e surfa ce'.' So uza's

Lady in Black gives th e impre ssion of a wo man 's form , but her tee th are
bared and her bod y is deform ed and paint ed all in bl ack again st a dee p
red background .)Th e wo rd "un cann y,' whi ch I have used here, is actu ally a techni calterm expressin g a co ncept prop osed by Freud . It is a signifi cant wo rd chatis some tim es brou ght up in di scussio ns o ff em ale rep resent ation . With out
go in g int o excessive deta il, I wo uld like to po int out th at Freu d used thi s
wo rd to describ e situ ations chat aro use "castrati on anxiety.' 1 Thi s co ncept
leads us to th e prob lem of fetishi sm , anoth er co ncept th at is usefu l inthinkin g about the represe nt atio n of wom en in arc.2 As ge nerally
un derstood by mos t peop le today , fetishism is a for m of abn or m alattr action for a certain type of object, but Freud 's o rigin al idea wassom ewh at di fferent from chis. To Freud , fetishism is an act carried o ut bya (m ale) subject in o rder to fin d a sub stitut e for th e ph allu s in response toan obj ect (w ith o ut a ph allu s) chat arou ses castr ation an xiety. Th us, th e
object o f fetishism is a "phallic substitut e'.' A subj ect (practicing fetishi sm )suppr esses castration anxiety by o btainin g a "ph allic su bstitut e;' w hichgives him a su pe rficial sense of securit y. Also, th e sub stitut e fetish objec t

300

fig.3: Sompot Upa-ln,A Lady,1959,
oi l o n canvas [color plate 13)

becomes a partner with which the (male ) subject can have a relationshipwithout feeling insecure or anxious. When it is impossible to have a
direct relationship with a normal partner , because she causes castration
anxiety, the subject forms a substitute relationship with the fetish object.
Therefore, fetishism can be described as a substitute relationship. The
issue here is the nature of this relationship. Fetishism is the achievementof a substitute power relationship formed when it is impossible to fulfill
the desire of keeping the partner subordinate to oneself and controlling
her as the object of sexual desire according to one 's wishes , that is, when arelationship of direct domination over the partner cannot be established.
Fetishism gives the subject power (ruling power ) that is illusory, imaginary, and fictional. To repeat, fetishism gives the subject fictional ,imaginary power.
In a discussion about the myth of"Medusa 's head ; Freud argues thatthe severed head arouses castration anxiety and that the body of Medusa
that has been turned to stone after the head was cut off is a substitute forthe phallus. 3 That is, the head and body of Medusa are ambiguous objects
that arouse castration anxiety and at the same time function as a substitute for the phallus. Because of this ambiguous character (causing
castration anxiety and restoring the phallus, simultaneously not having aphallus and having a phallus ), she is an example of the "uncanny"representation of women that I have mentioned above. I mention thisbecause the problem of castration anxiety has been pointed out withrespect to Picasso's Les Demoisellesd'Avignon.4 Also , this issue is presented
even more clearly by Souza 's copy of a painting by Picasso, Frolic,which
exhibits a higher level of uncanniness. There are "abject " images that look
like insects or vines writhing about in the painting. The eyes of thewoman on the extreme left are enlarged, and the second and third
women from the left have more than the usual number of eyes. The
uncanny representation of the female figures depicted here , like those in
the previously mentioned works , seems likely to induce castration anxiety .
Also, the phallus is restored by reducing the bodies of the women to aformal problem, making them an object of formal experimentation
within the substitute object that is constituted by this representation.
Another issue is the power relationship created imaginatively
through these fetishistic representations of women. There is a relationshipbetween the male artist and the women depicted in his paintings, but wemight say that there is more to it than this. For example, this relationshipmight be likened to the relationship between the West and Asia. The
Asian artist may be strongly influenced by the Western formal languageof Cubism (or more precisely, by the medium of oil painting itself, whichis, of course , Western ), but the body of the woman might be thought of as
playing an intermediary role, imaginatively suggesting that even in thissituation the artist maintains power and independence and is not entirely

301subordinate to the West.
To take the argument a step further , frankly quite a leap, it might bepossible to find some connection between this form of representation of
women and the achievement of political sovereignty (independence ) inlight of the fact that Asian Cubism flourished during the period ofnational independencein Asia, as demonstrated

by the exhibition. The

establishment of national sovereignty has two aspects , external andinternal. Even after the previously colonial regions became independent
nation-states , they could not entirely throw off certain kinds of subordination to their previous colonial masters, the great powers. And they could
not become completely free of the system of economic repression andexploitation (known as neo-colonialism ). This is the basic viewpoint of
posrcolonialism. In such a situation , the need for national sovereignty led
to the construction of imaginary autonomy and independence

in order tomake the persisting subordinate relationship with the West invisible orharder to see.
When we turn our eyes to conditions within the newly sovereign
nations of Asia, we find that they remained traditional and patriarchal inspite of modernization.

The system of dominance is based on a tradi-tional form of society in which women 's independence

is snipped awayor strictly limited. Luce Irigaray, the leading French feminist , in an essay
called "Women on the Marker; ' argues that the order of the patriarchal
society is based on the "exchange of women~ 5 Her analysis shows thatpatriarchal society is supported by distribution of women among men.
She argues that women's bodies are not granted a unique inner value but
are objects of exchange and distribution , existing as entities with symbolic
exchange value given them from outside. They are made "abstract " and"transparent~ These phrases - "abstract female bodies ;' "transparent
female bodies" -sound like the representations of women in Cubism.

Of course, it may be too simple to connect Cubist representations of
women with lrigaray 's argument based on this sort of rhetoric. Still , thesewords show us that manipulationof women 's bodies is firmly linked tothe achievement of imaginary dominance and power.
If modern nation-states are "imagined communities;' and if Asian
Cubism is related to the establishment of modern nations in Asia , it isnecessary to ponder the extent to which this "imaginary power " isconstructed and how Cubism is connected to these constructions. For
example, there is a suggestive phrase in the catalogue , indicating that one
could see how artists "made earnest efforts to regard other ethnic groups
as th e same 'nation ' as themselves; as exemplified in Malay Woman by
Cheong Soo Pieng , a Chinese painter from Singapore. 6 The imaginative
operation of bringing together "multiple " ethnic groups " and "diverse"
cultures into "one , single " representation of the "nation" and the connection of this operation to representation of women might provide a clue to302thinking abo ut the connect ion between "imaginar y power " and modern ist art. It is possible to say that wom en's bodies are sites where a d iverse,
multi- layered "imagin ary pow er" is placed and man ipu lations are
perform ed to mainta in this pow er.
(Translated by Sta nley N . And erson }Notes:
I. Sigmund Freud, "The Uncanny" (1919), The Pe11guiu
FreudLibrary,Vol.14 Art and Literature(London and
New York: Peng uin Books ). pp.335-376.
2. Sigmund Freud, '"Fetishism"(1927 ), in '/1,eStandardEditionof the CompletePsychologicalWorksof Sigmund
Freud,Vol. XXI (1927· 1931), (London, Vintage, 2001 ), pp.149-157.
3. Sigmund Freud, "Medusa's Head" ( 1922 ), in 'file Standard Edition of the CompletePsycbologicalWorksof
Sigmund Freud,Vol. XVIII (1920-1922 ) (London: Vintage, 2001 ), pp.273-274.
4. Yves-Alain Bois," Painting as Trauma; Art in America, June 1988, pp.130-140, 172-173.
5. Luce lrigaray, "Women on the Marker: 71nSSex WhichIs Not One (Ithaca: Cornell Unive rsity Press, 1985),
pp. 170·19I.
6. Ushiroshoji Masa hiro, "T he Birth of a Nation~ Cubism iu Asia: UnboundedDialogues,exhibitio n catalogue(Tokyo: The National Museum of Mode rn Art, Tokyo / The Japa n Foundation, 2005 ), p.233.

303

Sessio n 3- Presentat ion 3

Asian Possessions of the Cubist Body: '" Hom e from Home "Bert Winth er-Tam aki[Associate Professor, Department of Art History, University of California, Irvine]Th e strikin g new visual voca bul ary for representin g hum an bodi es th atem erged fro m th e Cub ist move ment in Eu ro pe in th e early 20th centur y
co nstitut ed a resour ce of o pen-ended glo bal pote nti al. And in fact, aspectsof th e Cubi st vision can be recog ni zed in im ages of hum an bodi es
p rodu ced in d ifferent parts of th e wo rld sporadi cally th ro ugho ut the 20th
centur y in pain tin g and oth er m edi a. In o rder to assess Asian dim ensio ns
of C ubi st approac hes to th e rep resent ation of th e body, thi s paper begins
by identi fyin g some definiti ve featu res of th e Cubi st body, th en specul atively outlin es pote nti al co nsequ ences of Cubi st body techniqu es to Asiansubj ect positio ns, and fin ally co nsiders str ategies for possessing th e C ubi st
bo dy app are nt in the wo rk of two Japanese and two Indi an paint ers.

I. Wh at was th e C ubi st bo dy?
For heuri stic purp oses, the Cubi st body m ay be defin ed by pointin g tofour o peration s which Cubi st arti sts, paradi gm atically Picasso in th e years
1906 to 1913 , admini stered to bodi es th ey generated in o il-on-canvas.
Picasso and oth er Cu bists subj ected vario us ideals, myth s, and percepti o nsof th e form o f th e hum an figur e to radi cal artistic processes of vio lation ,abstraction , subversio n , and defamili arization. 1 These processes m ay besumm arized as follows.
In a basic sense, th e Cubi st bo dy was a body w hich suffered a
vio latio n of its int egrity. Cubi st bodi es frequ entl y loo k fragm ent ed ,suggest in g bodi es th at have been taken apart. Picasso's breakth ro ugh was
ident ified as "piercing closed form " and he was said to study o bjects "theway a sur geo n di ssects a co rp se~' Picasso him self described his pictu rem akin g process as a "sum o f destru ctio ns~' Picasso's Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon (1907), arguab ly the found atio nal paintin g of th e C ubi stm ovem ent , staged a paint er ly vio lence th at was fraught with terror ofvenerea l di sease, sexual anxiety, and aggressive avan t-gard ist rivalry.
Th e Cubi st vio lation of th e bo dy was also an abstraction of th ebo dy, a subj ectio n of it to experim ent al system s o f represent atio n th atdi sengaged it fro m th e mim esis of actu al bo di es. Spec ifically, C ub ist
visio n di ssolved th e bo dy in space, b roug ht cont radi cto ry angles int osimult aneo us view, replaced th e skeleto n with an in orga nic grid , andenh anced recog ni zabilit y with di sconti nuo us patches of cloth andfragment ary texts o r symb o ls. Th ese C ubist processes thr ew th e o nt o log i-304

Bert Winther-Tamaki

cal status of the represented body into doubt, but the representation itself
was articulated through various rhythms and organized patterns that wereconcretely engaged to the picture plane.
Perhaps more than ideas about real lived bodies of flesh and blood,
it was the proper imagery of the bod y generated in academic practice thatwas the object of Cubist assault. Studying and extolling the classical bodywas central to academic pedagogy throughout most arc-teaching institutions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Picasso, having absorbed
this training in his youth, forged Cubist vocabulary, in part , by quoting
and radically subverting the painterly procedures , pedagogical devices,and proportional canons of the classical body that was iconic of academic
practice.
In addition to the violent fragmentation of the body, the abstractionof the body, and the assault on academic ideals of the body, Cubism also
defamiliarized the body by primitivist appropriations of bodies that were
foreign to the Paris-centered art world that was the initial context of
Cubism. Picasso alienated the Caucasian bodies of the prostitutes in Les

Demoisellesd'Avignonby replacing their heads with African and Iberianmasks. Moreover , his own art world image was glossed by rumors of him
as a "savage Spaniard" with part Moorish blood. Setting the stage for
Surrealism, the Cubist body was further alienated by disarticulations ofanatomical hierarchies and bizarre reconstructions which would, forexample, hang breasts from pegs and place genitals on faces.
II. What potential consequences did the Cubist body pose for Asiansubjectivities?
Elements of the Cubist body were appropriated by an impressive range ofartists throughout Asia during much of the 20th century. Awareness of
this diffusion stimulates speculative consideration of potential benefits
and risks of the Cubist body as an instrument for Asian subjectivities. The
question of how Asian painters actually deployed the Cubist body will beconsidered in the next section of this paper. Here an attempt is made toassess ramifications to Asian perspectives of the violated, abstracted, antiacademic, and defamiliarized body created and debated by European
Cubists.
One may imagine that those who subscribed to East/West binary
discourses of art promoted by writers such as Okakura Tenshin (18621913 ) and Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947 ) would be forced by anawareness of Cubism to re-evaluate this binary , for Cubism certainly
disrupted the contrast of Western mimetic realism to Asian spiritualismthat was often the premise of such binaries. Yet one may further imagine
the Cubist body providing fodder for two opposing perspectives , those
who would wish to essentialize East/West difference ever more rigidly andthose who would criticize or complicate this binary. This ambivalence is305

apparent in the Bengali painter and teacher Nandalal Bose's (1882-1966)
thoughts about art and anatomy. He contrasted Oriental anatomy,
characterized as "the study of body structure in light of its variety, in form
and movement ; with the European "anatomy of a dissected human body.'
Cubism would seem easily accommodated to the European conception of
the body in this binary , but Bose was also intrigued by the question of
how it could be that both "Oriental art " and "modern European art "could disregard "scientific rules of anatomy and perspective ~• This
question opens the possibility of defying a priori assumptions about East/
West difference and regarding the Cubist rejection of academic rules ofanatomy as an Asian direction in modern art. Similarly, if Picassoinvented a formal vocabulary for enacting the dissolution of the envelopeof the body, perhaps this technique could be useful to such an artist who
may wish to visualize , for example , a classical Chinese notion of anatomy ,which understands the body as a series of "energetic orbs " and a "dynamic
interplay of . .. functional systems ~'Clearly the Asian significance of Cubism is partly a function of thefact that variants of the academic system of training artists to reproduce
the classical body that Picasso imbibed from his father and various
academies in late 19th-century Spain were firmly established in Asia,
notably by the British in India and by the Meiji Westernizers in Japan.
Thus Picasso's Cubist subversion of the academic body was of immediate
relevance to Yorozu Tetsugor6 's rebellion against the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakk6
in the 1910s and EN. Souza's rebellion against the Bombay Art Society inthe 1940s.
Race, however , must be taken into account to measure relative
disparities between artists ' own bodies and the classical bodies canonizedin their academies. The Asian art student was separated by race from theplaster cast of Apollo Belvedere studied in the academy , while European
art students cou Id look upon such models as paragons of their own race.
Nonetheless , it would be wrong to assume that European artists necessarily felt a sense of kinship linking their own bodies with the classicalbodies they studied in the academy . Indeed , in 1922, one could read inJapanese that :As Picasso came to be drawn toward Negro sculpture(kuronbochokoku) and then Negro painting , this Spanish
savage with wild breathing and strong hands , grasped thisart without hesitation ... he wildly applied the cubic form
revealed to him by Negro art and all geometric form to hisart. Just as [Andre ] Salmon said, the one word 'attack'divulges his expressive style and attitude. 6
Picasso's apparent repudiation of kinship with heroic models of classical306

em bod im ent m edi ated Asian art ists' co nd itio n o f invo lunt ary alienati o nfrom such mod els. As Asian paint ers co nt end ed w ith th e endurin g
di fference between th eir ow n bodi es and the classical canon , th eir
enco unt er w ith th e joltin g sense of alterity primiti vism ignit ed w ithin
Eu ro pe mu st have been gratifying.
First impr essio ns of th e C ubi st bo dy in Asia and elsew here we recharac terized by a sense o f d azzlin g nove lty. C ub ist image ry was som ethin g th at "o ne mu st identi fy as strange and scream th at it is a mystery"(ki to yobz; kai to sakebubeki).7 C learly o ne d im ensio n of thi s perceived
novelty in Asian co nt exts was Western-n ess. Th e C ubi st bo dy cookmeanin g fro m its relatio nship to a Euro pean cultu ral trajectory, inclu d ing
its radi cal break w ith the Ren aissance pictori al trad ition and debt toC ezann e. In oth er wo rds, as Tate hata Akir a has noted, C ubi sm in Asia
signifi ed th e West ,' and this was also tru e of th e C ubi st body. In thi s sense,with o ut pro cedur es of radi cal translat ion , perha ps th e C ub ist body wo ul dseem co have littl e po tenti al for beco min g m etaph o rically inh abit able as"my body" fro m th e perspective of Asian paint er.
III. H ow did Asian paint ers possess th e C ubi st bod y?
Neve rth eless, Asian paint ers did engage th emselves in th e painting o f
C u bist bodi es and th eir paintin gs and th e rh etori c acco mp anying th em
dem o nstrate variou s strat eg ies for possessin g th e C ubi st bod y. Yorozu
Tetsugo r6 (1885-1927) was on e of th e first paint ers in Asia co submit th e
bod y co C ubi st treatm ent . Hi s Leaning Woman o f 19 17 (fig. 1) is a
rem arkable C ubi st bod y im age d ue its o dd and co mp ellin g co nfl atio n ofa rob otic im age ry of m achin ery w ith a ru gged , earth y and primiti ve fullblood edn ess th at mu st have seem ed an abrasive subversion anddefamiliari zati on of deco rou s body im age ry in Yorozu 's mili eu in Taisho
Japan . Both of th ese qu aliti es of Yorozu 's figur e -th e robotic app ear-ance of its rubb ery limb s and th e sense of fecundi ty th at gives it th e
im pressio n of a m oth er go dd ess -m ay be assoc iated w ith C ubi st

im agery of th e body. In an oft en repeated statem ent of 19 14, however, it
was th e primiti ve and not th e m ech anical th at Yorozu emb race d as his
fig. I : Yorozu Tetsugoro, Leaning
Woman, 1917 , oil on canvas [colo r

plate I]ow n preferred emb o di ed : ''A bar barian has beg un to walk w ithin me;' hedeclar ed , w hil e dem otin g C ubi sm and Futu rism to th e statu s of "sup erficial . .. produ cts o f civilizatio n ~9 Thi s sugges ts th at in Yorozu's case, th epossessio n of th e C ubi st body ent ailed a perso nal re-negoti atio n o f the
du ality of barb aric/c ivilized , a nego tiatio n th at had rich precedent s inEuro pean C ubi sm and also was a th em e of b roader cu rre ncy in Yorozu's
soc ial mili eu in J apan .10
IfYoro zu's pio neerin g exerc ise in th e paintin g of th e C ubi st bodystand s apart fro m its soc ial co nt ext as an avant-gardi st experim ent , thirt yyears later ano th er Japanese art ist's C ubi st deformati o ns of th e bod y
wo uld produ ce an im age th at is ico nic of th e strait ened co ndition s o f

307

Japanese society in his day. Tsuruoka Masao's ( 1907-1974 ) Heavy Hands(fig. 2) expresses a certain spiritual torpor specific to the milieu ofideological uncertainty and economic privation after Japanese surrenderduring the United States. Occupation when it was painted . This work
evokes Picasso's vocabulary for violating the human figure , but implements these borrowings in such a distinctive manner and in such a diresocial context that its ominous girders and the elephantiasis of body parts
that burden the crouching figure provoke thoughts about the travails of
hisrory far more readily than the modernist history of studio practice.
The leaden thickening of selected body parts here predicted Tsuruoka 'smuch quoted statement of a few years later urging artists to paint "things ,not events" (koto de wa naku , mono ). 11 According to Tsuruoka 's logic, theburden of modernity had apparently become so extreme , that the artist
could not hope to humanize it by painting events associated with thefig.2 : Tsuruoka Masao, Heavy

Hands,1949,oil on canvas[color plate 2]

human body - such as cognition , love, etc. - but had better justconcentrate on inert blocks of weighty matter. This extreme stance seems
all the more brutal if we suppose that one of its sources may be traced tothe subtleties of Cubist collage, where painted or drawn representationsof the body were infiltrated by bits patterned paper, newsprint, and cloththat seem like fragments of"real " things (mono ).
Just four years after Tsuruoka 's Heavy Hands, the Indian artist K.G.
Subramanyan (1924- ) painted a much more restrained and even refined
Cubist rendition of a woman breast-feeding a baby (fig. 3). Subramanyan
would write that , in Europe in the 1930s, "the Cubist experiment thatbrashly cracked the mirror-face of Realism had already petered out into
various geometrical manners or branched out into Abstractionist blindalleys."" Thus , Mother and Child dates from two decades after this alleged
European demise of Cubism. Subramanyan competently practices anidiom of Synthetic Cubism to render the interlocking forms of a motherbreast-feeding her child as a network of firm black lines and planes ofluminous color, suggesting indeed how the preferred vision of reality has
become something of a "cracked mirror~ Geeta Kapur has explained thebelatedness ofSubramanyan 's practice of Cubism with the claim that"astranger deals with a hegemonic culture through its own subversive
moments - as for example, 'the moment of cubism: " 13 Presumably ,Cubism was preferable in 1953 to more recent developments of European
painting because its more subversive stance was empowering to the nonEuropean interlocutor of modernism.
References to Cubism recur in the Subramanyan literature, but tend
to be accompanied by a rhetorical containment not unlike Yorozu's
relegation of Cubism to the superficiality of civilization. For example , theartist is said to esteem Cubism for the way it structures representation
around semiotic rather than purely mimetic means , but this mode ofrepresentation is seen as broadly attributable to "earlier non-Western308

fig.3: K.G.Subramanyan,Motherand Child, 1953,oil on board

traditions" rather than just Cubism. 14 Moreover , Subramanyan 's mostconspicuous forays into Cubist technique occur in works such as Motherand Child of 1953 that must be situated at the timid beginnings of a longcareer of painting that continues in the present decade. 15 Subramanyan
developed away from Cubism toward a more confident painterly stylewith more overt associations with South Asian cultural content.
A parallel career development may be seen in Yorozu's practice ofthe more overtly Asian styles of painting, Nihonga and Nanga, after his
Cubist work. Thus , the cases ofYorozu and Subramanyan suggest that one
mode of absorption of the Cubist body into modern Asian painting
entailed its preliminary adoption and stimulation of the development ofsubsequent imagery of indigenous Asian bodies with only vestigial tracesof Cubist style. Nonetheless, the temptation to designate this pattern as a
specifically Asian mode of incorporating the Cubist body must be
tempered by an awareness of similar tendencies in other parts of theworld. Indeed, the case of Diego Rivera (1886-1957 ) may be pointed to as
a particularly dramatic and early exemplification of a non-European
artist's discovery of an indigenous imagery of the body, in his case a
Cubist Mexicanidad , within his prodigious practice of Cubism in Europe(1913-1917 ) and a subsequent development of a nationalistic figurative
style of painting in Mexico. 16 The role of Cubism in Rivera's celebrated
Mexican mural style suggests that appropriations of the Cubist body byartists such as Yorozu and Subramanyan may be better understood in amore global framework than permitted by the term "Asia~
F.N. Souza (1924-2002 ), however , practiced Cubist body techniques
without any apparent need to distance himself from Cubism. Over half acentury after Picasso completed Les Demoisellesd'Avignon,Souza painted arough parodic reprisal of Picasso's composition in oil-on-canvas grisaille(fig. 4 ). The five figures of prostitutes who were so scandalous in Picasso's
rendition that Braque said they made him feel as if"forced to drink
kerosene or eat rope," 17 were now endowed with an even higher degree of
revulsion. Souza gave Picasso's brazen temptresses masks of a still morealienating and misogynistic character , deformed their bodies with
fig.4: EN.Souza,Frolic,1963, oil oncanvas [color plate 5]

markings suggesting disease , and gave one figure, the woman on the left,
the legs and cleft feet of an animal.
One way to assess this work in terms of its embodimentof Asiansubjectivity is to regard the Indian artist as having interpolated theEuropean artist's mythic masculinity. However, Yashodhara Dalmia
remarked that Souza "incorporat [ed ] the ' primitive ' via the mediation of
the West; " thus positioning Picasso in the role of a mediator. Ironicall y,this construction places the European Picasso, not the Indian Souza, in
the role of"native informant ;' accessing the primitive for Souza. Souza
himself, however , regarded hybridity as a predicament that linked him
with Picasso and other European modernists. The words "home from309

ho m e" in the titl e of thi s paper are extracted fro m th e follow ing state m ent
by Souza:
If m ode rn art is hybrid , w hat is th e Schoo l of Par is? Matisseis ' Persian: Yan Gogh is 'Japanese: Picasso is 'African;
Ga uguin is 'Po lynesian: Indi an artists w ho bo rrow fro m th e
School of Paris are ho me from ho m e. 19
With th e notion "ho me fro m ho me;' Souza expresses th e di slocat ive modeof habit ation th at he felt Indi an cultur al life shared w ith Europ eanm oderni sm. Mode rnit y situated him in a mili eu o f dwe llin g remo te fro m
any root ed sense of belo nging . He was raised as a strict Rom an Ca th o lic
in th e Po rtu guese co lo ny of Goa, and spent mu ch of his later career in
Lo ndon and New York. Thu s, perh aps he had an unu sual vant age for th epercepti o n of hybridit y in m odern Indi a and Euro pe.
Yet So uza's deploy ment of th e C ubi st and Surr ealist Picasso id bo dy
as an instrum ent for att ackin g th e hypoc riti cal Ca th o licism andVicto rianism - "mo re Victori an than Victori a"'° -th at he experienced

in Indi a find s a close co unt erp art in Tsuruok a's use of th e Picasso id bodyto articul ate th e social m alaise o f Japanese soc iety und er U nit ed States
milit ary rul e. Mor eover, th e pro min ence of C ubi sm o n th e ho rizo ns ofarti sts such as Yo rozu and Subr am anyan and even th e strain evident inth eir attempts to possess or perh aps overco me th e C ubi st body suggestth at th e hybridit y Souza experienced was bro adly characteristic o fmodernit y in Asia. Perh aps th e C ubi st body po sed th e figure o f a riven
kind of subj ectivity, a figure th at was gra tifying to hybrid soc ial experience in m any Asian co nt exts. Yo rozu, Tsuruok a, Sub ram anyan , and Souzaeac h variously subj ected bodi es co njur ed in o il-o n-canvas to operati ons ofvio latio n , abstra ctio n, subversio n, and defamili ar ization . Th e C ubi st bo dy
was a templ ate for dwe llin g in co ndi tions o f modernit y th at m ay haveseem ed to rend er o th er available m odes of paintin g th e body insufficient.
Asian artists' possessio ns of the C ubi st body we re re-possessio ns ofm odern Asian experience, "ho me from ho me~

Notes:
I. For recent discussions about the body in Cubism, see Christopher Green, ed., PicassoSLesDemoi,el/esdi\vignon(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,2001): Pepe Karmel, Picassoand the Inventionof Cubism (New Haven:Yale
University Press, 2003); Natasha Staller.A Sum of Destructions,Picasso's
Cultures& the Creationof Cubism {New Haven:
Yale University Press,200 1).
2. "Piercing closed form"were Daniel Kahnweiler'swords ( 19 15). The metaphor of dissection was Apollinaire's( 19 12).
C.Harrison & P.Wood, eds.,Art in Theory, 1900-1990 (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 206, 180.
3. Picasso'scharacterization dates from 1935. Harrison & Wood,Art in Theory,p.499.
4. Nandalal Bose, Vision&Creation {Calcutta: Visva-Bharati Publishing Department. 1999), pp.22-30.
5.John Hay,'T he Human Body as a Microcosmic Source of Macrocos mic Valuesin Calligraphy"in Susan Bush andChristian Murck,eds., Tbeoriesefthe Arts in China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p.84.
6. NakagawaKigen, '"Pikasoto rittaiha"(Nihonbijucsugakuin, 1922), pp.21-22, reprinted in lvzigaishink6gci;i1tsu,011
s6sho(Tokyo: Yumani Shobou, 2003), vol.4, pp.220-221.
7. Kobayashi Mango ( 19 12) quoted in Asano lo ru,""
Rittaiha, Miraiha to TaishO-kino kaiga7TokyoK.okuritrnKi11dai
Bi;"uts11ka11
11en{m( 1976), p.88.

310

8. In Clibism in Asia: UnboundedDialogues,exhibition catalogue (Tokyo: The Nation! Museum of Modern Arc, Tokyo/
The Japan Foundation, 2005 ), p.203.
9. For discuss ion of Yorozu and Cub ism,see Alicia Volk, Tbejapanese Expressionist:Yorow Tetsugor6( /885-1927 ) and theLanguageof ModernArt., Ph. D. dissertat ion, Yale Unive rsity, (May 2005 ), this quote as trans lated on pp .153-154.
10. For the duality of civilized/barbar ian in Japanese poli tical culture of this period, see Jason G. Karlin, '"The Gender of
Nationalism: Com pet ing Masculinities in Meiji Japan; Jouma/ ofJapaneseStudies 28: I (Winter 2002 ), pp.41-77.
11. See discussion of t his quote in Minemura Toshiak i, -The Realism of Tactility: Another Japan That Erupred~ trans.
Tomii Reiko in SbeddingLight 011 Art in japan 1953 (Tokyo: Megu ro Museum of Art / Tama Art University, 1997). p.50.
12. K.G.Subramanyan,Moving Fcx:11s:
Essayson Indian Art (New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1978), p.81.
13. Kapur borrows the term ..moment of Cubism" from John Berger. Geeta Kapur, Wlien was Modernism:Essayson
ContemporaryCultural Practicei11India (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2000 ), p. 120.
14. Subramanyan,Movi11g Focus,p.27.
15. For an overview of Subramanyan's work, See R. Siva Kumar, K.G. Subrama11ya11,
A Retrospective(New Delhi: National
Gal lery of Modern Art, 2003 ).
16. Ram6n Favela,Diego Ri11era:
Tlie Cubist Years(Phoenix,Arizona: Phoen ix Art Museum. 1984).
17. Green, Picasso's
Les Demoisellesd'Avignon,p. 134.
18. Yashodhara Dalm ia, TlieMaking of ModernIndian Art: 11ieProgressives(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001 ),p.98.
19. EN.Souza, ...Cultural Imperialism" PatriotMagazine (February 12, 1984), quoted by Dalmia, The Making of Modem
Indian Art, p.98.
20. Souza quoted by Edwin Mullins, F.N.Souza {London: Anthony Blond, 1962 ), p.44.

311

Session 3

Discussion

Moderator (Matsumoto Tohru): I would like to start our discussion now.
John Clark : The question of fetishism. I am not quite sure if I understood
Mr. Tanaka's argument properly. So, I am going to ask you in this way. Are
you sayin g that domination over the representation of the female body isa fetishist substitute for perceived weakness of contro l or being dominated by Western Victoria! discourse and that the female body is amediated place for an aggress ive and assertive domination over that
discourse? That is the question.
Tanaka Masayuki : My answer is yes.
Clark: I don't agree.
Tanaka : Why not?
Clark : Because if chat was the case, every artist who used somebody else'style would be in an aggressive relationship with their "fat her'.' And I
chink art discourses are not abo ut aggress ive domination. I chink they areabout play. Furthermore, I think the problem of feminist theory , youmentioned Luce lrigaray in particular, is chat she uses male ant hrop o logy.
Levi-Strauss is the first person to demonstrate in his kinship studies in the
1950s chat women are circu lated between men. But the point of LeviStrauss 's viewpoint was to show that women have a kind of place insociety whi ch has to do with a certain kind of exchange between different
power structures symbo lized by male gender and female gend ering. I
chink you should include the problem offema le pleasure, which you
haven 't included. If you are go in g to see gendering from a position which
is an aggressive attempt co count er-dominate somebody else who is amale in a hierarchical position , then you are nor going to be able toexp lain what female pleasure is in the representation of women 's bodies,particularly , or maybe of male bodies as well. And we saw pleasure quire
clearly demonstrated in the women artist 's work whi ch Professor Kim
showed us.

312Tanaka: In principle , I agree to what you're saying , Professor Clark. I
chink women in actual society do play a proactive role in some ways, or
have a level of independence. Therefore, there are artworks chat represent
such women or cake chem as subject matters. Moreover, there are chosewhich are subversive representations of male-oriented femininity. I do nothave specific works co which I could refer to now, but I do not deny that
there are such representations of women. So I am not saying chat all
images portra y male-dominatedwomen. But I believe chat the specificworks I presented co you today portrayed male-dominatedwomen, and I

wanted to put this on the table for discussion. I agree that there arepotentially other interpretations

for th ese works.

Moderator (Matsumoto): We are refering here to F.N. Souza's Lady in Blackand three other female figures that Mr. Tanaka has presented to us. I agree
that these works cannot be read according co Freud's ideas offetishism
alone. On the other hand , I think they do have the quality of uncanniness ,which Mr. Tanaka pointed to from the outset of his presentation. The
uncanny , menacing qualities are felt strongly in these works. Can
somebody comment on this in relation co the aspects of indigineous
belief or religion , coo?
Hayashi Michio: It is very regretful that we do not have an Indianpanelist co speak about Souza 's image , because I chink chat we should
discuss this painting with the understandingof its original context. Mr.

Tanaka 's reading of the work through fetishism made sense co me basedon my visual impression of this work , because fetishism in Freudian
psychoanalysis is an act carried out by a (male ) subject in order to find a
substitute for the phallus in response co an object (without a phallus ) that
arouses castration anxiety. In other words, it is singled out and stands inisolation, but because it is cut off from the rest , it remains as a exchangeable object. So, in Souza 's image , the iconic frontal view is set against a
monochrome

background , where th e female figure is isolated from therest and rises in abstract space. It gives both the "aro used " and "isolated /exchangeable" impressions at th e same time. In addition , the extreme
deformation, in which the bod y parts are rendered in mutated phallic
shapes, und erlines the uncanniness and ambiguity in the work. This is
why l thought, "Yes, we could read this work in this way,' as I listened to
Mr. Tanaka . But on the other hand , I wondered how Cheong Soo Pieng's

Malay Woman would be read. I think what Mr. Tanaka mentioned it in thelast part of his presentation as important. It does not represent simply an
Asia-versus-West framework, because a Chinese artist is painting a Malay
woman. It renders the mutual representations of different ethnic groups313