Publication
Title
Diffracting the politicized spectale: queering censorship in the Aichi Triennale
Author
Abstract
By referring to the philosophies of Izutsu Toshihiko, the article argues that it is often the case that the profiling of difference increases the sense of isolation experienced by the very people the practice intends to help, and thus intensifies the number of micro-opponents even among peers. This was precisely the case in Aichi Triennale 2019, a Japanese interdisciplinary art festival financially ‘censored’ by the government which responded to extreme-rightists’ protest against some politically-charged art pieces. Owing to the political havoc, artists and curators participating in the event were forced to take sides through the gaze of political micro-categorizations, which ended in even more divisions and ruptures. What soon became apparent was that it was mainly through the voice of logocentric male artists that the political divisions were amplified. Takayama Akira and Ichihara Satoko were those few artists who decided not to take sides and resorted to the politics of diffraction rather than difference. Through their artworks titled J-Art Call Centre and The Bacchae: Holstein Milk Cows respectively, they tried to go beyond the antagonistic narratives which, Karen Barad affirms to maintain the ‘binary thinking […] instrumental to the working of power’. More specifically, the article demonstrates how through their dramaturgies, Takayama and Ichihara opened up a more innovative reconfiguration of the world - what Izutsu calls the ‘gentle cosmos’ – which operates under the politics of diffraction.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Performance research : a journal of performing arts. - London, 1996, currens
Publication
London : Routledge , 2021
ISSN
1352-8165 [print]
1469-9990 [online]
DOI
10.1080/13528165.2020.1883327
Volume/pages
25 :5 (2020) , p. 84-91
ISI
000626965800014
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Art 
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 10.03.2021
Last edited 30.10.2024
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