Between Man and Matter. Tokyo Biennale 1970.

Tokyo.: Mainichi Newspapers / Japan International art promotion association., 1970. 2 volumes, one in photographic wrappers, the other in black wrappers. Presented in original cardboard slipcase. Mild browning to spine, otherwise a very good copy.. (23.5 x 25 cm).. pp. (144; 52). Numerous black-and-white illustrations throughout. The two-volume exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with the show ‘10th Tokyo Biennale’. Titled ‘Between Man and Matter’, the 10th Tokyo Biennale opened in May 1970 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and subsequently travelled to Kyoto, Nagoya and Fukuoka. The art critic Yusuke Nakahara, who was appointed General Commissioner for the exhibition, aimed to distinguish it from both the Venice and São Paulo biennial models by abolishing prizes and national representations. In order to represent the increasing diversity of artistic approaches that had developed beyond the traditional categories of painting and sculpture in the 1960s, Nakahara selected forty artists then working in Japan, Europe and North America, who were all associated with post-Minimalism, Arte Povera, Conceptualism and Mono-ha. The exhibition represented the culmination of two decades of experimentation in Japan, which had seen the rise of Gutai, anti-Art, non-Art and Mono-ha, and attempted to show a continuity between these practices and art movements developed in the West. Nearly half of the artists included in the project had participated the year before in ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ at the Kunsthalle Bern and/or in ‘Op Losse Schroeven’ at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, two shows that Nakahara refers to as direct influences in the exhibition catalogue. Nakahara also travelled elsewhere in Europe and, notably for the time, included artists from Poland and former Czechoslovakia. Artists include: Dietrich Albrecht, Carl Andre, Boezem, Daniel Buren, Christo, Jan Dibbets, Ger Van Elk, Kohi Enokura, Luciano Fabro, Barry Flanagan, Hans Haacke, Michio Horikawa, Enji Inumaki, Stephen J. Kaltenbach, Tatsuo Kawaguchi, On Kawara, Kazushige Koike, Stanislav Kolibal, Susumu Koshimizu, Jannis Kounellis, Edward Krasinski, Sol LeWitt, Roelof Louw, Yutaka Matsuzawa, Mario Merz, Katsuhiko Narita, Bruce Nauman, Hitoshi Nomura, Panamarenko, Giuseppe Penone, Markus Raetz, Klaus Rinke, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Richard Serra, Satoru Shoji, Keith Sonnier, Jiro Takamatsu, Shintaro Tanaka, and Gilberto Zorio. Of the two volumes, the larger booklet includes an essay by Yusuke Nakahara and artists' biographies, statements, exhibition histories, and bibliographies, as well as some illustrations. The smaller booklet contains the exhibition catalogue and more documentation of the Biennale. Text in English and Japanese.