From Dalian to Changchun: Official Art Exhibitions in Japanese-Manchuria

My paper examines discursive formations of state art exhibitions in Manchuria under Japan’s colonial governance between Japanese immigration boom in the 1930s and its eventual withdrawal in 1945. By tracing Japanese and the global social and political fluctuations amidst the Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII, this study probes into how the visual languages of artistic fascination or anxiety vis-à-vis Western modernism were transformed into Japanized state propaganda after the birth of Manchukuo (1932-1945), within the context of Japan’s inventing pan-Asiatic modernity through this burgeoning multiracial colony. My main thesis is that the spatial politics of Japanese imperialism facilitated this propagandized visual landscape, which was yet unevenly manifested by artists in heterogeneous backgrounds and modern minds. Specifically my study will be stretched out with three critical questions: 1) To what extent did the Japanese Empire locate and institutionalize art practice in Manchuria in order to enfranchise pan-Asiatic imperial vision in the 1930s? 2) How did artists in different diasporic, regional, and political backgrounds in Manchuria experience, resist or conform to the new politics of art? 3) How can we translate this ironic coexistence of colliding modernist styles in Manchuria into both Japanese and global contexts during this time period, when artists had to learn how to calibrate modernist self-expressions and socio-political expectations? In answering these questions, I will explore how the notion of Manchuria’s official art exhibitions runs parallel with Japan’s effort to overcome Western modernity and its claiming new pan-Asiatic modernity toward the most controversial historical time.