Authors

Discussion

In my presentation I explore the history of Japanese proletarian art of the 1920s and 1930s, focusing on its reception, adaptation, and eventual suppression in Japan and the USSR. The Japanese proletarian art movement, emerging in the 1920s amid global revolutionary trends, sought to align artistic expression with the political and social struggles. Artists, inspired by socialist ideals and deeply engaged with Western avant-garde techniques, aimed to create art that resonated with the lived experiences of Japan’s urban labour force. However, in Japan, government repression of the mid-1930s targeted these leftist movements, leading to censorship and the restriction of proletarian art.

The Soviet Union, sharing ideological underpinnings with the Japanese movement, provided both an opportunity and a challenge for these artists. Through the work of cultural organizations such as VOKS (All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries) and IBRA (International Bureau of Revolutionary Artists), the USSR facilitated limited cultural exchanges, allowing Japanese works to be showcased in select Soviet exhibitions. Despite this, Japanese proletarian art was frequently sidelined or hidden, as Soviet curators selectively interpreted foreign pieces to align with the prevailing Soviet agenda.

My goal is to examine the intersection of ideology, art, and Soviet-Japanese international relations in the 1920s and 1930s. By investigating archival records and exhibition histories of Japanese proletarian art’s presence in the USSR, this presentation sheds light on a largely overlooked aspect of early twentieth-century cultural diplomacy and its impact on the evolution of Japanese and Soviet art discourses.