For many Japanese writers and artists of the 1920s and '30s, Surrealism was simply a stylistic novelty. Poet Shuzo Takiguchi, however, produced Surrealist writings whose message was lent conviction by the risks he took -- at the time, artistic and political freedoms were restricted.
Largely thanks to his efforts, Surrealist influences spread through all artistic spheres in Japan. Indeed, Takiguchi (1903-79) was a polymath. Though best known today as a critic of art, the writer created art as well. An exhibition currently at the Shoto Museum of Art, "Shuzo Takiguchi: Plastic Experiments," gives us the rare opportunity to view more than 300 of his works, including sketches, paintings and objets.
In the mid-1930s, Takiguchi composed seven poems, each dedicated to an artist, that show the incredible literary and political synthesis he had achieved as a Surrealist thinker. This exhibition shows that Takiguchi's artwork was also fully integrated into this belief system.