Re-Appropriating Culture: Japonisme in Contemporary Japan and the U.S.

Wed, April 6, 2022 7:00 PM at Zoom

Registration required here: https://msu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMqd-mgrTIsEt0Pcn_vHlybp0s5iPOZhLt1

This talk examines the divergent ways that Claude Monet’s painting La Japonaise (1876) was presented to the viewing public in Japan and the United States. When it traveled to major Japanese cities in 2014, the painting was enthusiastically received as an Impressionist masterpiece that demonstrated the impact of Japanese art on modern Western painting; however, when it returned to its home at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the museum’s program allowing visitors to try on a replica of Monet’s painted kimono—a gift from Japan—was decried as perpetuating Orientalist cultural appropriation. Despite the differences in politics, both receptions reveal how the museum has become a participatory space for emotional responses from the public, whether pride or outrage, often without prompting the viewer to engage directly or carefully with the work on display.

Dr. Noriko Murai is Associate Professor of Art History at Sophia University in Tokyo. She teaches modern Japanese art and is engaged with issues of cross-cultural representation and gender studies. Her English publications include Journeys East: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Asia (coauthored, 2009) and Japan in the Heisei Era: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (co-edited, 2022).

Made possible by the MSU Asian Studies Center Global Virtual Speakers Program; generously sponsored by the MSU Japan Council; Asian Studies Center; Department of Art, Art History, & Design; Asian Pacific American Studies Program; and Global Studies in the Arts & Humanities.