've only lived in Fujino since 1994 and don't claim to know the full story behind the town's Art Resort Initiative, but based on what I've read and picked up from conversations, and judging from the pattern of events said to have occurred elsewhere in Japan, the following outline of events is probably not far off the mark:
The original idea of creating an art resort in Fujino goes back at least to the late World War II period, when a number of central figures in Japan's art scene relocated to Fujino to escape the dangers of bombing in the city. Among these artists were Foujita Tsugouharu (Fujita Tsuguharu) in Obuchi; Satô Kei, Inokuma Gen'ichirô and Wakita Kazu in Yoshino; Nakanishi Toshio and Isei Masayoshi in Sawai; and Oguiss [Ogisu] Takanori in Hizure. Several of these artists were anti-establishment, anti-imperialist figures who refused to produce propaganda art for the government, and instead got the idea of building a community of like-minded artists in Fujino. The community apparently didn't last long, but a group of them did set up their homes here for a time.
On the more recent—and mundane side—is the history of public intervention and support of the Fujino Art Resort concept. On the sloganeering surface of things, it would seem straightforward enough, but it is, in fact, rather more complicated than it appears. Since it is a drama that has been played out in many other locales around postwar Japan, it shouldn't be entirely unfamiliar:
For the first twenty years following the end of World War II, Japan gave its full efforts to rising from the ashes of war. It succeeded, entering what it calls a period of "high economic growth" around 1960, when its economy, led by exports, expanded by leaps and bounds, and the image of Japanese goods as "shoddy" began slowly improving.
One side-effect of that frenetic growth and the importation of superficial Western culture during the period was an accelerated shift in the center of values from traditional to modern, and from rural to urban settings. Young people made no bones about where their preferences lay, voting with their feet as they left village and town in droves. This resulted in the severe depopulation of many rural locales; some villages became ghost towns, and others nearly so. I could be mistaken, since I haven't done any kind of survey of the matter, but my hunch is that the now-ubiquitous "local culture preservation organization" probably received a big boost from around this time; traditional culture became consciously apprehended as something that needed "preserving."
As traditional social values became replaced by the value of economic growth, feeling and aesthetics were largely ignored in the urban environment; perhaps that was inevitable in the short run, given the degree of damage left by the war and the crucial need for rebuilding, but for whatever reason, the neglect of human sensibilities in favor of utilitarian function produced brutally austere cityscapes, many reminiscent of scenes out of Bladerunner or worse.
Aside from the necessity of rapid rebuilding after the war, the "ugly city" syndrome was aided and abetted by the postwar "iron triangle"— the collusion of government ministries, politicians, and corporations, particularly those involved in construction. Any development was viewed as Good, so long as it led to profits and paybacks, and so long as the desolation and pollution wouldn't be immediately apparent. The feelings of the people who had to live there, and long-term effects, were basically ignored.
As Japanese incomes rose with the rapidly expanding economy, however, concerns about the Japanese "quality of life" began to be voiced, and a few pioneering cities initiated "urban beautification" projects in the 1960s involving the introduction of outdoor sculptures as a means of improving the scenic value of the urban environment. One of the first cities to do this was Ube in Yamaguchi, which first began decorating its streets with flowers, then progressed in 1961 to introducing sculptures.
From a simple means of improving the visual landscape, this kind of project spread nationwide in the 1970s as local governments discovered public sculpture and art as a means of injecting a bit of "culture" to the lives of the unwashed masses. After the concept gained a foothold in the cities, the plight of Japan's towns and villages came into view, and more emphasis began to be placed on the revitalization of the local communities that had been decimated with the excessive shift of population and jobs to the urban centers. This concern found concrete expression in Prime Minister Takeshita's misdirected "town revitalization enterprise," a boondoggle that doled out 100 million yen to small towns nationwide for any lame-brained project which the town might conceive.
International trade friction appears to have been another factor behind the nationwide experimentation with public art projects. The late 1980s saw heightened tension with the United States and other trading partners over Japan's excessive economic reliance on exports, and a motto of the day became "promote internal consumption and demand." One means to that end was to encourage investment in public works and urban redevelopment projects, and to spur domestic consumption and demand by fostering the growth of resort and recreation facilities.
These grandiose plans were carried along on the bravado of the so-called "bubble economy" of the 1980s, when money could be thrown at virtually any plan, no matter how intangible. According to one observer, at the height of Japan's bubble economy in October 1991, more than eighty local Japanese municipalities possessed or were planning programs involving the use of
public art (sculpture, installations) as part of their urban
renovation plans. Although the bubble burst, many people failed to foresee the consequences for such programs and continued to promote their ambitious projects. As a result, by 1995, the number of towns and cities with such plans and programs had risen to around 120.
While the "art town" and outdoor sculpture projects initiated in this context produced certain positive results in terms of scenic value, they were in the main an imposition of top-down policies wrapped up in buzz words like "enlightenment," "culture," and "art." Critics pointed out that citizens of a small village might awaken one day to find an avant-garde sculpture installed in their everyday space, almost like a UFO come to roost. Since the bureaucrats in charge of these projects were frequently not trained in the arts themselves (any sculpture was "Art" and art was "Good"), many of these projects were initiated with little concern for how given works might blend with the community environment, or with existing community feelings and sensibilities. A new word was even coined to express the disgruntled reaction of some citizens: "sculpture pollution."
Like similar programs elsewhere, Fujino's Art Resort Initiative was proposed in 1988 against this background of economic bubble, realpolitik, and top-down culture policy. (Perhaps they even refered to the wartime experiment by Nakanishi and the other anti-establishment artists as a legitimation for the plan.)
One unique feature of Fujino's Art Resort Initiative was the way it was woven into a larger, comprehensive plan for the entire Sagami River basin. Called the Sagami River Plan for a Dynamic Future, this project was to involve twelve cities and towns divided into seven centers extending from Fujino to Sagami Bay. Fujino and Lake Sagami were called "Center of Forest, Lake, and Creation," while Shiroyama Township was "Center of Forest, Lake, and Science." Others of the seven included Aikawa Township ("Center of River, History, and Recreation"), Sagamihara City ("Symbol of River and Nature" [it's got to be symbolic, because there is very little "natural environment" left in Sagamihara]); then the "Atsugi and Ebina Center of Urban Function"; "Samukawa Center: Symbol of River and Culture"; and finally Hiratsuka at Sagami Bay, called the "Hiratsuka Center of Urban Function." The purpose of these seven centers of activity was to raise civic awareness of the need to preserve the environment along the river basin itself, which provides much of the water for the cities of Kawasaki and Yokohama. The motto for the overall project was "Sagami River: Restoration Zone for Human Life with Abundant Water, Greenery, and Culture." Unfortunately, at this point, this is all I know about the overall project, so I'm not aware of how the crashing of the bubble economy has affected the overall project plans.
At any rate, viewed from the side of the bureaucracy, Fujino's Art Resort Initiative likely had purposes similar to those of art village projects elsewhere: economically, to stimulate interest in the town, establish and improve a town "brand image" (local identity), thus leading to increased tourism; and educationally, to enhance the level of culture, thus raising public consciousness of the necessity of preserving the natural environment while simultaneously revitalizing the local society.
It is important to remember here that aside from whatever artistic and ecological elements were involved, economic motives (local revitalization and tourism) were crucial to the plan. Phrases such as, "to develop industry so as to invite businesses that are in harmony with nature," and "to stimulate industries which do not place burdens on the natural environment, including unique local products, knowledge-intensive industries, and craft industries," are right up front in the project plans. These economic elements were directly related to Fujino's aforementioned status as catchment for the Sagami River, and the legal limitations placed on heavy industry here. My emphasis of this fact is not meant to be particularly critical; I do not think that public art, cultural "enlightenment," ecological preservation, and economic development are necessarily antithetical. Only, there has been a certain degree of ambiguity about the purposes here that has led to a scattering of energies.
From a social perspective, the initial view of the status of art was, if not noble, at least educational. The goal was not to merely seek an ethereal "art for art's sake," but to establish "art in everyday life," and to provide opportunities for outside artists to live in Fujino and imbibe the local culture, thus providing a two-way channel for cultural edification and stimulation. The initial project outline included plans for a "meister college," a "log-house resort" and "art village." The meister college was apparently to be a training facility where resident artists from the "art village" would help educate new artists, who perhaps would stay in the "log-house area." Between the two was to be an additional "leisure factory" where ordinary people could come and experience artistic pursuits. It appears likely that it was the "leisure factory" which, under budgetary tightening, was later combined with the "log resort" to become the Fujino Workshop for Art.
The plan has been successful in attracting numerous artists and craftspeople to live and work in Fujino. I've been told the town is currently home to around one-hundred resident artists (broadly defined), from architects and graphic designers to painters and print-makers, writers, musicians, dyers and weavers, ceramic artisans and jewelry makers.
Due to no fault of Fujino's, though, the art resort dream has been a bit delayed in becoming a full reality. When the bubble economy burst in the early 1990s, the public- and private-sector investment that was to fuel these grandiose projects dried up, and the overall art resort initiative was drastically curtailed. In recent years, Kanagawa Prefecture itself has teetered on the brink of insolvency, and public funds for annual art events have been cut back each year, with responsibility for the events being increasingly shifted to the shoulders of the local artists themselves.
Here, a fundamental problem is revealed. The artists themselves lack a unified vision and effective leadership regarding the objectives of the town's art activities, thus resulting in a certain ambiguity and uncertain sense of direction in their joint activities. This is not to criticize them as individual artists; artists are pretty individualistic souls, and should be allowed to engage their art without particularly expecting them to be entrepreneurs.
On the one hand, it may be that some artists are opposed in principle to allowing themselves to be located within the economic motives of government bureaucrats. Perhaps they prefer to look back to figures like Nakanishi, Fujita, and the other anti-establishment artists of the war period, and avoid anything that has "commerce" written on it. Some seem to feel that it is sufficient that Fujino's artistic events serve the purpose of local edification alone, a kind of "I'm okay, you're okay" art for the local community, and they consider it unnecessary (or beneath their dignity?) to look outward to invoke tourism or the wider economic development issues.
On the other hand, some in the town view the local events as a chance to market themselves and their creations, and thus consider the "outward orientation" desirable. Granting the value of art for art's sake, many of Fujino's "creative people" should in fact be considered "craftspeople" rather than "artists" in a pure sense; they have no institutional endowment or wealthy patrons, and the marketing of their works is necessary to their economic survival. For the forseeable future, the Artsphere events will likely continue to be organized and carried out by the artists themselves, with less and less input from the town and prefectural governing authorities. That may or may not be a good thing, but I can't help feeling that what is needed is an impresario with the vision, leadership, and public relations ability to unite the disparate energies of the artists and orient the Artsphere event in a more unified, coherent direction.
Note: I am updating this page as I learn more about the art-resort initiative.
