“Community of Images” exhibition curator Go Hirasawa has organized a special screening of artist and musician Yasunao Tone’s films and film scores, with the artist in attendance, to take place on Sunday, June 16, 2024, at the Philadelphia Art Alliance.

Sunday, June 16, 2024
3:00–5:00pm
Philadelphia Art Alliance
251 South 18th Street, Philadelphia / Google Maps >>

Admission to this program is FREE and open to the public.

This program is presented as part of the exhibition “Community of Images: Japanese Moving Image Artists in the US, 1960s–1970s,” which is scheduled to take place June 14–August 9, 2024, at the Philadelphia Art Alliance. Visit the Exhibition Website >>

Program Description

Featured works will be presented in digital formats. This program is scheduled to include presentations of the following works:

Yasunao Tone, 2,880K=120″, 1964, 3 min.
Masao Adachi, Galaxy, 1967, 75 min.
Motoharu Jōnouchi, Shelter Plan, 1964, 25 min.

About the Artist

Yasunao Tone (b.1935, Tokyo) began his career in Tokyo as a member of Group Ongaku along with Takehisa Kosugi, Mieko Shiomi, and others. His improvisational, disruptive praxis extended to performing from a van during the protests against the US-Japan Security Treaty in 1960. Tone was also involved with the Japanese performance groups Neo-Dada Organizers and Hi-Red Center and is counted among the members of Fluxus: his graphic score Anagram for Strings was published by George Maciunas in 1963, and he later helped to found the Japanese branch of the group.

Tone moved to New York permanently in 1972, where he worked extensively with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and performed at venues including the Kitchen, the Experimental Intermedia Foundation, and P.S.1. His hybrid works for Cunningham, such as Clockwork Video (1974) and Geography and Music (1979-1987), combined sound, text, video and installations integrated into events and performances.

Acknowledgments

“Community of Images” is co-presented by Collaborative Cataloging Japan and Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia. Major support has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Toshiba International Foundation, Pola Art Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and Japan Foundation.

 
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Cover Image: Detail of photo documentation, Ko Nakajima, Ryūdōtai Projector, 1969 © Ko Nakajima.