'Statue of a Girl of Peace', Art with a Taboo in the Japanese Culture
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Abstract
Censorship is always present in every area in society and something has been pushed to become 'prohibited'. No matter how democratic the society is, artists and the general public cannot accept them and try to find space for expression. The controversy and criticism of social irregularities are expressed through artistic means. In an article entitled 'Statue of a Girl of Peace', arts and the status as a taboo thing in the Japanese cultural context have the focuses on the constant censorship of contemporary art from the past to the present and the obstructions of creativity and expression of artists and art exhibitions.
This article aimed of questioning the right to freedom of expression among artists communicating through art works in contemporary society today, with the social and cultural contexts in Japan as a case study. Analyzing and explaining the censorship through an artwork called 'Statue of a Girl of Peace', one of the works affected by the phenomenon. The work is on display as part of the ‘Aichi Triennale’ International Contemporary Art Exhibition in 2019 to give an overview of the contemporary art censorship phenomenon that takes place across all areas, until we become familiar and analyze small points of events that can be linked to the explanation on the phenomenon in the international overview.
The situation of censorship of contemporary art and the blockage in various forms of creativity from past to present are structurally unchanged. Content is often a sensitive social issue such as the one concerning race, gender, religion, and politics. The blockage process ranges from criticizing, intimidating, threatening, detecting, seizing, destroying, banning, ceasing activities, arresting, up to assault and attempted against the artists. I, the author, comment on this issue that developing a society with a better direction can be achieved by driving society towards learning, acceptance and understanding of the different systems of thought and beliefs, which also known as "Pluralistic Societies." The path to reconciliation may lie in the support of a set of ideas or attitudes that believe that humans in society have different value systems.
A non-democratic society is a society attached to a specific value system which is at risk against social development. The structural problems can be solved by opening up areas for mutual learning of the many differences in the society, focusing on peaceful and free coexistence among diverse ideas, creative artists still feels safe to uphold their identities, the values to which all beliefs are accepted, and the freedom with boundary is fully scrutinized by civil society.
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