NAHA —

A museum run by Okinawa Prefecture has barred a series of collages featuring photos of Japan’s late Emperor Hirohito from a display list at its ongoing exhibition, citing an ‘‘educational’’ reason.
 
The artwork barred from being displayed at the Okinawa Prefectural Art Museum is a 14-piece collage series that artist Nobuyuki Oura, 60, crafted when he was in his 30s. Each of the collages features a cutout photograph of the emperor, posthumously known as Emperor Showa, along with images such as mushroom clouds, naked women and an anatomical chart of human bodies.
 
The collages had already been displayed at recent exhibitions in Tokyo and New York. They were to be shown at an exhibition that began at the Okinawa museum last Saturday under the title of ‘‘Into the Atomic Sunshine.’‘
 
Shinya Watanabe, who organized the exhibition, said he agreed to exclude Oura’s work after the museum told him that the exhibition could not start if his work was included.
 
‘‘The museum is an educational facility run under the prefectural education board and such a facility is thus supposed to display works in a fair and neutral manner,’’ said Hirotaka Makino,
who heads the Okinawa museum.
 
‘‘We have judged that the artwork in question would not be suitable from an educational point of view,’’ he said. ‘‘There are no problems because the organizers have agreed with us.’‘
 
But the decision has drawn a barrage of critical comments from art critics in Okinawa Prefecture.
 
‘‘Okinawa was drawn into the ground battle during World War II under Japan’s imperial system,’’ said one of the critics. ‘‘The prefectural government does not understand how dreadful it would be for authorities to promote only art that sees a bright side while avoiding facing up to the reality of the unfortunate part of history.’‘
 
Another said, ‘‘The museum should have left the judgment on the art up to its audience instead of resorting to censorship or self-restraint.’‘
 
The Museum of Modern Art in Toyama Prefecture acquired some of the collages and exhibited them in 1986. But the museum soon closed the show to the public and sold it to other parties, as it sparked strong protest from rightists.
 
In 1994, Oura filed a lawsuit demanding that Toyama Prefecture repurchase the collages it disposed of. But court ruled against him in 2000.
 
The latest incident ‘‘represents self-protection and excessive reaction from a local government, which makes the topic on the imperial system taboo,’’ said Oura.
 
‘‘This kind of incident could happen anywhere in Japan,’’ he said. ‘‘The problem was that this has happened in Okinawa, a place where post-war issues have remained like dregs.’‘
 
‘‘I was disappointed because I was robbed of opportunities to see how the audience would react to my work, including criticism from local people,’’ he said.
 
The sentiment of people in Okinawa toward the late emperor is said to have worsened when the so-called emperor’s message—a 1947 memorandum by Gen Douglas MacArthur’s political advisor William Sebald—became public in 1979, showing the emperor’s hope for Okinawa to be long occupied by the United States.
 
After the war, Okinawa was under U.S. occupation from 1945 to 1972.
 
The emperor visited all prefectures in Japan after the war except Okinawa. He was scheduled to do so in 1987 but the plan was aborted because he needed surgery.

© 2009 Kyodo News. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication without written permission.

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5 Comments

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  sensei258 at 08:42 AM JST - 18th April

  ‘‘We have judged that the artwork in question would not be suitable from an educational point of view,’’. Of course! They wouldn't want anyone else to "learn" that their beloved emperor directly involved in gross medical experiments on living human beings.

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  memyselfI at 12:48 PM JST - 18th April

  Ｗｏｗ！！！　Ｉ　ｄｉｎ’ｔ　ｋｎｏｗ　ｔｈａｔ．

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  timorborder at 01:32 PM JST - 18th April

  Good to see that freedom of expression is alive and kicking in Japan. ALso good to see that there are still elements in Okinawa that just love the Emperor Showa and what he did for prefecture.

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  sf2k at 06:15 PM JST - 18th April

  I think they're afraid that the art will stew resentment, remembering anti Okinawan language issues and further ideas regarding Okinawa separation.

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  the_sicilian at 09:41 PM JST - 18th April

  It's a museum, meant for education. Not an art exhibit. Plus, it's not like the Okinawans and the Japanese are friends.

  And who said Japan has freedom of expression? Where is it in Japanese Law?

  Ciao

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