「海外超現実主義作品展」（一九三七年）における複製写真展示の意義 : シュルレアリスム「国際」展の観点から <査読論文>

In 1937, a small exhibition entitled Exhibition of Surrealist Works from Overseas was held at Nippon Salon in Tokyo. This exhibition was the first and almost the only surrealist exhibition in Japan before WWII, and in this sense, it definitely played a crucial role in the development of surrealism in Japan. Nevertheless, the evaluation of this exhibition was conditional.
There seems to be two main reasons for this. Firstly, domestic artwork was completely excluded from this exhibition despite its official French title, Exposition internationale du surréalisme. Secondly, the majority of the works displayed there were photographic reproductions, and so considered less significant than the originals. These aspects have created an impression of the exhibition as an introduction of imported western art or for the purpose of ‘enlightening’ Japanese artists.
In this paper, I examine the significance of the first surrealist exhibition in Japan from a viewpoint of the meaning of the display of photographic reproductions. Throughout the discussion, we find a much more ambitious strategy for the exhibition of surrealism than had been previously recognized: it used the power of prints and photographic reproductions as a springboard for the distribution of surrealist images, ideas, and practices.