Ignacio Adriasola specializes in the history of art in modern Japan. His research addresses three interrelated concerns: avant-gardism and the question of art and politics; gender and sexuality in art and visual culture; and the transfer and circulation of objects and ideas to and from Japan in the modern period.

His book Fragment, Image, and Absence in 1960s Japan (PSU Press, 2022) examines how the notion of “the object” was transformed in Japanese experimental art during a time of rapid social, economic, and environmental change. By  examining the discursive practices of artists working across a wide range of media, and through a close analysis of artwork, philosophical debates, artist theories, and critical accounts, the book shows how Japanese artists and intellectuals of the 1960s formulated an aesthetics of disaffection through which the sought to address the stalemate of political and aesthetic representation.

Adriasola’s next project investigates the extension of these concerns into the contemporary moment, through a study of the process-based practice of the artist Enokura Kōji (Tokyo, 1942-1995).

His essays and translations have also appeared in the journals positions (Duke University Press), October (MIT Press), the Review of Japanese Culture and Society (Josai University), Ars Orientalis (Freer and Sackler Galleries), and Archives of Asian Art (Duke University Press).

Adriasola teaches courses in Japanese and Asian art of both historic and modern periods, as well as modernism. In addition to projects examining art and visual culture in Japan, he advises on projects examining the reception and re-formulation of modernism outside Europe and North America.

Prospective students seeking to carry out graduate studies on Japanese or East Asian topics should be aware of the high level of linguistic and cultural proficiency these subfields require. On application, students should be able to demonstrate that they already have attained a reasonable level of proficiency, which can be further built upon during coursework.

Modern Japanese art