Exhibition Review: Community of Images: Japanese Moving Image Artists in the US, 1960s–1970s

In 1966 the experimental Japanese filmmaker Takahiko Iimura arrived in the United States on a summer fellowship with the Harvard University International Seminar (now the Harvard International and Global History Seminar).¹ A cofounder of the Japan Film Independent group in Tokyo, Japan, and an influential avant-garde filmmaker, Iimura was so taken with the US that after his fellowship ended he decided to stay, relocating to New York City. Iimura’s move to the US would have a profound impact on his work, allowing him to become more engaged with the genre-bending intermedia artists of New York’s downtown avant-gardes and inspiring him to experiment with the electronic medium of video.² The recent exhibition Community of Images: Japanese Moving Image Artists in the US, 1960s–1970s begins at this junction between the Japanese and American avant-gardes, opening with Shelter 9999 (1966–68), a multimedia collaboration between Iimura and the experimental composer Alvin Lucier....