Yōji Kuri Part 1: Animation
Yōji Kuri, Crazy World, 1968. Courtesy of Kuri Experimental Manga Studio.
This August, we are delighted to present the first episode in our three-part memorial screening in honour of Yōji Kuri, one of the founders of Japanese experimental animation, who passed away in November last year. Curated by Fusako Matsu and in collaboration with the Kuri Experimental Manga Studio, the program will introduce a varied range of works from Kuri’s expansive career - his famous animations in August, television works in September, and his films on contemporary artists in October.
Yōji Kuri was born in 1928, and in 1960, both founded the animation studio Kuri Jikken Manga Kōbō (Kuri Experimental Animation Studio) and co-founded the Animation 3-nin no Kai (Three-Person Animation Circle) with Ryōhei Yanagihara and Hiroshi Manabe, and organized Japan’s first experimental animation screening at Sōgetsu Art Center. The screening series was later rebranded as an “Animation Festival,” and became the country’s foundational festival of animation, screening works from both Japan and overseas.
Offering sharp but affectionate critiques of modern social life, Kuri’s early animation works received numerous awards from festivals worldwide, from Annecy and Locarno to Vancouver. LOVE (1963), for example, satirises erotic life during an era of changing sexual mores by depicting a woman’s frenzied pursuit of a helpless, diminutive man. Kuri also collaborated with various avant-garde musicians throughout his animation career, including Toru Takemitsu, Toshio Ichiyanagi, Kuniharu Akiyama and Yoko Ono, whose voice provides the soundtrack to AOS (1964), a surreal patchwork of body parts accompanied by Ono’s guttural vocalisations. Finally, Crazy World (Baka baka baka na sekai) bridges animation and actuality as it incorporates photographs into its satire of political and social events.
THE PROGRAM WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING ON CCJ’S VIEWING PLATFORM.
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Program
Yōji Kuri, LOVE, 1963, 4:28 min, color, sound
Animation: Yōji Kuri / Poem: Shuntarō Tanikawa / Music: Toru Takemitsu / Voices: Hiroshi Mizushima, Kyoko Kishida / Production: Yōji Kuri
Yōji Kuri, AOS, 1964, 9:09 min, bw, sound
Direction: Yōji Kuri / Voice: Yoko Ono / Illustration: Yosuke Inoue / Animation: Hajimei Furukawa, Masamichi Hayashi / Tracing: Atsuko Uno, Kazue Sasaki / Coloring: Hisako Sugawara, Kikuko Furushiro/ Cinematography: Yōji Kuri, Tomoko Nomura / Production: Kuri Experimental Manga Studio
Yōji Kuri, Crazy World (Baka baka baka na sekai), 1968, 5:17 min, color, sound
Production: Kuri Experimental Manga Studio
