Agenda

Helena Čapková (Ritsumeikan University)
Václav Fiala and David Burliuk / Transnational Futurism in Japan

Abstract
Václav Fiala (1896-1980) and David Burliuk spent only two years in Japan in the early 1920s, yet, in the words of the scholar Omuka Toshiharu, their frantic activity and presence was a great leap to the future for Japanese modern artists, including already existent group of Japanese Futurists.
Japanese Futurism and David Burliuk’s contribution, even leadership of Russian Futurist movement has been scrutinised by a number of scholars, but the focus on Fiala and his futurist work produced in Japan is yet to be thoroughly researched and contextualised.
What kind of work did this asymmetrical duo, an experienced, star artist Burliuk and hardly fully trained, young painter Fiala, produced during their two years stay in Japan? Let's discuss it during our lecture.

Bio
Helena Čapková is a Tokyo / Kyoto / Prague based curator, researcher and art history professor, who currently teaches at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto. She studied transnational visual culture and Japanese Studies in Prague and London. Since 2010, she has published and lectured extensively on the specific nature of Japanese Modernism and avant-garde which she considers to be an inherent part of art history, traditionally perceived as a Western phenomenon. Her publications on this topic include: Transnational Networkers: Iwao and Michiko Yamawaki and the Formation of Japanese Modernist Design (2014), Believe in Socialism …: Architect Bedřich Feuerstein and his Perspective on Modern Japan and Architecture (2016), “Careless Shell”: Transnational Exploration of Czechoslovak and Japanese Surrealism (2015), Antonin Raymond’s “Glocal” Modern Architecture (1921–1976) (2019) and Bedřich Feuerstein, architect: Prague–Paris–Tokyo (2022).