Para Site and MIACA are pleased to present the screening of MORIYAMA, a 2007 film featuring an interview with the legendary Japanese performance artist Yasuhide Moriyama, initiator of Spider Group 集団蜘蛛. Active between 1968-1973, the group is known for its extreme and sometimes explicit public performances which lead to Moriyama’s arrest and trial for obscenity in 1973, a trial that ended the group’s active years. Some of Spider Group’s actions remain undocumented, while others were mistakingly attributed to Zero Dimension, even appearing in the latter group’s publication. Moriyama remained absent from the public light until 1987 and he and the group were almost forgotten by art historians, until an exhibition curated by Raiji Kuroda at the Fukuoka Art Museum in 1997 and the realization of MORIYAMA. Spider Group has also been featured in several publications, including Anarchy of the Body: Undercurrents of Performance Art in 1960s Japan by Kuroda. MORIYAMA also features interviews with Raiji Kuroda (Chief Curator, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum) and Yoshihiko Imaizumi (founder of Bigakko in 1969, and close collaborator of Natsuyuki Nakanishi and Genpei Akasegawa of High Red Center).

The screening is followed by a discussion with the director of the film, Keiichi Miyagawa, moderated by Hitomi Hasegawa (in Japanese with English translation). This event is a satellite project of the exhibition Great Crescent: Art and Agitation in the 1960s-Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, on view at Para Site through February 9.

Para Site would like to thank the Asia Art Archive for venue support.

Para/Site Art Space is financially supported by Springboard Grant under the Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme of theGovernment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

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