JAPANESE AVANT-GARDE PIONEERS
IN THEATERS
Featuring Araki Nobuyoshi, Moriyama Daido, Hosoe Eikoh, Ishiuchi Miyako, Tanaami Keiichi, Yokoo Tadanori, Mishima Yukio, Hijikata Tatsumi, Ohno Kazuo, Terayama Shūji, Tenjō Sajiki, Kawada Kikuji, Watanabe Hitomi, Neo-Dada Organizers, Hi-Red Center, Awazu Kiyoshi, Kaneko Ryūichi, Hanaga Mitsutoshi, Nakahira Takuma, Enomoto Ryoichi, Tanabe Santaro, Sasame Hiroyuki, Mizohata Toshio, Morishita Takashi,Lena Fritsch,Alexandra Munroe,Lucy Fleming-Brown, Peter Tasker, Master K.
The 1960s era in Japan was a time of profound social change, political unrest and student protests. The turbulent times of the postwar era inspired an artistic explosion in Japan, with the emergence of a revolutionary scene of avant-garde artists who pioneered many disciplines: experimental and erotic photography, “Angura” theatre and underground street performances, apocalyptic Butoh dance, surreal illustrations and seminal graphic design.
A new aesthetic of photography was born: “Are, Bure, Boke” (rough, dark and out of focus), pioneered by Moriyama Daidō and the Provoke magazine photographers. Araki beautified bondage and Hosoe Eikoh sublimated the male body. Ishiuchi Miyako captured her experience of American military bases. Kawada Kikuji’s era-defining photobook The Map captured the poignancy of Hiroshima’s trauma.
Master of underground theatre Terayama Shūji produced countless magical, surreal and vividly colourful films, plays and photobooks, Yokoo Tadanori and Awazu Kiyoshi revolutionised graphic design with their incandescent theatre posters, Tanaami Keiichi, Japan’s answer to Andy Warhol, developed his unique kaleidoscopic vision of Pop-Art, and Butoh founders Hijikata Tatsumi and Ohno Kazuo impacted modern dance forever with their dance of darkness and light.
Directed by Amélie Ravalec
Produced by Circle Time Studio
Co-produced by Whatsopp. Inc. / Maaserhit Honda
JAPAN ART REVOLUTION
The Japanese Avant-Garde, from Angura to Provoke
1960 -1979
Created by Amélie Ravalec
Published by Thames & Hudson
25 September 2025
Featuring 600 artworks
PRESS
“Ravalec has not made an art documentary in the traditional sense, but something more visceral and disorienting. The mix of image, video, voice and music whisks you away to this enchanting world, which was borne from the ashes of another. ”
“Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers shows that the artists it showcases produced some of the most cutting-edge contemporary art of the 20th Century and the sheer wit that drove so many to reinvent themselves and part of their country. Highly recommended.”
“In Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers, filmmaker Amélie Ravalec draws a portrait of an artistic movement that shook 1960s Japan, raw, political and uncompromising, with striking visual language and a sharp sense of historical context. ”
“Amélie Ravalec's new film Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers provides a portal into a phantasmagorical world that is grotesque, erotic, dangerous, and as absurd as "Alice Through the Looking Glass" - yet also comical, exciting and unforgettable."
“Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers is a masterfully insightful work, one of Ravalec’s best, and opens a window onto an area of art that has been overlooked and underrated for far too long. This is a truly impressive visual feast of a film. Miss it at your peril."
'“This is not for the faint-hearted, and the confronting content will challenge Western sensitivities. This is the very reason why the film is important, as it captures an entire segment of Japanese history that’s rarely seen. The film is both beautiful and brutal in equal measure. Essential viewing.
"The film will serve as a reference work for Japanese art for many years to come and includes rare and exclusive interviews with the artists. Director Amélie Ravalec sat down with Outsideleft recently to describe the film's journey from inception to the finishing line.
“Focusing on the likes of Daidō Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki, Eikoh Hosoe and many more, the film highlights the swell of creativity in the ’60s, at a time of huge economic change coupled with cultural tensions.”
“In this collision of poetic and violent visual languages, Ravalec invites us to re-understand the meaning of “avant-garde”, not as a style, but as a repeated self-ignition in the ruins, a courage to redraw boundaries at the edge of collapse.'“
DIRECTOR
Amélie Ravalec is a London-based Parisian film director, producer and photographer. She has directed documentaries exploring avant-garde, underground, and experimental art and music, including Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers (2025) and Japan Visions (2026), which focus on Japanese avant-garde art and photography; Art & Mind (2019), a journey into art, madness and the unconscious; Industrial Soundtrack For The Urban Decay (2015), exploring industrial music; and Paris/Berlin: 20 Years Of Underground Techno (2012), documenting the evolution of underground techno music. Her first foray into narrative fiction, Sumarsólstöður (2025), expands her exploration of underground and avant-garde culture in a new cinematic form.
