Film: Edo Avant Garde with Director Linda Hoaglund
During the Edo era (1603‒1868), Japanese artists used a range of innovative methods to bring the natural world and its inhabitants to striking life. To animate trees and puppies, waves and clouds, they used asymmetry, abstraction, stylization, and empty space—techniques that were only later seen in Modern Art of the West. In Linda Hoaglund’s film Edo Avant Garde, she explores how Japanese artists created such elegant and original art by filming Edo-era masterpieces in Mia’s collection and other museum and private collections across the United States and Japan.
The film’s exquisite cinematography by Japanese Academy Award-winning Kasamatsu Norimichi and outstanding original soundtrack by Satoshi Takeishi and Shoko Nagai present a remarkable, immersive experience of the Edo era’s rarely filmed folding screens, many outside traditional museum and gallery settings. Simultaneously dynamic and mesmerizing, at its heart Edo Avant Garde offers a unique opportunity to look closely and see differently.
Film screening will be followed by a Q&A with Linda Hoaglund.
Running time: 83 minutes.