Lacking a balance with its economical success, Japan in the past two decades has had few international art exhibitions where we could periodically exchange artistic activities on worldwide. This Triennial exhibition tries to make up for this lack and create a forum for discussion about the subject of future openness and intercourse. For professors of the print course, Tama Art University, who originated the idea of this exhibition, I would like to express my sincere respect.

When I was appointed chairman of the administrative committee of the Triennial exhibition, I portrayed in my mind two objectives as an art critic: a truly global art event, not partial to artists from Europe, the U.S., or neighboring countries; and an event in which not just print artists, but also those from other media (painting, sculpture, etc.) will join. Regarding the former, we are pleased to have received 1,275 entrants from 67 foreign countries-a figure much more than we expected. We still have more districts with which we should make contact to ask for their participation. Regarding the latter, it cannot be said that we have yet achieved a desirable result as far as Japan is concerned; this is a problem to be solved in the future.

Minemura, Toshiaki
Chairman of Administrative Committee,
The 1st Tokyo International Mini-Print Triennale 1995

This year, 1995, Tama Art University celebrates the 60th anniversary of its founding. As a commemorative event of the celebration, we are pleased to hold "The 1st Tokyo International Mini-Print Triennale 1995."

The exhibition is intended to display and introduce the latest contemporary prints selected through open-competition of internationally inviting applications, as well as to contribute to promoting further study on print materials and techniques. Furthermore, in this internationalized era when "the world's university" has been sought for, we have organized this exhibition to promote to the public images of Tama Art University: an "open-university" or "university willing to contribute to society."

We seriously pray that the exhibition will play a role of activation to re-start international exhibitions in Japan. Finally, we wish to express our sincere thanks to concerned organizations for their warm support in making this exhibition possible.

Fujitani, Nobuto
Chairman of board of directors, Tama Art University

For internationally inviting applications to this exhibition, an event planned to celebrate the 60th anniversary of founding of Tama Art University, the number of entries sent to us was far beyond our expectations. Thus. it is truly a matter of congratulation that we are ready to hold on a splendid scale "The 1st Tokyo International Mini-Print Triennial 1995."

I wonder that such a great response has been given to us, apparently because of an aspect of the globality in prints; prints seems to have become. in the good sense of the word, very popular among and familiar to everybody. At the same time, however, a meticulous and elaborate technique of extremely high level and a rich grounding are required for print making, as observed from the fact that members of the screening committee exchanged great debate over selecting prize winners; what is asked for is a prominent individual personality. I remember, for example, Rembrandt who a long time ago used Japanese washi paper to an etching.

Goto, Kenshi
President, Tama Art University

Print art technically varies from copper print, woodblock print and lithography, to silkscreen. All of these, though, have in common the act of printing. Differing from artists who work on oil paintings, nihon-ga, fresco paintings, water colors, pastels, etc., print artists of all nations seem to have a common language-act of printing. It seems to me that prints, finished through the process of "printing," strangely have possessed a kind of narrativity, thought, fantasy (illusion), or decoratively, whatever they might be produced by any artist from any nation or race. In other words, they have the nature of literature; Created intheir carved lines are literrature or living men. Such prints, therefore, speak to me in an easy to understand language, which would be an affinity or delight found in print art.

I have heard that 1,275 entrants from 67 foreign countries, as well as 540 domestic entrants, have applied to "The 1st Tokyo International Mini-Print Triennial 1995." We will certainly be able to become friends with many artists through this exhibition.

Okuno, Takeo
Dean of art and design faculty, Tama Art Unversty

For this international Triennial exhibition for which we have invited applications for prints-an activity organized to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the University-we have received about a total of 3,000 pieces by about 1,800 entrants, including those from 67 foreign countries. In spite of having a great deal of apprehension at the start of this event, we could attract ardent attention to this exhibition on an international scale. We would like to express our gratitude for that. Each time we looked at the entry pieces we received from home and abroad, we would feel strongly that applicants have succeeded in condensing their individuality into their artworks, with the full use of a variety of techniques. Various works have met together here, reflecting a wide range of natures of locality or nationality. We have now possessed jointly each world which each artist keenly has gazed on while confronting realities in each surrounding. This fact will take on significant meaning for Japanese print art in the future.

Yamanobe, Tomoyuki
Director, Tama Art University Museum

The Mini-Print Triennial is an education/research event organized by an art university, but at the same time it is an international cultural event whose purpose is to present stimulation and encouragement for domestic and overseas artists and provide an opportunity for intercourse between them. Based on these two features, the total characteristics, scale, and administrative way were naturally settled.

The condition of "mini-prints" (20cm x 25cm) can be explained as follows; we were sure that the ruled size would be the most rational, hoping that applicants should be able to submit their prints by ordinary mail from almost every place in the world in safety without damaging their quality. Behind these considerations worked not just economic considerations but rather an aggressive idea about the way in which our cultural intercourse should be carried on.

International art exhibitions conventionally have been held in such a way that only previously-arranged artists selected by each country or block area would participate in an exhibition. Such a means was virtually necessary to avoid confusion and secure an even level of exhibits. However, I wonder whether the very routine for "international exhibitions" hasn't actually excluded "the world " from people's outlook and only brought to us very biased information about the variety of artistic activities and cultural individualties that could have originally existed on worldwide. I think that people are now beginning to become aware of such a problem. As far as the entry system itself for participation follows old methods, no matter how conscient1ously exhibitions are planned, they would take no other course but to be previously manipulated, directed, or limited, just like a social club for the "Great Powers" of the art world. As a university man who should respect a spirit of liberal study and criticism of the actual situation, we could not be blind to such a common abuse conspicuous in international exhibitions.

Organizers of ordinary international exhibitions would actually not be able to let "the world" come into view, partly because of the physical or economic limitations, or the tendency of allowing the supremacy of a specific value of art. However, such an attempt when practiced in a print or any kind of graphic work exhibition would be successful to a certain degree. In fact, "mail art" was widely performed as a trial in the 1970s. But, the idea of our mini-print Triennale has not originated as an extension of it. In mail art, every manner of expression was indiscriminately permitted as an artistic message −a reflection of the doctrine of concept for concept's sake esteemed in Europe and the U.S. The expression, as a result, isolated itself from all society (and from the world), only causing phenomenal confusion. In the mini-print Triennale, we wanted to evade meeting with such a failure of "mail-art": we set up a definite and concrete art media, print, on which we hoped to reflect the maximum wide scope of world on an artwork. For no other aim but to open the way to a truly global participation of artists in this Triennale, we have instituted a mailable mini-size, and adopted a system of completely personal and voluntary participation without the involvement of intermediary organizations.

If seen from a viewpoint of the participation system only, this Triennale could be thought of as a kind of Salon des Indépendants. However, a perfect Indépendants system, with no jury and voluntary exhibiting, would be significant only when liberal creation or free arguments are suffocated due to the existence of officially authoritarian art salons at the opposite side. Today's situation is not as such. A large number of works were sent to us from every corner of the world, liberated from the dominant frame of aesthetics. What is particularly required to do now for this Triennale would be not to understand those works desultorily as a mere representation of confusion, but to involve them with active arguments considering those an aggregate of their sense of various values, and evaluate them individually. Such efforts will be especially essential to the educational institutions like a university. That is why we decided to screen from all the entries a certain number of pieces that would deserve triennial exhibits, and set up three grade awards for high-ranking works. Without saying, the reason of our taking the above treatment lies in that we would like such a screening and prize system to necessarily help to encourage many artists who have been active in various areas of the world under adverse circumstances.

We are lucky to have organized an ideal jury of full-time and invited professors of the university, who have rich experiences in the field of international art intercourse : representative artists of the Japanese print art scene, such as Ai-O, Masuo Ikeda, Yukio Fukazawa, and Fumiaki Fukita; sculptor Jo Oda and creator Lee U-Fan, both prominent artists in producing prints too; and Akira Tatehata and Toshiaki Minemura, who represent art critics of two generations. These eight are in a position to be able to bear the global view that the Triennale particularly attaches importance to, since through long careers of their own, they are well versed in the situation in those areas, such as North America, Central and South (or Latin) America, Western and Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia. I suppose that many of the 1,270-odd foreign artists applied for our Triennale with some reliability, feeling familiarity with some names of the jury.

*

The total of applicants for the Triennale is 1,815, a startling figure since we expected more or less 800. An even more unexpected thing is that the number of overseas applicants came up to as many as 1,275 (a little over 70 percent of the total) from 67 countries. Details of their nationalities are Asia 13, North and Latin America 12, Western Europe 18, Eastern Europe including Russia 19, and Near East 5. Data according to nationality might not be very significant because those artists have applied for the exhibition as individuals. No trace of activities unified by countries or groups were found. However, we could not help being deeply moved by the fact that artists from countries where people must have the most numerous difficulties today. particularly those from Eastern Europe and Latin America, sent a large number of works, and nevertheless have achieved rich personality and substantially high quality.

All the Judges carefully screened, summed up, and constructed each decision toward conclusion. needless to say not influenced by any personal sentiment, consideration, or thought; in the 11 cases of only one applicant per country, it would commonly be imagined that the mental state of the Jury might sway between consideration and unfeeling caused by over-consciousness of denying such sentiment. But we did not need to worry because every work was certainly worthwhile to be accepted for the exhibition. That occupied the majority of opinions of the jury. As understood by a mere look at award winners in the 1st Triennale, Eastern European artists have shown an overwhelming dominance. I am sure that this should be an evidence of that no political and diplomatic manipulation had been taken at all, such as well-balanced distribution of award winners over as many districts as possible. The same treatment can be found again distinctly in the rather low selection-rate of artists residing in Japan, compared to overseas artists: almost 20 percent for overseas artists and a little over 9 percent for domestic ones. Japanese award winners number only 2 (apart from Taiga Chiba living in Canada). Particularly illustrative are details of how Michiko Suzuki, one of the two Japanese winners, was given the Jury Special Award. We at first had thought that, in case a Japanese artist should win the Grand Prix, we would like to appropriate this award (which was prepared as a semi-Grand Prix) for a foreign artist to reward the overall overseas participants. But, in actuality, Polish artist Kalinski was chosen as Grand-Prize winner with sweeping support. It cannot be denied that we did not necessarily have reasonable grounds for turning the Jury Special Award without any condition to an appropriate Japanese artist. But, we did not do so, because we reached the conclusion that we should respect basic principles for judgment, established from the beginning quality comes first. Michiko Suzuki, like Kalinski thus obtained a great deal of support for receiving the award.

An international exhibition always and easily tends to fall a victim to nationalism and diplomacy. It also would be true that an award system has aggravated the tendency Under such circumstances, we all the more would like to simply take delight in that, by making full use of the advantages of an event organized by a private art university, we could carry through the pure work-first and individual artist-first principles for this mini-print Triennale.

*

Let me state some impressions of the entries that I had during the examination. To begin with, I had totally positive impression as a whole, which would probably be a view common to the jury. The following are three possible reasons for that; (1) despite the voluntary part1c1pation system entries were of an extremely high level ; most of the about 1,800 entrants have received technical training in art, and seem to have possessed their own world of expression ; (2) it did not in the least seem that the mini-size regulation had shown any negative effects on the quality of expression; on the contrary. we even recognized that the size possibly might have been necessary and sufficient for print expression; and (3) reflections of each country or district on their represented expressions or views of culture/art were more greatly varied than expected. I would like to make a further observation on (3).

It should be pointed out before everything that a gap seems to exist among countries regarding the degree of social importance of the expressive media of print art. In prints from Latin America, I felt an outpouring of strong personality and passion, which I have already touched on a little. I wondered that, not only the constitution of Latin cultures (or mixed cultures) but also prints' more important position as an influential and steady medium of expression and information than other media, seemed to have reflected on such an artistic intensity. In other words, prints should have enjoyed an honorable place equal to that of the great art like paintings or sculptures. My such impression can be easily supported by the fact that many artists have incorporated so such enriched ideas into small pieces of sheet as into canvasses or murals. I was touched by the sight. But it was unfortunate that many of those prints lacked a substance worthy to be nominated for awards.

On the other hand, not a few pieces sent from countries of former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe possess substantial quality both in technique and expression. This may indicate that their prints are now deeply Joyed by the social people, while maintaining the prominent tradition to today. It was interesting that while many of prints from countries that had formerly been under Soviet Union power appeared to have represented a deep fantasy and notion with so fine a technical manner as an artisan spirit, a tradition since the Middle Ages, artists from Eastern European countries near the above ones, their creation showing a similar tendency deep notion and fine technique as basic, seemed to have quickly let their works release into the direction of a more modern and liberal way of creation. A good example would be the lino-cut by Grand Prix winner Kalinski. Also, the Constructivist style, shown in some works from Eastern European artists, evoked my nostalgia for the new tradition of the 20th century in this district.

The participation rate of Asian countries, which are closest to Japan, was a little under 20 percent by the number of countries and a little under 15 percent by the number of artists. The figure cannot be considered sufficient, and to our greater regret than that, the work level from the districts has still been staying low. I felt strongly in particular that artists in this area seemed still not to have prepared their confident answers to the most basic problem: how to respond to influences from European or American art. I sensed here and there that this unsuccessfulness brought about weakness in expression or vagueness in conception. This will be a matter of pretechnique. Japan, too, is not necessarily exempt from this subject.

Then, let me move topics to the very European and American (Western Europe and North America). Though we have received many numbers of entries from the areas, they did not meet our expectations as far as the substance was concerned. Those entries, though flexible and varied both in technique and concept, were likely to have lacked profundity and reality in expression. Should we attribute such a weakness to the reflection of homoculturally standardized society, or of-contrary to the Latin American case as previously introduced relatively lowered prints' social standing as a medium of expression and information? At any rate, this mini-print triennial seems to have succeeded, at as early as the 1st time, in suggesting that the "art map of the world" made by leading international exhibitions(at Kassel, Venezia, Sao Paulo, etc.) were by no means accurate nor fair in the least.

*

Many matters to improve and reflect on were left behind us. Because of our ill-preparedness we missed not a few districts from the application-request list; we could not take any action to get contact with Middle Eastern and African districts, and we could not successfully notify our information for Asian countries that should have had a large potential art population, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. We would like more districts besides these countries to convey to us by means of prints a breath of countries striving to build a new society despite the political and economic hardships.

We did not receive many entries from Japanese general artists (those who do not specialize in producing prints). This will be another future subject. Our prosperous history of print art that has lasted nearly 300 years has created an extreme refinement of technique. However, the aspect has simultaneously caused an excessive specialization in print making, and eventually invited a minus-print art has cut itself out from the creative vigor in the Japanese whole art scene. To conquer this negative point will be a major subject of our triennial.

In closing, we wish to express our sincere thanks and respect to the exhibitors for their cooperation in voluntarily presenting part of their entries to our charity event, so that art works damaged by the Great Hanshin Earthquake will be restored and preserved.

Minemura, Toshiaki
Professor at Tama Art University, art critic