Yusuke Nakahara

Yusuke Nakahara (August 22, 1931 – March 3, 2011) was a renowned Japanese art critic, curator, scholar, lecturer, university president, art festival organizer, and cultural administrator.

He is perhaps best known as the figure who spearheaded the influential 1970 Tokyo Biennale, ''Between Man and Matter'' at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. The exhibition was a watershed moment in Post-1945 Japanese art for its promotion of avant-garde Japanese and international art practices as demonstrated by disparate artists who worked in varying mediums within the then-underrepresented movements of Arte Povera, Conceptual Art, Minimalism, and Mono-ha. The exhibition is seen as a reaction against the concurrent Expo ‘70 in Osaka for embodying the attributes of Japan's Post-World War II economic resurgence and ascension to major world status.

Nakahara was a prolific writer in the Japanese art world as he published innumerable exhibition reviews, books, academic essays, magazine articles, and chapters. His writings have appeared in journals such as Bijutsu Techo, Mizue, and Geijutsu Shincho.

Originally trained as a physicist, Nakahara's approach to art criticism and curation was grounded more in scientific methodologies than art historical pedagogy based on his frequent incorporation of references to human perception, physical spatiality, and kinetics, among other theoretical ideas.

Since his passing in 2011, contemporary Art historians and critics consider Nakahara a significant figure in Post-1945 Japanese art history and is likened to other esteemed critics of his generation, including Ichiro Haryu, Yoshiaki Tono, and Shinichi Segi. Provided by Wikipedia