Series on the Perspective of Light 38

Yasuhide Moriyama, who was born in Kitakyushu in 1936, is an artist who formed and led the 1960’s Anti-Art group named “Shudan Kumo” (Spider Group). Their activities as a group were thoroughly extreme, aiming to challenge the pre-existing notions of art and social norms. In the early 1960’s, with strong influences from the avantgarde group “Kyushu-ha”, which had formed earlier, Moriyama and fellow local artists formed “Shudan Kumo” in 1968, and soon cutting down the number of members to 3 people.
Rejecting even the avant-garde art movements and leftist cultural activities of the time, the group sought unique expression by provocatively breaking all existing frameworks. Moriyama himself blurred the boundaries between art and society by living homeless in the mountains, conducting a guerrilla project in which he filled matchboxes with fecal matter and distributed them in a shopping district, performing in the center of an intersection, and even imitating the works of famous artists. His activities are more a challenge to institutions and authority than pure acts of creation.