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Post-postmodernism and Jean Payens
The Post-postmodern Era
An invitation to all artists

Makoto Fujimura

Defying fractured, fragmented modern perspectives, the Fujimura Institute encourages artists and thinkers to collaborate, cooperate and inspire their audiences to piece together a whole view of the world. READ MORE

  

THE MOVEMENT

The Institute’s events and networks will help connect creatives from different fields so they may design generative collaborations. These events include collaborative exhibits, such as the current QU4RTETS project, and a continuing lecture series with premier artists and thinkers to promote catalytic conversations and spark new ideas and cross-discipline projects.

To continue this emphasis on cooperation, rather than competition, within the creative community, the Institute will build a guild system to train and mentor apprentices in Makoto Fujimura’s studio process and the ancient art of Nihonga. These apprentices will help preserve traditional Japanese painting techniques, as well as learn and promote the practice of imagining projects beyond a single specialty.

THE INSPIRATION

The divisions in modern life are growing deeper and more contentious between opposing academic disciplines, political parties, denominations, cultures, and classes. The world rewards increasingly granular specialization, but the world’s philosophical and practical problems increasingly demand the knowledge and cooperation of experts from diverse backgrounds. Makoto Fujimura has seen this fragmentation and has endeavored, personally and through International Arts Movement, to motivate other creatives to work together to resist the alienating effects of a divisive society.

Fujimura studied Nihonga at Tokyo University of the Arts and has since had numerous exhibits in galleries and museums from New York to Tokyo to Hong Kong. He has painted live on stage at Carnegie Hall, collaborating with composer and percussionist Susie Ibarra. Fujimura founded the International Arts Movement in 1992 and served as a member of the National Council on the Arts. He has lectured at numerous conferences and universities including the Aspen Institute, Yale, Bucknell, Princeton, The Q Conference and IAM’s Encounter. Fujimura’s second book Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art and Culture is a collection of essays bringing people of all backgrounds together in a meditation on culture, art and humanity.

The Institute’s name honors several generations of Fujimura’s family, including Makoto’s father, Osamu, a pioneer in acoustics research, and his brother Aki, key benefactor to the creation of the Institute. The board of International Arts Movement oversees Fujimura Institute as a core educational element of IAM.

 

Makoto is the very embodiment of post-postmodern and I hope he will influence you too.

Makoto Fujimura, recently appointed Director of Fuller's Brehm Center, is an artist, writer, and speaker who is recognized worldwide as a cultural shaper. A Presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts from 2003-2009, Fujimura served as an international advocate for the arts, speaking with decision makers and advising governmental policies on the arts. In 2014, the American Academy of Religion,  named Makoto Fujimura as its ’2014 Religion and the Arts’ award recipient. This award is presented annually to an artist, performer, critic, curator, or scholar who has made a significant contribution to the understanding of the relations among the arts and the religions, both for the academy and for a broader public.  Previous recipients of the award include Meredith Monk, Holland Carter, Gary Snyder, Betye & Alison Saar and  Bill Viola.

Fujimura’s work is represented by Artrue International and has been exhibited at galleries around the world, including Dillon Gallery in New York, Sato Museum in Tokyo, The Contemporary Museum of Tokyo, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts Museum, Bentley Gallery in Arizona, Gallery Exit and Oxford House at Taikoo Place in Hong Kong, and Vienna’s Belvedere Museum. He is one of the first artists to paint live on stage at New York City’s legendary Carnegie Hall as part of an ongoing collaboration with composer and percussionist Susie Ibarra.

A popular speaker, he has lectured at numerous conferences, universities and museums, including the Aspen Institute, Yale and Princeton Universities, Sato Museum and the Phoenix Art Museum. Fujimura founded the International Arts Movement in 1992, a non-profit whose “Encounter” conferences have featured cultural catalysts such as Dr. Elaine Scarry,Dennis DonoghueBilly CollinsDana GioiaCalvin DeWitt and Miroslav Volf.

Fujimura’s second book, Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art and Culture, is a collection of essays bringing together people of all backgrounds in a conversation and meditation on culture, art, and humanity. In celebration of the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible, Crossway Publishingcommissioned and published The Four Holy Gospels, featuring Fujimura’s illuminations of the sacred texts.

In 2011 the Fujimura Institute was established and launched the Four Qu4rtets, a collaboration between Fujimura, painter Bruce Herman, Duke theologian/pianist Jeremy Begbie, and Yale composer Christopher Theofanidis, based on T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. The exhibition will travel to Baylor, Duke, and Yale Universities, Gordon College and other institutions around the globe.

Bucknell University honored him with the Outstanding Alumni Award in 2012.

He is a recipient of four Doctor of Arts Honorary Degrees; from Belhaven University in 2011, Biola University in 2012, Cairn University in 2014 and Roanoke College , in February 2015.