From Space to Environment
was a postwar Japanese exhibition of contemporary art and design that was held on the eighth floor gallery of the Matsuya Department Store in Ginza, Tokyo, from November 11–16, 1966. It was organised by the multidisciplinary group Environment Society (Enbairamento no Kai) to promoted the marriage of art and technology. The exhibition’s subtitle was “Synthesized Exhibition of Painting + Sculpture + Photo + Design + Architecture + Music,” indicating its goal of erasing conventional distinctions between fine and applied arts, and it was instrumental in introducing the terms "Intermedia" and "Environment Art" (kankyō geijutsu) to Japan. It featured 38 participants from a range of creative disciplines, including artists, architects, designers, and art critics. A related performance concert took place on November 14, 1966 at the Sōgetsu Art Center (SAC) (Japanese: アートセンター) in Tokyo. The show encompassed architecture, environment art, installation art, visual art, and design. Exhibition concept Environment Society formed around the goal of challenging institutional art structures by working collaboratively while abandoning traditional genre distinctions. This goal is made clear in the text outlining their objectives for From Space to Environment in the Bijutsu Techō issue that served as a quasi-catalogue for the exhibition. Specifically, they state:It seems that various artistic genres today are going through a phase of intense self-destruction. There is no need to do anything further if it suffices to remain comfortably ensconced in existing arts, techniques, or dogma, pandering to conventional notions of art held by viewers and audiences...Instead, must we not focus on the chaotic site where each genre, tending toward radical self-destruction, necessarily intermingles and collides with others?One further goal was to activate the position of the viewer in relation to the artwork. The statement of objectives described this as forcing active involvement:in the space that the work generates, as it engulfs them and demands participation. In other words, the static, harmonious relationship between the viewer and the work of art has been broken, and the notion of the site has shifted from a conventional "space" toward a dynamic and chaotic "environment" that includes the viewers and the artworks. Exhibition description and notable works From Space to Environment was imagined as an explicitly interdisciplinary exhibition and thus included participants from a range of creative disciplines. In total thirty-eight artists participated in the show (see list of exhibited artists below), but the core group leading the exhibition were visual artist Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, architect Arata Isozaki, designers and Shin’ya Izumi, art critics Shūzō Takiguchi, , and . Artists participated with a range of paintings, sculptures, installations, posters, and performances, that emphasized interaction between the viewer and the art as well as between the works themselves. Overall the exhibition design attempted to minimize architectural structures, such as walls, between artworks so that the works would visually interact with each other. However the exhibition was divided into a lit section and a darkened corridor that featured more self-contained works. Notable works in the exhibition included Takamatsu Jirō's Chairs and Table in Perspective (遠近法の椅子とテーブル, 1966), a sculptural set