Jikken Kōbō (実験工房, official English name: "Experimental Workshop") was one of the first avant-garde artist collectives active in postwar Japan.
Members were typically in their twenties and hailed from different backgrounds – the group included not just visual artists and musicians, but also a printmaker, a lighting designer, an engineer, and others.
[2] Jikken Kōbō organized its own exhibitions of group members' works, which were influenced by Western avant-garde art and showed a strong interest in new technology.
However, they are best known for their collaborative "presentations" (happyōkai 発表会): theatrical or musical performances where each member contributed their individual works to create a multimedia production.
[7] Jikken Kōbō did not publish an official manifesto, but prior to their first collaborative project in 1951 – a ballet production titled The Joy of Life and inspired by Picasso – they did write a provisional group agreement.
"[7] Jikken Kōbō worked on their artistic efforts in a collaborative manner that has been characterized as a comparatively loose and diffuse collective, where individual members had few obvious similarities other than a desire to experiment.
"[10] Jikken Kōbō's works drew inspiration from a wide variety of Western avant-garde practices including Cubism, Constructivism, Surrealism, and the Bauhaus.
[14] In this spirit, artists from the Jikken Kōbō collaborated on a series of photographs of mixed media collages for the publication Asahi Picture News in 1953.
The nō play the group created in collaboration with Takechi Tetsuji, Pierrot Lunaire, is an important example of their avant-garde interests combining with Japanese tradition.
[20] Group member Jōji Yuasa credited Jikken Kōbō with being the catalyst for new experiments and collaborations, recalling that it was "a crucible, a magnetic field of youthful, fresh spirit and individuality," and that "it was a valuable source of encouragement and stimulating interaction.
[22] Jikken Kōbō has often been paired with the Gutai collective as two examples of avant-garde art groups who created cross-genre or interdisciplinary projects, exhibitions, and performances in early postwar Japan.