Seiki no Kai (世紀の会, The Century Society) was an influential art research and discussion group briefly active in early postwar Japan, from 1947 to 1951.
It was established and led primarily by the author Kōbō Abe, and focused on cultural collaboration between its members, all of whom were artists, writers, or critics in their twenties.
"[1] The group was influenced by two senior members, painter Tarō Okamoto, who was interested in Surrealism, and the avant-garde critic Kiyoteru Hanada, whose discourse engaged Marxism, along with the founder Kōbō Abe, who was steeped in existentialism.
In the later years of the group, members were increasingly influenced by the concept of sōgō geijutsu ("total art"), or multimedia works produced through collective action.
The group eventually split up when Abe and others opted to join the Japanese Communist Party and pursue more active involvement in the political sphere.
Despite only being active for a few years, the group was nonetheless a key educational source and meeting point for young creative people in Japan, especially at a time when there were few resources available.
[2] Its earliest members from 1947 to 1948 included, in addition to Abe: Momo Iida, Tetsurō Morimoto, Tōru Ogawa, Hiroshi Hidaka, Yasuo Nakano, Minoru Tsubaki, Rintarō Endō, Yukio Mishima, Ichirō Hariu, Hiroshi Akutagawa, Kōji Nakada, Minoru Nakamura, Takashi Tatsuno, Takayuki Kiyooka, Tsuneo Watanabe, Shin'ichi Segi, and Kyōsuke Masaki.
[5] The painting division included new artist members Hiroshi Katsuragawa, Shōzō Kitadai, Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, Hideko Fukushima, and Tatsuo Ikeda.
[8] Seiki no Kai also continued to host regular lectures and research groups on literature and poetry, in which many of the new artists members also participated.
[6] Topics covered in these meetings included: Franz Kafka and Jean-Paul Sartre, avant-garde poetry, documentary literature, and Karl Marx and Max Weber.
[10] The few artists that remained decided to refocus their energy on creating works with their fellow Seiki no Kai members, rather than discussing theory.
Thereafter, the group published a number of collaborative books and journals, beginning with the periodical BEK (meaning Seiki no Kai, or Century in Russian).
"[16] Abe, Teshigahara, Ikeda, and Katsuragawa immediately formed the Jinmin Geijutsu Shūdan (人民芸術集団, "People's Art Group").
[15] Group member Hiroshi Katsuragawa explained that during Seiki no Kai's active years, it was much more common to talk and discuss than to actually create works.
For example, the cover of issue 4 includes a line drawing of an uncanny amalgamation of various distorted body parts resembling a cadavre exquis, with the title of Abe's essay Mahō no chōku ("The Magic Chalk") inscribed inside the face.
Likewise, many young artists who would become prominent in the postwar art world participated in Seiki no Kai, including Tatsuo Ikeda, Hiroshi Teshigahara, and Jikken Kōbō members Shōzō Kitadai, Hideko Fukushima, and Katsuhiro Yamaguchi.