Dumb Type is an artist collective based in

Kyoto, Japan Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the cit ...

founded in 1984. Dumb Type is a group of creative art forms that express the new and daily life of the twentieth century modern and technological world of Japan. During the 1980s Dumb Type created their first show representing the idea of how technology is arising a dark matter through people's daily lives. Members are trained in varied disciplines, including visual arts, theatre, dance, architecture,

music composition Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called c ...

and

computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as anal ...

. Their work ranges across such diverse media as

art exhibition An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhi ...

s, performances, audiovisuals and publications. Dumb Type is known for portraying a dark, cynical, and humorous world in which technology is a way of life. In a 1990 interview in ''High Performance'', the late Teiji Furuhashi, one of Dumb Type's co-founders, described their work as political in nature: "Something Japanese theater never does. Japanese audiences don't want to see that. They want to avoid it. They just want entertainment. Yes, I think we should always have a political view. We should represent that this is Japan." Notable in a country plagued by political apathy, the group has played the unpopular role of

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

activist, organizing symposia and other events, motivated in part by the fact that Furuhashi died of AIDS in 1995. Dumb Type's name was influenced by the English words "mute" or "stupid". The founding leader of the group Furuhashi, suggested that the name "Dumb Type" expressed an idea of the reality that Japan has become because its technology and the attraction to the media. The society around Japan became very superficial and everyone was aware of the media around them but felt overwhelmed with all the information given to them. This inspired the artistic performances expressing their feelings about it. While based in Kyoto, Japan's ancient capital, Dumb Type is oriented more to the global than the local, the contemporary over the traditional. Dumb Type members state that Japanese art movements have had little influence on their work. Furuhashi explained that the core group—Furuhashi, Toru Koyamada, Yukihiro Hozumi,

Shiro Takatani is a Japanese artist. He currently lives and works in Kyoto. Co-founder and visual creator of the group Dumb Type since 1984, he also became artistic director of the group from 1995 and also started an active solo career in 1998. Biography ...

, Takayuki Fujimoto and Hiromasa Tomari—began working together in 1982, while still students at

Kyoto City University of Arts is a public, municipal university of general art and music in Kyoto, Japan. Established in 1880, it is Japan's oldest university of the arts (the predecessor of Tokyo University of the Arts was founded in 1887). Among its faculty and graduates ...

. "We were frustrated artists, and wanted to start creating something new with our skills. Most of the time we spent discussing society or whatever, not specific art things. When someone had an idea it would be presented on a piece of paper. If the group was interested, we made it come true. At first the idea would be really open, then gradually it became something very specific. In that way, we're really democratic. Dumb Type is a collaborative group; we don't want a king." Their work has been exhibited and performed at notable venues internationally. Several solo exhibitions have been dedicated to Dumb Type, at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in 2018, at the MOT-Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo in 2020 and at the Haus der Kunst in Munich in 2022 among others. Some of their artworks are part of the permanent collections worldwide (

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography The is an art museum concentrating on photography. As the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, it was founded by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and is in Meguro-ku, a short walk from Ebisu station in southwest Tokyo. The museum al ...

, Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon,

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, among others). In 2022, Dumb Type was commissioned by the Japan Foundation to represent Japan at the 59th International Art Exhibition of the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

.Greenberger, Alex.
A Guide to the 2022 Venice Biennale National Pavilions, From Futuristic Gardens to AI-Influenced Performance Art
. ''ARTnews''. March 3, 2022 (retrieved June 30, 2022)

References

External links