Analysis of the Authors Interpretation of Postwar Japan and Purpose in the Writing of “Reckoning with War in the Museum”

In “The Reckoning with War in the Museum”, Laura E. Hein paints a picture about postwar Japan through her summary depicting the history of the then freshly built Modern Art museum, Kamakura, founded just after World War II. The Kamakura Museum of Modern Art was established in 1951 by Kanagawa Prefecture, led by assistant director Hijikata Teiichi, and designed to create a new institution that would exemplify a democratic aesthetic as well as inhibit Japan from repeating such a devastating war. The curators sought for a museum that embodied both the concept that artistically Japan was an exact copy of modern Europe and the idea of a single national civilization in Japan. This is significant because this was all occurring around the time when Japan was still under the Allied Occupation. The occupation aimed to make japan into a peaceful democratic country from 1945-1952. During this time, Japan’s people were very stressed out with changes affecting every bit of their lives including changes in disarmament, liberalization, democratization, modernity, and the overall stress to reach perfection as an Asian country with other countries watching their every move. However, Japan was also unified by the strong aspiration to avoid repeating this disastrous experience. For example, as Laura Hein states, “postwar Japanese saw their task as reshaping Japanese society in ways that would protect it against fascism”. In the recognizing of such difficulty in opposing fascist culture through objectives alone, most postwar Japanese concentrated their efforts into creating “capacity building” institutions to aid them do so. An example of such an institution was the Kamakura Museum of Modern Art. However, Hein agrees that while the curators of the museum