Some information on the upcoming exhibition from organizer Matt Theado:
Discover America and the Beat Generation
Jack Kerouac Types ON THE ROAD
The genealogy of a counterculture through publications
The exhibition opens at BB Plaza Museum of Art in Kobe on July 3, 2021 and runs through August 8, 2021.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience Kerouac and the Beat Generation. Although the coronavirus prevented us from bringing Kerouac’s actual scroll typescript to Japan, we’re creating a picture-perfect replica. Based on high resolution digital data, this replica allows you to inspect infinitesimal details, from Kerouac’s typing to his pencil corrections.
You’ll also see Kazuhiro Yamaji san’s amazing collection of Beat Generation publications. Yamaji san is the owner of Flying Books in Tokyo, and he has gathered one of the world’s greatest Beat Generation collections. Rare and precious first editions, independent little magazines, broadsides, signed books – you can trace the genealogy of the Beat Generation through publications.
We’ll hold a Symposium on July 17, on the campus of Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, with speakers including Minami Aoyama sensei (Kerouac translator), Motoyuki Shibata sensei (translator, American culture scholar) professor Hilary Holladay (biographer and Beat scholar), and me. The symposium will also be streamed live on YouTube. In addition, there will be presentations throughout the month, as well as the documentary movie “Kerouac: King of the Beats” at Motomachi Eigakan.
The exhibition web page with full details will be live soon – but for now, I want to be sure you know that the exhibition is set to open this summer, and the symposium is set for July 17.
