Beside Bourdieu: Japan, Contemporary Art, Weeds and a Fox

Identifying Bourdieu’s relationship to taste and distinction outside of Europe, this chapter charts a global contemporary art practice in terms of public reception and the specificity of Japanese artistic production. This case is examined in relation to examples of artworks by the London based Portuguese artist, João Penalva, which identify the socio-political constructions of Japanese historical pictorial reception in abstract depictions of urban destruction, myth, radiation and plant-life within Japan.