Although the "avant-garde" and "contemporary art" can be varyingly defined in art history, one definition — art that questions established values — hopefully helps clarify the nature of vanguard and contemporary practices. To name a representative example, Japanese Anti-Art, which the 1960s art critic Miyakawa Atsushi characterized as "descent to the mundane," was indeed the movement that rejected the modernist notion of Art (geijutsu), with a capital A, and its autonomy. That is to say, Anti-Art was the movement that questioned established value that is Art.
     In light of its mission of "questioning established values," contemporary art tends to produce the "work" that refuses to be collected and exhibited as an "object" by collectors and museums. However, as contemporary art itself is institutionalized, quite a few uncollectible works entered museum collections as photographic documentations and reconstructions. In a sense, art that descended to the mundane has made a U-turn and ascended to the status of Art.
     What should be noted, however, is that the notions of "Art," "institution," and even "object" are not static concepts, but underwent a structural evolution over the past half century, as they were challenged by critical thought and tendencies, including contemporary art.
     A clue to the understanding of this dynamic structural evolution and its meaning is provided by Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident by Akasegawa Genpei and Company.
     Granted, it is not a "work" in the traditional sense. The incident began in 1963 when the Anti-Art practitioner Akasegawa made offset facsimiles of the 1,000-yen note and used them in his exhibition announcement and wrapped objects. In 1964, with the facsimile money fell under suspicion by the police, Akasegawa was investigated, indicted, and tried in a court of law. In 1970, his guilty verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court.
     The "object" at the core of this work is the facsimile money, which the artist named Model 1,000-Yen Note after the investigation began. A mere sheet of paper, the facsimile money first hid in everyday space as a nameless being. It was then dragged out to the public sphere called the courtroom, and illustrated in the print media, thus circulating in the information space. Eventually, it today has attained legitimacy in the realm of Art, displayed and collected by museums; and even resides in the market place as an art commodity handled by art dealers. In the process of its movement, it has also attained and accumulated an aura as a "work."
     Furthermore, while the trial itself became an "event" work, the 1,000-Yen Note Incident Discussion Group engendered a sort of discursive space. All these related efforts are part of Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident, engendering a matrix around the facsimile money, that is, sakuhin kukan (a field generated by a work).
     As such, the field generated by a work has no tangible entity. Still, it will be a useful notion when we expand our art-historical inquiry into information value, rather than limiting ourselves to the Benjaminian worship and exhibition values as well as the capitalist market value.