Saturday 1 November 2014

Utagawa Kunisada 150th Anniversary of his death - Ota memorial Museum of Art - Tokyo - The current exhibition Japan


High Class Oiran
Utagawa Kunisada Woodblock Print 


The current exhibition at Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo is a knockout, its as good as arts gets in viewing pleasure, the eye is just seduced into the Kunisada's images with an ease and it seems to glide around these image like a Geisha eloquently walking between the old houses of Gion in Kyoto, its just pure sheer visual bliss.

Kunisada's sensibility in drawing is outstanding and reveals he is one of the great masters in the world of art, what contributes to that aforementioned statement is they way he forensically pays attention to detail from the drawn and colour intricacies of the kimono, to the almost simple linear gesture of the mouth that is slightly ajar and almost as if giving off an understated element of surprise, as if she had seen someone or something that caught her in an unguarded moment.

Another interesting issue about the Oiran's face is with all its apparent  linear simplicity (which it is not, it Kunisada's savvy intentionality's in creating a drawn traces to represent his remembrances) and  the way her eyes gaze back whilst the her body moves forward movement. 

The Oiran's eyes are slightly slantwise and inquisitive to what has just distracted her and this type of in understanding the expression within the human face is very hard to learn and to master it as evidence here in this exhibition in bold and almost liminal intensities especially so in actors series of woodblock prints stands testament to his mastery as an artist.

Kunisada's prints of the beautiful woman of Edo were  intriguing to see because in walking around Ginza to a restaurant the other night, there were many ladies who were shopping or going to meet with friends that were  exhibiting  a different, more modern  type of glamour but nonetheless in looking closely at them, there was this same attention to the detail of personal aesthetic, it is a though facial grooming hadn't shifted all that much in its presentational importance. But this is Japan and the demands of perfection with its subsequent presentation is still very high.

If you were a young or old  artist in Tokyo or even Japan  this would be one of the exhibitions one should look at for the colour, textures, lines seen within this fantastic exhibition will not surrender to time with any ease they're so exquisite, there is few shows in the world that could show such an amazing oeuvre  and this is one of them.

Link to the museum 
  
http://www.ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp/annai-E.html

Thursday 14 August 2014

Perth Old memories and New Horizons in Art





Just an aesthetic hop over to East and South East Asia 



The first thing I noticed in the local newspaper when back in Western Australia was the smallish size of the  galleries advertising exhibitions arts section, it seems a shadow of its former self but the art critic is doing sterling job over small pickings. And as stated in the aprior blog The State Art Gallery of Western Australia is steaming full ahead, despite the fleet appearing to be shrinking  behind her, one has to admire AGWA, for it seems she is dragging that state screaming into uncharted aesthetic horizons and that’s a very good thing.

There is also some very hardy individuals who have some great projects on the boil, actually one of them its seems has the most innovative projects in years I've seen in years, so I sincerely hopes she pulls it off, it will make a fantastic difference to the community if it happens. 

One wonders what happened to Perth, gosh it’s a rich State, it has more minerals and gas wealth  than most of the world with a small population to support, so its not money at the moment but there is no surety of it in the future.

The only thing one can suggest is artists in Western Australia change there strategies and look to exhibit in groups and start to show internationally in art spaces, make connections elsewhere, for Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Korea and Japan, all appear to have very interesting art scenes right now and these are your new local communities.

Arts communities locally and globally are important and to exhibit in the  near and far east should be now considered local community, even closer than Sydney or Melbourne try and get into small art fairs, residences with your group and you might surprise yourself what might happen. 

The Internet has made these art communities and spaces sponsored by various government and private bodies available at the tips of your fingers, it takes effort and passion and no small amount of knock backs but if your serious and forfeit life style, for better praxis in art. Then one might partially get where you think might want to be and when do get there, you will increase your store house of aesthetic remembrances, considerably and afterwards of such aesthetic journeys into unknown horizons hopefully you will bring back to these memories to Perth that it will enrich the Western Australian aesthetic community a whole lot more whilst bringing a greater tolerance to the community .

There for it appears the future directions of Perth are changing now and  forever, east continues to engage the west aesthetically and sooner or later that cultural collision in Perth, along with Aboriginal culture will make it a very interesting aesthetic place to do praxis if the seeds of this are not already bearing fruit now.

Thursday 27 March 2014

Sadaharu Horio BB Plaza Museum of Art - Kobe - Japan


Installation Sadaharu Horio

Always full of surprises


This current installation by Sadaharu Horio at the BB Plaza Museum of Art is the first installment and is next to the opening of the Museum were Horio is now having a major exhibition of his artworks. When viewing Horio's installation through the window, ones first impression is what is going here! And that bewildering surprise is a  most likable sensation to have when observing an artwork for it challenges your thinking.

It appears Horio's work history from his time in the massive shipyards along the Kobe wharves have honed his praxis skills by scanning around the rubbish of his workplace and thinking it could well be used as an art piece. Actually there is an artwork of Horio's in the corporations cafeteria that a co worker used to look at and wonder what is that? 

Not surprisingly, Horio exhibits with his corporate workmates in their annual show and its always great pleasure to see the exhibition in the underground shopping malls of Kobe, his co workers images are mainly of the local  landscape and then one comes across Horio's art installation that always brings a smile to my face. 

In the current world of art branding Horio seems to have missed that too, he is aloof, very idiosyncratic to the extreme and exceedingly generous, he seeks new ways to do painting, to create that raw sensation of shock on first contact, even if it makes you laugh later. In someways Horios praxis reminds one of the best early paintings of Francis Bacon. 

For example, Bacon's Head VI  (1949) of the screaming Pope where the paint is just charged powerfully off the nervous system on top the canvas, fantastically raw image making, that is undiluted by the artist's need for a slick, clever surface qualities creating a kind of marketable art brand.

That attitude of painting that comes from the raw direct nervous system, creating shock in art appears now to be missing from contemporary art, its been subdued by the business of art but not here Horio is always seeking uncharted aesthetic horizons and his collections of strange objects makes sure his system of praxis is always incorporating something new. 

Horio by collecting new objects to use within his studio work is continually shifting his system of artistic praxis, making his store house of memory broader and more interesting, therefore allowing him to create this strange but very interesting current show at BB Plaza Museum of Art  reveals. So if your near BB Plaza Museum of Art Plaza Museum of Art do go and have a look at this wonderfully idiosyncratic artist.



Bacon's Painting Head VI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Head_VI_(1949).JPG



Link to Sadaharu Horio exhibition at BB Plaza Museum of Art

http://bbpmuseum.jp/exhibition/20140321


Monday 17 February 2014

Masuru Kurose - Metamorphic Painting - Gallery KAI – Kobe


Masuru Kurose's Metamorphic Painting



The current exhibition on at Gallery KAI in Kobe by Masuru Kurose titled; Metamorphic Painting is his strongest show so far one has seen and reveals that his developing system of praxis towards his concept is still changing. 

The other issue about the KIA gallery that one really likes is that it is small, it is not like some vast looking supermarket space with lost looking art on the walls, the gallery owner appears intensely keen to get the artist's ideas recognized and out there into the societal memory.
  
So with that being said; it’s thought-provoking to see how Kurose has moved on from the rectangular frames  from his last seen show (prior to this show) where he painted with acrylic on plastic, and that system of painting has now been replaced with painted jigsaw shapes, that he will change during the course of this exhibition.

In conversation with Kurose (and as much as one understood in English and Japanese) he will change the painted jigsaw shapes with a sense of randomness, giving the exhibition a sense of studio praxis, if one could call it that, which is very curious because it tends to mean that the idea of a exhibition in painting is not a cul de sac so to say but opens up more possibilities. Also in conversation with Kurose he mentioned that acrylic suited his painting praxis more than any other medium, and that is important to be aware of because of what one can do with a medium in painting is important in praxis.

This progression in media by Kurose within studio methodology  has more impact now and the way he shifts each individual jig saw piece in painting praxis, then joins them with a sense of chance is very appealing because it gives the  a really good sense of randomness when the temporary jigsaw pieces come together as a collective whole.

Kurose’s open ended aesthetic horizon is very enjoyable and to anticipate it changing by going back to the gallery later during the week is an interesting experiment because the artist appears to be about an ongoing aesthetic renewal, revealing how art like science can be serious and fun.

So if you get down to Gallery KAI near Kobe Motomachi this week the chances are you will see chance happening within the artworks and it’s a fascinating visual experience.

Wednesday 5 February 2014

BB Plaza Museum of Art - Kobe - Japan





BB Plaza is a different museum one might suggest a intimate viewing space and instead of walking through it, one  tends to swathe through the sensual passions of artist’s aesthetics that are resonating from the artworks on show within this wonderful exhibition.

In visiting this exhibition twice to see several stunning artworks, the overall sensation reverberating from the art objects is the artists’ touch, that nowadays in art appears seemingly uncommon and even overlooked as an old fashioned idea in studio praxis, and nothing could be further from the truth for these artworks vibrate the passionate sensation of being made in the now.

This exhibition at BB Plaza Museum brings into sharp focus something important within the fine arts and that is the human sensibility of touch in creating a trace upon paper or canvas and how some artists are so good at it. For example, Ando Hiroshige or Rembrandt as evidenced within their studio praxis have created traces which one might call innate, for their abilities in constructing drawn ink traces that are completely out their own their own aesthetic horizons. But in saying that these afore mentioned are born with such painting skills is not true they're acquired through studio praxis in getting the traces to equal the intentionality’s of the idea.


And this show at BB Plaza Museum of Art has some stunning examples of that mastering of traces constructed in studio praxis towards the final image, gosh there is some gob smacking images from western and Japanese painting systems, making it a unique and delightfully edgy show. It is great to see two unique methodologies of painting exhibited side by side from two distinctly differing cultures with the commonality of desires being highly intelligent and sophisticated mark making constructed into an image from the likes of Marc Chagall, Picasso, Renoir, Kanji Higashiyama, Takeji Fujishima and Ryohei Koiso.

A wonderful example of human traces in painting can be evidenced  in Taiji Yamamoto’s painting of a White Flower and it is exquisite ( I went back to see it twice), it so sublimely beautiful, strong yet fragile, it tends to contain many of the elements that go beyond just ordinary painting in terms of what human touch can achieve as painted traces on paper, and what comes off the end of the brush through this painter’s scintillating facility in the application of paint, transcends just the idea, its extreme passion in creating an image, thus seducing the senses into an kind of aesthetic ecstasy.

If you're in Kobe here is the link to BB Plaza well worth going to see.

http://bbpmuseum.jp/