Comprehensive survey of early Japanese abstract painting (and photography). Including Koshiro Onchi, Iwata Nakayama, Saburo Hasegawa, Kiyoshi Koishi, Ryuichi Amano, Ei-Q and many more.
Murakami Saburō’s ‘Paper-Breaking’ performances, in which he burst through multiple sheets of kraft paper stretched across wooden frames with a sharp crack, were synonymous with the artist. He performed them on close to 40 occasions, between 1955 and 1994, throughout his artistic career. Murakami said that, in 1955, he was inspired to adopt this approach after his son came crashing through the fusuma (sliding door) of his locked room (where the artist was polishing up a plan for a new work to present in the 1st Gutai Art Exhibition) in a bid to get his father to play with him. From that time on, ‘Paper-Breaking’ became a physical means for him to present and investigate questions related to time and space, chance and inevitability, and the self and others.
With essays by Ikegami Tsukasa and Reiko Tomii.
*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.
Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Onchi, A Poet of Colors and Forms at the Yokohama Museum of art, October 8 – November 6, 1994.
Koshiro Onchi was the most important figure in the ‘Sosaku Hanga’ movement from 1918 until his death, outstanding as a print artist, photographer, book designer and active as a poet, founder and editor of magazines, an author on the subject of prints, art and literature, a leader and organiser of societies and encourager of other artists.
*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.
Various artistic trends originating in Europe after World War 1, such as Russian Constructivism, the Bauhaus in Germany and Surrealism in France, left a strong impression on Japanese art and photography in the Taisho and the early Showa periods. In photography in particular, the Western influence brought a new movement called Shinko Shashin (New Photography) in the early Showa period. This exhibition was an attempt at reexamining the visual expression in the period from the perspective of the photographic work of artists from fields other than photography, focusing on the work of Koshiro Onchi, Osamu Shiihara and Ei-Q.
*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.
This publication focuses on On Kawara’s previously unstudied five-year stay in Tokyo, where he was part of influential avant-garde art student associations and wrote many pieces of art criticism. His violent and grotesque imagery from this period is in stark contrast to his streamlined conceptual date paintings.
Reproducing the complete Bathroom series (1953–54), Events in a Warehouse (1954), and a number of figurative paintings and drawings executed in Japan. The latter half of this book is a collection of newspaper headlines from 1952 to 1956 in both languages, printed on newsprint.
*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.
During the 1930s, a large number of works influenced by surrealism were shown in Japan under the heading “avant-garde photography”. Among these were works by Shuzo Takiguchi (1903–1979), who soon thereafter founded the Avant-Garde Photography Association along with Nobuya Abe (1913–1971). Their theoretical approach to the photographic medium would in turn influence other experimental Japanese artists such as Kiyoji Otsuji (1923–2001) and Shigeo Gocho (1946–1983). Collectively these artists have made an indelible impact on 20th-century photography in Japan, which is the subject of this seminal exhibition catalogue on their work and legacy.