"Palau - Parallel Life: Genius, Atsushi Nakajima & Japanese Gauguin, Hisakatsu Hijikata" Exhibition
This event has ended.
At Setagaya Art Museum
Media: Painting, Drawing, Other, Sculpture
Hisakatsu Hijikata was born in 1900, and Atsushi Nakajima in 1909. These two creative minds met each other in July 1941, just before the Pacific War started, on the island of Palau. During that time, Micronesia was under Japanese mandate, which was decided at the Paris Peace Conference in 1920. Japan was expanding their rule in the South Seas at the time.
These two artists developed a friendship during their stay in the foreign country. However, Nakajima had to go back to Japan after he caught a local disease, and he later past away at the age of 33. Hijikata went back to Japan with Nakajima, but later had to return to the South Seas. He continued to practice art for 76 years until his death.
This exhibition presents Hijikata's sculptures, reliefs, poems and writings of his experience in Palau, and also, Atsushi Nakajima's writings and other related documents.
Please check the museum's website for details on related events and talks (available in Japanese only).
Schedule
From 2007-11-17 To 2008-01-27
Closed on Mondays (except December 24th & January 14th), December 25th, January 15th, & December 29th through January 3rd.
Artist(s)
Community around this event
- 1 person recommends this event: zerefantan (日本)
Reviews
A Pacific island getaway?
By C. B. Liddell
Special to The Japan Times
The exhibition's curator Yoshiya Hashimoto counters the idea that Hijikata's move to Palau may have been the escape of an outsider from group pressures and artistic expectations: "Hijikata was disappointed at the Japanese old-fashioned cultural situation," he says. "He wanted to let Japanese art meet the art of the South Seas. I can see how Hijikata's action may appear to be an escape, but I think that it was actually an adventure in a new world" ...
