TAB Event - Hokumei Nakano "Tsugaru"

This event has ended.
At Tokyo Gallery + BTAP
Media: Calligraphy, Art Party, Art Talk

Poetry reading by Taisho Akahira
January 6th (Tue) 19:00-

For me, ink and brushwork symbolize the essence of eastern painting. This concern with calligraphy as an art form led to two calligraphy exhibitions being held at Tokyo Gallery - the first of Magaihi rubbings held in 1977, and the second of works by Nankoku Hidai in 2000. Since the latter of these exhibitions, however, my interest has waned, and I grew to become more interested in the calligraphy of the old Japanese classics, as well as contemporary calligraphy. At first I looked at calligraphic works as if I was looking at painting, but subsequently I gradually became drawn to the writerliness and verbal aspect of the calligraphy. I first encountered the work of Hokumei Nakano at a calligraphy exhibition to which I was invited by my friend Michiko Sotobayashi. Different to Hidai, Nakano's works are composed of "words" that are usually spoken and written. In Nakano's works, however, these same words acquire a formidable presence, one in which you can hear the rhythm of the Japanese landscape that emerges from the spaces between these words.

At a time when words are typically typed using the keyboard of a computer, and the main writing implement used by most people is a ballpoint pen, calligraphy remains a unique medium; one that betrays the breathing of the calligrapher, conveying to the viewer a sense of his unique humanity through these characters written with brush and ink. It is however indisputable that calligraphy has already lost that sense of the everyday in our contemporary society. Calligraphy in its artistic guise as a medium of expression, however, promises hidden possibilities. Art's social function lies in the way in which it caters to our demand for the extraordinary and the remarkable, removed from our daily humdrum concerns. In this way, it is precisely now, at a time when the medium of calligraphy has become outmoded, that we should seriously reconsider its role and significance.

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