Tatsuo Kawaguchi is one of Japan's representative postwar artists. Focusing on his well-known work "Relationship -Energy" (1972), which was selected last year as part of the museum collection, this exhibition looks back on his notable works from the 1970s. While Kawaguchi's artistic production has evolved in various ways since the 1980s up until the present, most of the experiments and trials for these modes of expression had already been executed in the works he produced a decade earlier. This exhibition traces Kawaguchi's roots, introducing many of his early works that have almost never been exhibited before. Kawaguchi shows in these works his extraordinary interest in something "invisible", a theme usually overlooked by artists. As its title suggests, "Relationship -Energy" takes as its motif invisible energy. Although the term energy lacks familiarity for most, once it makes contact with media such as a neon tube, electric heater and bell, it transforms itself into light, heat and sound, suddenly becoming ordinary matter. Kawaguchi also strives to ignite the basic creative potentials of the human imagination and its inherent capacity for creation - capabilities that have been squandered or left dormant by time wasted on "looking" and paying excessive attention only to the "visible". By exhibiting earlier works from his career, this exhibition sheds light on Kawaguchi's pioneering spirit that still wields considerable influence in our times.
Open on a public holiday Monday but closed on the following day. Open on public holidays but closed on the following day (unless this falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday when the venue will open).
Fee
Adults ¥310, University & High School Students ¥210, Junior High & Elementary School Students ¥100
From the West exit of JR Utsunomiya Station, take the Kanto bus towards to Utsunomiya Museum of Art via Toyosatodai and Teikyo University and get off at Utsunomiya Museum of Art. 20 minutes by taxi from JR Utsunomiya Station.
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