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Tadaaki Kuwayama Exhibition
Taka Ishii Gallery Maebashi
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Artists
Tadaaki Kuwayama
This exhibition, the second solo exhibition at Taka Ishii Gallery, introduces representative works by Tadaaki Kuwayama, who, while maintaining a painterly appearance, opened up new dimensions of abstraction. Kuwayama passed in August 2023.
Since moving his base to New York in 1958, Kuwayama produced reductionist works. He is widely known as one of the pioneers of minimal art in America during the 1960s and 1970s, holding solo exhibitions at the Green Gallery in 1961. However, the global recognition of Kuwayama as a minimalist artist merely categorizes his art under existing criteria, such as "Color Field Painting" or "Monochrome Painting." By discarding conventional concepts and repeatedly exploring the materials of his artworks with an experimental spirit, Kuwayama continued to pursue a beauty that had yet to be achieved by anyone else.
The works exhibited in this exhibition focus on the 1960s, when acrylic paint was used, and the 1970s, when metallic paint was used, allowing us to see how the paintings evolved over time.
The series of works presented in 1966 feature aluminum strips inserted into the canvas and smoothly colored with acrylic paint. In the early years of his career, he used Japanese pigments (iwa-enogu) dissolved in acrylic solvent, applied them to washi paper-backed canvas with a flat brush, creating a flat color surface by repeatedly applying layers. However, from 1963 onwards, he switched to acrylic paint instead of pigment, and the use of varnish in the finishing process transformed the surface of the work into one with a smooth gloss. The high saturation and brightness of the colors, reflecting the tendency towards artificial colors prevalent in American daily life at the time, were evenly selected. Furthermore, the introduction of metal strips from this period onwards gives the works a distinctively taut materiality, different from hand-drawn lines. Like the production system of modern industrial machinery, rectangular or square panels were standardized and produced as series works under the principle of symmetry, such as 1:1, 1:2, and 1:3, until the end of the 1960s.
The works presented in the 1970s retain the elements of rectangular aluminum strips, but the canvases take irregular shapes through combinations of rectangles, circles, semicircles, or panels of different lengths. The metallic paint is applied to these canvases, with metallic gray as the main tone, changing to combinations of light colors such as pink, yellow, brown, and beige. Additionally, by using an airbrush, any traces of manual work are perfectly erased, and the paintings lose their painterly qualities, becoming more like modern industrial products. Furthermore, not all of Kuwayama's works are titled; while the production year, artist's name, and color scheme are noted as his own memos, they are always labeled as "Untitled," indicating that the artist himself treats the completed works like standardized industrial products.
Since moving his base to New York in 1958, Kuwayama produced reductionist works. He is widely known as one of the pioneers of minimal art in America during the 1960s and 1970s, holding solo exhibitions at the Green Gallery in 1961. However, the global recognition of Kuwayama as a minimalist artist merely categorizes his art under existing criteria, such as "Color Field Painting" or "Monochrome Painting." By discarding conventional concepts and repeatedly exploring the materials of his artworks with an experimental spirit, Kuwayama continued to pursue a beauty that had yet to be achieved by anyone else.
The works exhibited in this exhibition focus on the 1960s, when acrylic paint was used, and the 1970s, when metallic paint was used, allowing us to see how the paintings evolved over time.
The series of works presented in 1966 feature aluminum strips inserted into the canvas and smoothly colored with acrylic paint. In the early years of his career, he used Japanese pigments (iwa-enogu) dissolved in acrylic solvent, applied them to washi paper-backed canvas with a flat brush, creating a flat color surface by repeatedly applying layers. However, from 1963 onwards, he switched to acrylic paint instead of pigment, and the use of varnish in the finishing process transformed the surface of the work into one with a smooth gloss. The high saturation and brightness of the colors, reflecting the tendency towards artificial colors prevalent in American daily life at the time, were evenly selected. Furthermore, the introduction of metal strips from this period onwards gives the works a distinctively taut materiality, different from hand-drawn lines. Like the production system of modern industrial machinery, rectangular or square panels were standardized and produced as series works under the principle of symmetry, such as 1:1, 1:2, and 1:3, until the end of the 1960s.
The works presented in the 1970s retain the elements of rectangular aluminum strips, but the canvases take irregular shapes through combinations of rectangles, circles, semicircles, or panels of different lengths. The metallic paint is applied to these canvases, with metallic gray as the main tone, changing to combinations of light colors such as pink, yellow, brown, and beige. Additionally, by using an airbrush, any traces of manual work are perfectly erased, and the paintings lose their painterly qualities, becoming more like modern industrial products. Furthermore, not all of Kuwayama's works are titled; while the production year, artist's name, and color scheme are noted as his own memos, they are always labeled as "Untitled," indicating that the artist himself treats the completed works like standardized industrial products.
Schedule | May 11 (Sat) 2024-Jun 16 (Sun) 2024 Opening Hours Information
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Website | https://www.takaishiigallery.com/en/archives/37917/ | ||||
| Venue | Taka Ishii Gallery Maebashi https://www.takaishiigallery.com/jp/ | ||||
| Location | 1F Maebashi Galleria, 5-9-1 Chiyoda-machi, Maebashi-shi, Gunma 371-0022 | ||||
| Access | 5 minute walk from Chuo-maebashi Station on the Jomo Electric Railway line, 15 minute walk from the North exit of Maebashi Station on the JR Ryomo line. | ||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
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