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Exhibition/event has ended.

Textile Revelations - Oceania's Creations, Shigeki Fukumoto and Shihoko Fukumoto

Aomori Contemporary Art Centre

Finished

Artists

Shigeo Fukumoto, Shihoko Fukumoto

This exhibition consists of three groups of work which together consider the expressivity that can only be achieved with cloth, and by extension, the potential of cloth as a medium of expression. One is a group of South Pacific Melanesian tapa (bark cloth) and interlaced fabric, representing a tradition of hand-made textiles handed down before the development of cloth weaving. One is a group of works by dye artist Fukumoto Shigeki, who has long pursued the expressiveness unique to somé (Japanese dyeing), through his insight into the theories of figuration of Japan and Oceania. The third is a group of works by dye artist Fukumoto Shihoko, whose work sublimates the transparency and spirituality of indigo into art, and who has in recent years developed works using an old natural cloth made and used in the life and labor of people in regional Japan.

Beginning in 1969, Fukumoto Shigeki took part in the larger movement of that “age of exploration” produced by Japan’s postwar economic growth and the liberalization of overseas travel, by embarking on a voyage of discovery to the South Pacific as part of a group dispatched by Kyoto City University of Arts. His encounter with the “ethnic art” of Papua New Guinea shocked him, and from that time onwards he devoted his attention not only to Oceania’s masks and sculpture but to its art forms in general, especially earthenware, dyeing and weaving, ornaments and money, conducting more than a dozen fieldwork projects since that time. Through his writings, he introduced this art to Japan, while developing a unique theory of dye culture. Fukumoto Shihoko also accompanied him on three trips to Papua New Guinea. Her encounter there with how the forms that people created, rooted in the land, are born out of the operations of nature, led her to turn her attention back to Japanese traditions, where she encountered the indigo dyeing whose possibilities she continues to explore.
Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Aomori Public University is located amid nature at the foot of Mount Hakkōda. Aomori, long blessed with natural abundance, breathes with the lives of all the generations from the early Jōmon Period onward who have lived here. We hope that this exhibition will provide an opportunity to reflect on the forms created by the relationship between nature and humans, and on the fundamental expressions that emanate from cloth, which are indispensable for life.

Schedule

Apr 15 (Sat) 2023-Jun 18 (Sun) 2023