Art + Auction | In the Studio | Satoru and Kayoko Hoshino
April 1, 2016
It’s an overcast, blustery day in late December when I board a rickety local train at the Kyoto station. …
Body and Matter: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Satoru HoshinoExhibitions
Body and Matter: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Satoru Hoshino
Body and Matter: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Satoru Hoshino is curated by Koichi Kawasaki, former director of Ashiya City Museum of Art and History in Japan. This exhibition places a group of 23 important abstract paintings made over the course of the fifty-year career of legendary Gutai artist Kazuo Shiraga, in dialogue with a series of nine works from the 1990s by Satoru Hoshino, a prominent member of the avant-garde postwar Japanese ceramics group Sodeisha, the “Crawling through Mud Association,” founded by Kazuo Yagi (1918-1979) in Kyoto. Body and Matter invites new insights into Shiraga’s extraordinary oeuvre through juxtaposition with the art of another Japanese master of a parallel universe: clay. Although they were near contemporaries in Japan, Shiraga (1924-2008) and Hoshino (b. 1945) never met. The exhibition at Dominique Lévy marks the first time their work will be shown in juxtaposition, tracing the thread of the informe—the “formless”—in the radical and poetic work of two great postwar Japanese figures who exploited different mediums and created fresh art-historical dialogue through their innovative approaches to matter and individuation.
On view through April 4, the exhibition coincides with Between Action and the Unknown: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Sadamasa Motonaga, co-curated by Koichi Kawasaki with Gabriel Ritter, at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) in Dallas, Texas. Also devoted to advancing exploration into the contributions of Shiraga, Kawasaki’s DMA show is the first to pair his art side-by-side with that of fellow Gutai artist Motonaga.
Body and Matter is accompanied by a fully-illustrated exhibition catalogue, Body and Matter: Kazuo Shiraga | Satoru Hoshino, featuring poetic writings by both artists as well as original essays by curator Koichi Kawasaki and noted art historian John Rajchman.
Dominique Lévy, in collaboration with Axel Vervoordt Gallery, is pleased to simultaneously publish the first definitive English-language monograph on Shiraga's work, Kazuo Shiraga. The publication offers leading research and scholarship on the work of Shiraga through several newly commissioned essays by Koichi Kawasaki, John Rajchman, Ming Tiampo, and Reiko Tomii. Also included is previously unpublished archival material pertaining to Shiraga's career and selected writings by Shiraga in English translation.
Dominique Lévy gallery will present a parallel program of events in New York during the course of the exhibition, including a panel discussion with Koichi Kawasaki, Alexandra Munroe, Ming Tiampo, and Reiko Tomii, moderated by David Raskin, on February 12, 2015.
ABOUT THE PANEL PARTICIPANTS
Koichi Kawasaki
Independent art historian and curator
Curator of Between Action and the Unknown: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Sadamasa Motonaga.
Ming Tiampo
Associate Professor of Art History, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Author of Gutai: Decentering Modernism (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
Co-curator of Gutai: Splendid Playground at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (2013)
Reiko Tomii
Independent art historian and curator
Publications include Kazuo Shiraga: Six Decades (2009) and contributions to
Yanagi Yukinori: Inujima Note (2010) and Xu Bing (Albion Editions, 2011)
Co-founder of PoNJA-GenKon (Post-1945 Japanese Art Discussion Group / Gendai Bijutsu Kondankai)
Alexandra Munroe
Samsung Senior Curator, Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Co-curator of Gutai: Splendid Playground (2013); Curator of Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity (2011), The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989 (2009), and Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe (2008)
Author of Japanese Art after 1945: Scream Against the Sky (1994)
David Raskin
Mohn Family Professor of Contemporary Art History, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Editor-in-Chief, caa.reviews
Selected Press
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July 1, 2015
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Momus | Seeing Red: Understanding Kazuo Shiraga's Sudden Fame
April 8, 2015
In recent years, the reputation of postwar abstract painter Kazoo Shiraga (1924-2008) – known for turbulent, …
C File Daily | Kazuo Shiraga and Satoru Hoshino at Dominique Lévy Gallery, New York
April 1, 2015
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March 25, 2015
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Blouin Artinfo | Unseen Eye on Gutai
March 1, 2015
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Cultured | A Lasting Impression
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Improbably, it was in a 15th-century Venetian palazzo that gallery owner Dominique Lévy first encountered …
The New York Times | Art World Rediscovers Kazuo Shiraga
February 27, 2015
A member of the Gutai group of avant-garde artists, Shiraga developed during his six-decade career the …
Christies | Action Painting: The body electric
February 16, 2015
Kazuo Shiraga, James Nares, and Hugo McCloud acknowledge their relationship with their artworks — and …
Vogue | Watch This Exclusive Video of Kazuo Shiraga Action Painting
February 12, 2015
“My completed work is not for someone to appreciate. It should have the impact of a blow,” Kazuo …
Art News | Preview: ‘Body and Matter’ at Dominique Lévy
January 28, 2015
Earlier today Dominique Lévy gallery hosted a press preview for “Body and Matter,” a show that pairs …
T Magazine | An Inventive Postwar Japanese Painter Has His Moment
January 28, 2015
Ironically, Kazuo Shiraga’s feet were nearly his feet of clay. The breakout star of the Gutai Art Association, …
Observer | 8 Things to Do in New York’s Art World Before January 31
January 27, 2015
Dominique Levy will position 23 paintings by Gutai artist Kazuo Shiraga next to nine artworks completed …
Artnews | 6 Art Events to Attend In New York This Week
January 26, 2015
“This exhibition places a group of 23 important abstract paintings made over the course of the fifty-year …
Artnet | Your Art Agenda: 8 Things to Do This Week
January 26, 2015
“Body and Matter: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Satoru Hoshino” opens at Dominique Lévy...
Widewalls | Body and Matter: Shiraga and Hoshino
January 2, 2015
Dominique Lévy in New York is opening a spectacular exhibition the last week of January, featuring two …
Daily AD | Three Exhibitions Spotlight Japanese Artist Kazuo Shiraga
December 31, 2014
In 1957, suspended from the ceiling of an Osaka gallery and dressed in a red Pinocchio suit, Japanese …