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shikaku spacer "Fine Art" Magazine >>もどる
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Soho Gallery Opens Door to New York Art Scene
for Group of Japanese Artists
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Westwood Projects Hosts Japan Art Alliance Exhibition
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 Contemporary artists from Japan have long sought to expose their work to the West, especially in the art capital of New York City. In keeping with their Western peers, many Young Japanese artists are experimenting with technology and creating a bridge by mixing traditional mediums with the unexpected. The desire of many younger Japanese artists is to break away from tradition and find individual expression with Eastern techniques and Western themes. As with their international brother and sister artists, the goals are to convey an artistic message and to have the opportunity to exhibit their work to an appreciative audience.
 Implementing cross-cultural art exhibitions, Westwood Projects, a division of Westwood Gallery in SoHo, New York, presented an exhibition of eighteen artists from Japan. The exhibition, entitled Japan Art Alliance, was organized in conjunction with ALC, Associated Liberal Creators, an arts organization based in Tokyo. ALC proposed numerous artists to curator James Cavello for review based on open criteria: any medium, size, price and artists' background. This allowed many Japanese artists to submit their work, including emerging and well-established artists. The focus of Westwood Projects is to provide more opportunities for up and coming international artists and to open a door to the New York art scene.
 James Cavello, renowned curator in New York City, utilized his unique talent to incorporate eighteen artists into a collective and memorable exhibition. Cavello is recognized for his ability to bring unity and understanding to group exhibitions. A previous show at Westwood Gallery in 2001, SoHo Meets Quebec, was a conglomerate of thirteen multi-disciplinary artists from Quebec, Canada, with artwork ranging from functional art objects to video installation. With his curating skills and comprehension for global projects, Cavello creatively allowed each artist to be highlighted in their own environment. The exhibition began with great reviews, but unfortunately was stopped short due to September 11th. However, Cavello states there are plans for future art collaborations between New York and Quebec.
 Westwood Gallery encompasses over 5,000 square feet and provides a grand forum for artists to display their work. The gallery takes pride in creating museum quality exhibitions and is currently organizing traveling exhibitions with museums across the United States. Most of the collaborative museum shows are in conjunction with the gallery's own stable of artists. Westwood Projects was established to organize exhibitions for international artists. These exhibitions are usually accomplished in association with an organization from a hosting country.
 It is difficult for many Japanese artists to overcome the communication gap in trying to introduce their work to potential galleries in the United States. Most of them dream of the chance to exhibit in a New York gallery and the opportunities are few for the thousands of emerging artists throughout the densely populated country.
 The artwork on exhibit in Japan Art Alliance included a wide range of mediums and art forms, mixing Eastern and Western philosophies. One of the artists, Hideko Kudo, had two freeform sculptures included in the exhibition, both pieces were manipulated from leather into odd-shaped forms. She works with leather because she likes the pliability and uniqueness of the surface. Kudo dyed the leather in a soft gray tone and painted a design of golden and earth-colored hues with acrylic and clay powder. Utilizing a burn pen, she creates swirling, intricate patterns over the painted leather form. Japanese culture inspires a reverence for nature, beginning with well-known childhood stories, such as the fairy tale of a boy floating down a river in a giant peach. The influence behind Kudo's sculptural shapes comes from observing vegetables that have rotted with their subsequent shape changes and fall. Kudo has a garden that she enjoys and said she watched her vegetables, such as a large squash, grow to incredible size and appearance, yet after their peak of ripeness begin the process of regression into fodder for nature. Kudo's work questions the art of sculpture and imparts the viewer with thoughts regarding nature, technique and the abnormal manipulated leather form.

 Another artist that fuses the traditional with untraditional media is Hiroji Chiba, a native of Tokyo. Upon seeing his plexi enclosed paper reliefs for the first time, the inclination is to get closer to further examine the creation of work. Chiba uses hand-colored paper to cut out natural shapes. The results are artfully crafted in terms of the natural appearance and color. However, an aberration of Chiba's nature is exposed as part of the leaf appears to be torn away to reveal a computer motherboard, also made from paper, possibly a secret behind the reality of this microcosm. The work entitled 'A Fallen Leaf in the Future' leaves the artist's message open to interpretation. Is it a suspicion of man's desire to control and dominate the perfect simplicity of nature, or is it a question of forests eventually being wiped out by man that will result in the necessity to duplicate the fallen species? Also on view by Chiba, 'Love and Peace', is a replication of a bird's white wing, with each feather cut from paper so that the hairs of the feather were finely incised to imitate softness and natural fibers. However, an unlikely appendage appears to be a small motor attached to the top of the wing, which gives the illusion that the artform is meant to be another man-made reaction to the environment.

 From artwork inspired by nature, we move to artwork that is nature. Yoshiyuki Tamai is an award winning Japanese artist who has a reverence for flora, fauna and miniature trees, also known as the art of Bonsai. Although this age-old tradition is usually reserved for those who have proven their skill and passion to master these woody little treasures, a younger generation is beginning to blossom. It takes years for a Bonsai artist to achieve the respect given for this difficult ancient practice; these masters were and are held in the highest regard by Emperors and the common citizen. Mr. Tamai not only grows and cultivates the Bonsai, but he adds surprising elements, such as metal rings in various sizes, which encompass the base and trunk of the tree. Tamai's experimentation with this old art form sometimes causes Japanese viewers, who are used to seeing traditional Bonsai, to do a double take when viewing his work. He ultimately gains their respect, because he has a feeling for the balance of human control and the freedom of nature to take its course. Tamai also exhibited a mini installation of moss-covered balls, some cupped and held in place with a metallic bowl. Each moss ball had a symmetrically balanced grouping of long strands of delicate green reeds, which appeared as though they were blown by the wind. The title of this work, "Modern Japan: Kaze", also means 'wind' in English. The Bonsai trees and moss balls were arranged in an lkebana (the Japanese word for 'art of flower arranging') formation, which reflects balance and an attempt of man to harmonize with nature.

 From the unconventional to the more traditional, there were numerous artists in the Japan Art Alliance who practice their art with recognized Japanese media, such as Sumi ink, ceramic, paper, oil and acrylic, but the results could be described as unexpected. Three artists utilized Sumi ink, each apparently comfortable with brush and ink, but each with dramatically different results. Calligraphy is thousands of years old, yet Kenji Yasui discovered that instead of writing in Japanese ......(to be continue)

FINE ART
( SPRING 2003 )
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