Jiro Takamatsu - Japanese Contemporary Art

 

 Jiro Takamatsu (1936 –1998) became one of the most influential and important artists making art in Japan during the 1960s and 1970s. Working in the fertile ground between Dada, Surrealism, and Minimalism for almost four decades, Takamatsu used photography, sculpture, painting, drawing, and performance to create fundamental investigations into the philosophical and material origins of art.
Born in 1936 in Tokyo, Takamatsu formed the collective Hi Red Center in 1963 with Genpei Akasegawa and Natsuyuki Nakanishi, participating in actions carried out in Tokyo that sought to eliminate the boundary between art and life. In 1964, he began making his signature Shadow Paintings (which he continued until the end of his life), a critical inquiry into the formal genesis of painting. In 1972–73, he created the seminal series Photograph of Photograph, which raised questions regarding issues of appropriation and memory. Between 1968 and 1972, he taught at Tama Art University, Tokyo, and was a key figure in the development of the Mono-ha movement. Wikipedia 

 

Kengiro Azuma - Japanese Contemporary Art

 

 Kengiro Azuma (1926 - 2016 ) was a Japanese Italian sculptor, painter, and teacher. Azuma was born March 12, 1926 in Yamagata, Japan to a family of bronze artisans.When he was 17, Azuma joined the Imperial Japanese Navy as a Kamikaze pilot, but the war ended before the time came for him to sacrifice himself. World War II and the discovery of the emperor's humanity had a great impact on the Japanese people. For Azuma personally, it created a spiritual void that pushed him towards art.
From 1949 to 1953, Azuma studied sculpture at the University of Tokyo. In 1956 he moved to Italy after receiving a scholarship from the Italian government. Azuma studied at the Brera Academy in Milan where he was a student and eventually the art assistant of Marino Marini. In 1966, his work was exhibited as part of "The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture" at the MoMa in New York.Wikipedia

 

 

Key Sato - Japanese Contemporary Art - Lyrical Abstraction

Key Sato 1906 – 1978) was a Japanese artist who spent most of his life living and working in France. He was a part of the second wave of lyrical abstraction.
The key innovations formed in the early years of the 20th century were developed further in the 1920s and 1930s. This period began the careers of many innovative and inspiring practitioners in the pictorial arts. However it was a period of reflection following the horrors of the First World War, and major shifts in politics took place across the world. The philosophy of Marxism was widespread among artist communities and groups. Founded in 1919, the Bauhaus became an essential place for the development of ideas concerning the unification of art, craft and design – an idea which became known as the Gesamtkunstwerk.
Sato attended the Académie Colarossi in Paris where he remained until 1934. Upon his return to Japan, he co-founded the New Creation Association (Shin-Seisaku Kyokai) with Kayama Matazō (1927–2004). In 1952 Sato moved back to Paris, where he was inspired by Cubism and Abstraction. He returned to Japan in 1978 and died later that year. The Ōita Prefectural Art Museum (Ōitakenritsu Bijutsukan) held a retrospective exhibition of Sato’s oeuvre in 1979.
Sato exhibited works at the Salon d'Automne in Paris 1931-33, the Carnegie International Exhibitions in Pittsburgh 1952 and 1964, the Salon de Mai in Paris 1956-59 and the 30th Venice Biennale in 1960. In 1963 he participated in the Japanese Avant Garde Art Exhibition in Milan and the Sao Paulo Biennale [remove e from Biennale]. He staged solo shows at the Sanmaido Gallery in Tokyo in 1934, the Tokyo Gallery in 1951 and 1954, the Galerie Mirador in Paris in 1954, the Galerie Jacques Massol 1959-61 and 1964 in Paris, the Hamilton Galleries in London in 1964, and the World House Galleries in New York in 1965.