Exhibition: Photographic Images and Matter - Japanese Prints of the 1970s

 
This exhibition focuses on print expressions from the 1970s through the artworks of 14 artists who helped to develop a unique print movement in the world of Japanese contemporary art. It comprises two sections: The Age of Photographic Images, which focuses on the use of photographic images in the print medium, and Images of Autonomous Matter, which focuses on works that were shaped by the intentions of matter. Visitors will be able to view works of these renowned artists done using a range of techniques, including silkscreen, woodblock, lithograph and metal print.


Date: November 1st-17th (Closed 9th-11th)
Hours: Mon-Sat: 10:00-16:00, Sun: 11:00-15:00
Venue: Information and Culture Centre, Embassy of Japan in Canada (255 Sussex Drive, Ottawa)
Free Admission / No on-site Parking

 

Section1: An Age of Photographic Expression

Tetsuya Noda, Diary; Aug. 22nd '68	Tetsuya Noda, Diary; Sept. 11th '68	Hideki Kimura, Delta 8-18

With the increase in photographs and printing, and the proliferation of the powerful medium of television, which accompanied the expansion of production and consumption in the 1960s and ’70s, Japanese society came to be overrun with images. During this period, new techniques such as silkscreening and offset printing, which made it easy to transform photographic images, quickly took hold. Under these circumstances, numerous works emerged in which photographic images were converted into prints through the use of photoengraving, leading to a new mainstream in printmaking. In many of these works, all traces of handiwork were eliminated in order to suppress emotional content and encode the image.

 

Section 2: Images of Autonomous Matter

Katsuro Yoshida, Work '10'	Mitsuo Kano, Soldered Blue	Lee Ufan, Port of Call 1

Between about 1968 and the early 1970s, a new trend emerged in art in which simple substances such as stone, wood, paper, cotton, and steel sheets were presented as works, sometimes alone and sometimes in combination with each other. As an extension of this movement, print works, which limited human involvement and manipulation of the image to a bare minimum, and set out to allow materials (matter) such as print blocks, paper, and ink to speak for themselves, received attention for expanding the concept of the print and giving rise to a new trend in the medium. This period also saw the materialization of images, a conscious movement that had begun in the 1950s, and an approach to production that centered on expressing something spiritual through matter, which resulted in works with a strong material quality.


 

Exhibiting Artists

Koji Enokura, Sakumi Hagiwara, Arinori Ichihara, Shoichi Ida, Mitsuo Kano, Tatsuo Kawaguchi, Hideki Kimura, Kosuke Kimura, Akira Matsumoto, Tetsuya Noda, Satoshi Saito, Jiro Takamatsu, Lee Ufan, Katsuro Yoshida



Curated by Kyoji Takizawa, Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts
「映像と物質: 版画の1970年代・日本」