The Art of Mono-Ha at Gladstone Gallery

Katsuro Yoshida... I love his silk screens!

I happened upon "Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-Ha" curated by Mika Yoshitake at Gladstone Gallery.  According to the press release...

This exhibition examines the postwar Japanese artistic phenomenon Mono-ha (School of Things). Representing a key art historical turning point, “Requiem for the Sun" refers to the death of the sun as emblematic of the loss of symbolic expression and permanence immanent to the object in Japanese postwar art practice.

Gladstone Gallery

According to Ashley Rawlings of Tokyo Art Beat...

‘Mono-ha’ refers to a group of artists who were active from the late sixties to early seventies, using both natural and man-made materials in their work. Their aim was simply to bring ‘things’ together, as far as possible in an unaltered state, allowing the juxtaposed materials to speak for themselves. Hence, the artists no longer ‘created’ but ‘rearranged’ ‘things’ into artworks, drawing attention to the interdependent relationships between these ‘things’ and the space surrounding them. The aim was to challenge pre-existing perceptions of such materials and relate to them on a new level.

The name ‘Mono-ha’ was actually more of a label applied to the group, and its origins are as elusive as any precise definition of the movement.¹ Usually translated rather awkwardly as ‘school of things’, it is a misleading name: Mono-ha works are as much about the space and the interdependent relationships between those ‘things’ as the ‘things’ themselves. Making the viewer become aware of his position in relation to the work is also something which the Mono-ha artists aimed for.

And as far as ‘groups’ go, Mono-ha was a fairly loose one: something of a conglomeration of interlinking relationships between the various artists involved. Ideologies were not necessarily shared by all members of Mono-ha, so it was not a coordinated ‘movement’ as such. Roughly speaking, Mono-ha is thought of as centring around Nobuo Sekine, Lee Ufan, Katsuro Yoshida, Susumu Koshimizu, Koji Enokura, Kishio Suga, Noboru Takayama and Katsuhiko Narita. Below I will give a simple introduction to some of their key works and the ideas behind them.

Katsuro Yoshida

Gladstone Gallery

Katsuro Yoshida

Nobuo Sekine

Noboru Takayama

Susumu Koshimizu

Katsuro Yoshida 

Lee Ufan

Kishio Suga

Ridicule and Compassion: Nicole Eisenman

Van Gogh reference

Millet reference?

Eisenman surprises me.  When I first looked her art up on google images and later went to the 2012 Whitney Biennial... her art seemed too close on the spectrum of ridicule-and-compassion to George Condo, "Prince of Sardonicism".  However, after I saw the recent show at Leo Koenig in Chelsea I got a glimpse of a different side of her... one that I could relate to.  She seems to have been inspired by expressionist artists like Ensnor, Munch, Goya, Picasso, Van Gogh, Millet, Otto Dix and Ernst.  There is something so fresh about modernism and it's roots and I'm glad she's giving it some thought.  Works on paper from that era especially interest me... that unique and sincere blend of modest traditional mediums with creative interpretation and imagination.  With these works Eisenman gives us her take on tradition.  Compared to her monotypes (what she had exhibited at The Whitney) these etchings and woodcuts are so intriguing, intimate, soulful, and humorous.  They're bluesy and folksy but still have a bit her funky silliness... a nice balance if you ask me.  In a way she has set aside the trendy rock star stuff and given us a rich unplugged album.  Moreover, the dexterity, the finely scratched and carved line work apparent in her etchings and woodcuts, which is absent in her naive and crass styled monotypes, coupled with the expressionist quality of the prints makes these works pleasing to the eye and heart.  Great stuff Nicole!

The monotypes I'm not a fan of

A bit too silly

I like this monotype

Picasso reference?

The Good Stuff...

Good art doesn't have to be terribly complicated

Bill Bollinger: Here I Am, Now Make Sense of Me

Movie, 1970

Bill Bollinger's work by itself doesn't come across as being anything extraordinary (but maybe that's the point of his minimal art).  Regardless, in the cracked concrete and rust of the Sculpture Center’s 104 year old building something magical happened that made this exhibit an experience to remember.  

According to the Sculpture Center's website (www.sculpture-center.org)...

Bollinger made significant waves in the late 1960s, challenging the limits of sculpture and expanding thought regarding concept, materiality, and commodity. Bollinger's works were made from primarily pre-fabricated industrial supplies, such as sawhorses, oil drums, rubber tubing and cyclone fence. Focusing on the gesture of construction and the physical limits of material, Bollinger's work addressed ideas of gravity, balance and material nature. According to him his interests lay not 'in the aesthetics of form but in the fact of form'. Bollinger frequently used water for as a material, transforming it into something sculptural with mass and form as it fills a plastic hose or a steel barrel. Bollinger summed up his attitude to the making of his work: 'It is all very easy to execute, does not exist until it has been executed, ceases to exist when it has been taken down.' This approach, while radical and ultimately influential, is also likely a factor in the subsequent disappearance of the work from art history.  

Not all of his drawings and sculptures worked.  But like all artists it’s refreshing to see the ones that worked along side risky work that did not.  Too perfect an art exhibition sometimes looses a welcome edge that challenges the audience and provokes thought.

His best pieces are quietly confrontational… a chain link fence with a single twist in it, a white “shelf” mounted to a white wall, two wheel barrows filled with water, a drawing made up of dots or splatters.  These pieces are beautiful in their form and composition, they are graceful and they are engaging, yet they are things you might happen upon at a construction site… and that's what makes them confrontational… they’re extremely simple/minimal and primarily made up of pre-fabricated objects.  That's the tension you feel in his art… it’s as if his sculptures are saying “here I am, now make sense of me”.

Anodized Aluminum Extrusion (Channel Piece), 1966

Cyclone Fence, 1968

Untitled, 1970

Pipe Piece, 1968/1969

Rope Piece [VW], 1967

Drawing

Graphite Piece, 1969

Installation view in the Basement Gallery

Rope Piece, 1969 and Rope Piece, 1969

My deliberate blurry photo of Rope Piece, 1969

Posters in a glass case display

Drawings

*** FYI Bill Bollinger originally studied aeronautical engineering at Brown University.  When I showed my brother the drawings above (who studied aerospace engineering) he immediately thought they resembled cross sections of wings/turbine blades.  The diagrams below we found on google images and thought there was a slight resemblance to his drawings.

City Winery: Soulive and Karl Denson

I love this poster art!!!

Ok y'all... I found my new music spot in New York.  If you've never been to City Winery check out their website... http://www.citywinery.com/newyork/restaurant-bar.html.  Its just south of West Houston on Varick Street.

Anyway last night I went to Spark!... a tribute to Melvin Sparks.  And I just got to say that us visual artists could learn something from Soulive's music and Karl Denson's... they can both soar with extremely fast solos and play around with some very musically complex techniques and theory, but they always bring it back to that basic funky baseline with feeling and soul... don't forget artists that thats the place where good art begins and ends... the trip you take us on between those points is free game, but don't get lost in flashiness or concept... Keep it real.

So last night I sat right in front of the stage with my wife and we collaborated on two drawings and gave them to the band afterwards.  Karl came back out from behind the stage and I chatted with him for awhile... he's an amazing person... totally modest, totally kick ass musician, and totally kick ass Father!

Me and Diesel D after he made a joke about
Bevis and Butthead