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Tsubaki-kai Exhibition 2010 Trans-Figurative
Events
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Published: April 16 2010

Miwa YANAGI ”XXXS~XXXL" (2010) Courtesy of the artist and Shiseido Gallery

Chiharu SHIOTA "Wall" (2010) Courtesy of the artist and Shiseido Gallery

This final exhibition by the Sixth Tsubakikai will run from April 10th through June 13th, 2010.
The six-member Sixth Tsubaki-kai, formed in 2007, includes artists Yasuko Iba, Chiharu Shiota, Masanori Sukenari, Kyotaro Hakamata, Naofumi Maruyama, and Miwa Yanagi. For this final exhibition in the series all six will exhibit together for the first time, all showing new works.
The Tsubaki-kai is a group exhibition of artists that started in 1947 to mark the post-war reopening of the Shiseido Gallery (which just marked its ninetieth anniversary this year). The name "Tsubaki" refers to the Japanese word for "camellia," the flower that has long been Shiseido’s company symbol. (The suffix "-kai" means simply "gathering" or "group.") The first Tsubaki-kai membership was comprised of seventeen painters, working in both Japanese and Western styles, who had been closely affiliated with the Shiseido Gallery, among them Gyokudo Kawai, Taikan Yokoyama, Ryuzaburo Umehara, and Riichiro Kawashima. Since that time the membership has changed with time, and by the time the Sixth Tsubaki-kai was formed in 2007, a total of eighty artists had participated (see appended list for details).
Over the past three years, the six artists in this incarnation of the Tsubaki-kai have taken turns exhibiting together in various combinations of four, with the lineup changing partially each year. This staggered approach was adopted to boost the sense of creative tension within the group and to foster new levels of active artistic collaboration and communication with each exhibition.
The subtitle "Trans-Figurative" was selected to lend an overarching theme and impart a sense of conceptual coherence to the exhibitions. It symbolizes both going beyond the Tsubaki-kai of the past to transform it into something new, and also having the participating artists take advantage of their mutual interaction to transcend their normal spheres of inspiration and expression.
This Tsubaki-Kai Exhibition 2010 will be the first and last opportunity for all six participating artists to exhibit together. Yasuko Iba will contribute a work featuring a new composition that includes oil painting on cushions. Chiharu Shiota offers a recorded performance piece that is her first video work in six years. Masanori Sukenari has taken advantage of the features of the gallery space to create a new sculpture. Kyotaro Hakamata contributes a sculpture work that combines colorful acrylic panels, wood, and other materials. Naofumi Maruyama has used staining techniques to paint tree motifs in acrylics. And Miwa Yanagi offers a objet piece once again after a gap of several years.
In addition to showing these new works, the six artists will show a collaborative drawing exhibit, created by passing around a sketchbook into which each has contributed layers of drawings. Visitors are encouraged to have a look at this interesting work as well, to get a sense of some of the connections between these six artists and the experiences they have shared.
* The text provided by Shiseido Gallery.

Last Updated on April 10 2010
 

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