MASTERPIECE LONDON 2018

NUKAGA GALLERY is pleased to announce its third edition of exhibiting at MASTERPIECE LONDON 2018.

In post-World War II US and Europe, in the context of raising of self-consciousness and awareness among common people, such art movements as Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel left a significant impact on the contemporary art scene and created innovative concepts. The style of these movements can be rephrased as action-painting, where artists emphasize the movement of the body and the process of the works’ creation. In this particular style of painting, the canvas is no longer utilized as a two-dimensional window which represents the artist’s vision but rather a ‘field of action’ where the trace of the artist’s existence and physical movements are vividly kept. These movements led to redefining the action and the creative process themselves as art. This shift of notion triggered the advanced understanding of art and sowed the seeds for the development of Conceptual Art and Happening.

Such Japanese artists as Toshimitsu Imai and Hisao Domoto joined Art Informel in France in the 1950s, while the artists of the Gutai collective based in the Kansai region started to create their art with completely unique concepts and methods that had never been seen even in Europe or the U.S.

For our exhibition in Masterpiece, the gallery focuses on the theme “action and physicality in post-World War II Japan”. Kazuo Shiraga, Saburo Murakami and Toshimitsu Imai’s works which embody such concepts intensely will be exhibited. Moreover, works of Yu-ichi Inoue, who created his own avant-garde calligraphic art, will also be on display. By exhibiting Yu-ichi’s works juxtaposing with those of Shiraga and Imai, it will serve as an impetus for further understanding of the relationship between his concept and these aspects of physicality.

We look forward to seeing you in our stand C23.