日本極簡主義代表 ---桑山忠明Tadaaki Kuwayama個展《60年代至今日》

新苑藝術將於7月29日至9月4日展出桑山忠明個展 Tadaaki Kuwayama 《60年代至今日》，開幕時間定為7月29日晚間六點。日本戰後藝術近年在全球化語境下，破除語言隔閡，獲得再次審視、評估以及應有的重視。生於1932年，桑山忠明 Tadaaki Kuwayama現年84歲，1958年移居紐約，為美國60年代極簡主義鳴出先聲，與法蘭克‧史帖拉Frank Stella、唐納德‧賈德Donald Judd與丹‧弗拉文Dan Flavin等人過從甚密。1961年於紐約傳奇性畫廊Green Gallery展出首展，一展成名，自此走入前衛藝術的浪淘中，畢生致力於將人類難以捉摸的情感透過視覺予以邏輯化，利用幾何、重複、線性、定型與無定型之間的迴返呼應，製造走向無限的繩索，營造出寂靜與超然的精神體驗。

50年代末的日本，適逢歐美抽象表現主義的引進，桑山忠明選擇另一條道路，從簡筆畫、噴漆、單色等嘗試，不斷開創並重新定義媒材，在90年代奠定指涉現象環境的專屬場域，利用複合的異質擬造單色金屬，配合展場設計及光線進行再製及並置，隨著光線及人群走向，呈現易變的無機畫面，將作品從藝術家的個人表現中解放，堅毅地發展極簡主義的前鋒思想。

桑山忠明即將於新苑藝術展出兩個系列作品，外室將展出60至70年代的著名作品，在純色飽和顏料與仿金屬組合物鑲以鋁條及鍍鉻邊條，憑藉人類初始的對稱邏輯布局，將表現空間、構圖、及涵義淡化，蒸發主觀個人。內室將展出桑山忠明近作，結合鈦金屬與色調譜系，讓顏色與空間作為陌生外界的純粹連結，去中心化，開放觀眾的直觀感受，讓空間成為主體而非媒介。

專長日本戰後藝術的藝評權威林道郎Michio Hayashi以〈中性的詩學〉為標題爬梳桑山忠明藝術家職涯內的系列演變與表現。林道郎先生將於7月29日開幕夜蒞臨新苑藝術，以研究者與評論者身分發表短講，自1985年開始長期策畫協調桑山忠明於日本國內展覽的山口孝Takashi Yamaguchi （Gallery Yamaguchi Kunst-Bau負責人）亦將出席致詞，現場備有日中口譯。

桑山忠明小檔案

1932年出生於日本名古屋，1956年畢業於東京藝術大學，主修日本畫，1958年移居紐約創作至今。1961於紐約Green Gallery舉辦首場個展，往後定期展覽於美國、德國與日本的國際藝廊，例如科隆Galerie Reckermann、日本Sakura Gallery、日本Akira Ikeda Gallery、慕尼黑Galerie Renate Bender及日本Gallery Yamaguchi，同時各地美術館持續邀展，包括北九州市立美術館的1960-1985回顧展、匹茲堡卡內基美術館、紐約古根漢美術館、川村紀念美術館、紐約雀兒喜美術館、西班牙蘇菲亞美術館、金澤21世紀美術館、大阪國立美術館等。

藝術家生涯早期1969年即獲美國國家文藝基金會授獎，1986年獲Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation （阿道夫與以斯帖戈特利布基金會授獎）。典藏其作品的美術館全球將近50間，以美國、日本為最，德國次之，另有瑞典、奧地利與丹麥國內美術館。
 

Galerie Grand Siècle is going to launch the solo exhibition of Tadaaki Kuwayama From the 60s Till Today at 18:00 on July 29th and the exhibition ends on September 4th. Post-war art in Japan, in the context of globalization, has broken the language barriers, gaining reassessment and deserved respects in global art history. Born in 1932, Tadaaki Kuwayama, now 84 years old, moved to New York since 1958, is the active pioneer of American minimalism with Frank Stella, Donald Judd and Dan Flavin. After the debut exhibition in NY’s legendary Green Gallery in1961, he established his name walking stride ahead into the avant-garde flow. He dedicates his career in ground-breaking tasks in logicalizing visual expression through geometry, repetitiveness, linearity, form, formlessness and the revolving echo among them. The concept of his artworks leads to the sense of endlessness, bringing audience an experience of tranquility and transcendence.

The end of 1950s in Japan, faced with the initial introduction of Euro-American abstract expressionism, Tadaaki Kuwayama took on another path, minimalistic painting, spray painting, monochromatic painting and beyond, persistently carving out new possibility and definition on materials for art creation. In 1990s, he inaugurated his specified context referring to surrounding environment and phenomena which utilized compounded heterogeneous materials to create the quasi-metallic objects with orders randomly altered according to varied exhibition spaces, angles of light incidence, and directions of audience movements (in special cases, the objects will be re-designed and re-created) to place all-day mutably view with inorganic characteristics. This way the work itself would liberate the artist from subjective expression; moreover, it also facilitated him to persistently develop the pioneering concepts interpreted as minimalism later.

Tadaaki Kuwayama will exhibit two series in Galerie Grand Siècle— the renowned painting series during 1960s to 1970s in its outer chamber and the recent work in its inner chamber. The former series incorporates the combination of monochromic high-saturated colors embedded with aluminum or chrome strips, following human natural instinct for symmetry. By trivializing the spatial context, composition and meaning, the artist eliminated his ego from the work. The latter work is shaped by geometrical arrangement of titanium anodized by monochromatic color schemes, letting color and space be the pure connections with the strange outer world in terms of decentralization. When the audience’s intuitive perceptions are widely accepted, the exhibition space itself becomes the subject, instead of the agent.

Two important guest speakers will participate the opening night July 29th to give lectures— Michio Hayashi (art critic) and Takashi Yamaguchi (director of Gallery Yamaguchi Kunst-Bau). Mr. Michio Hayashi is the authoritative specialist in post-war art in Japan who has kept concerns of the artist and published <Poetic of radical neutrality – the work of Tadaaki Kuwayama>. Mr. Takashi Yamaguchi started presenting the artist since 1985 and continued co-organizing the exhibitions of the artist until now. There will be a Japanese-Mandarin interpreter onsite.

Brief file of Tadaaki Kuwayama

The artist was born in 1932 in Nogoya, graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music majoring in Nihonga in 1956. Then he moved to New York living and working there since 1958 until present.

In 1961, his debut exhibition was launched in Green Gallery. Since then, he continuously executed exhibitions in the U.S., Germany and Japan, including Galerie Reckermann in Cologne, Sakura Gallery and Akira Ikeda Gallery in Japan, Galerie Renate Bender in Munich, and Gallery Yamagui in Japan in chronological order. In the same time, numerous invitations from museums came up. To list a few of his museum-setting exhibitions: A Retrospective 1960-1985 at Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art (1985), The 1961 Pittsburg International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture at Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute (1961), Systemic Painting at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (1966), Project’96 at Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art (1996), Samadhi at Chelsea Art Museum (2002), Monochromes: From Malevich to the Present at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (2004), Untitled: Taadaki Kuwayama at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (2011) and White – Tadaaki Kuwayama – Osaka Project at National Museum of Art (2011).

In the early stage of the artist’s career, 1969, he received the honor of Art in America New Talent by National Endowment of the Arts in the U.S. and in 1986 awarded by Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation. There are more than 50 museums around the world having collected his artworks, say, most in the U.S. and Japan, many in Germany, and also the national museums in Switzerland, Austria and Denmark.