Pavilion for Japanese Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Museum hours:
Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 12 noon – 8 pm
Friday 12 noon – 9 pm
Saturday and Sunday 11 am – 8 pm
Closed Wednesdays
For further information about Japanese art exhibitions at LACMA, please call (323) 857-6565
Japanese Paintings: Time and Place
May 31 – September 11, 2007
Komai Ki (Genki)
Japan, 1747-1797
Landscapes of the Seasons: Snow at Kiyomizudera
Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
Image: 48 7/8 x 19 5/8 in. (124 x 50 cm); Mount: 81 1/2 x 24 3/4 in. (207 x 62.8 cm)
LACMA, Gift of Murray Smith
Photo © 2007 Museum Associates/LACMA
Installation of paintings focusing on human activities and elements from nature that mark particular times and places in Japan. Festivals, ceremonies, and activities such as the planting or harvesting of crops, or the viewing of cherry blossoms indicate specific times of the year.
Flowers and foliage, animals, and landscapes also provide visual clues to time and place. All of the folding screens and hanging scrolls on display are from the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Several new acquisitions will be exhibited for the first time.
Japanese Prints: Concepts of Time
May 31 – September 11, 2007
Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III)
Japan, 1786-1865
Obon Festival Dance
Color woodblock print
Image: 13 15/16 x 9 9/16 in. (35.4 x 24.3 cm); Sheet: 13 15/16 x 9 9/16 in. (35.4 x 24.3 cm)
LACMA, Los Angeles County Fund
Photo © 2007 Museum Associates/LACMA
For centuries the Japanese conceived of time in the same way that they thought of days and years, in association with zodiacal animals, each day having twelve periods lasting two Western hours each.
Suddenly, in the Meiji period (1868-1912), the Japanese government required all Japanese citizens to adopt the Western 24-hour clock.
Artists followed the precedent set by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) and other artists to explore what times of day now meant to beauties and entertainers. The prints in this installation will look at times of day in the new Westernized fashion and what beauties and entertainers did at certain hours of the day.
Bushell Netsuke Collection: Animalia
June 7, 2007 – September 11, 2007
Ishikawa Rensai
Japan, born c. 1832, active mid-late 19th century
Lotus, Frog, and Bird
Ivory with staining, inlays; ryūsa type
1 9/16 x 1 3/4 x 5/8 in. (3.9 x 4.4 x 1.6 cm)
LACMA, Raymond and Frances Bushell Collection
Photo © 2007 Museum Associates/LACMA
Animals have always been extremely popular subjects in netsuke. Those paired with immortal figures took on religious significance. Zodiac animals were treated singly or as a group of twelve (junishi).
Some animals had symbolic meaning and were thought to bestow good fortune while others were blamed for such disasters as floods or earthquakes.
Through the 18th and 19th centuries stylistic treatments and carving techniques changed their appearance but throughout the history of netsuke traditional animal themes continued.
In the 19th century, with the opening of Japan to Western influences, hitherto unknown creatures entered the Japanese netsuke carvers’ repertoire.
University of California at Santa Barbara
Interdisciplinary Humanities Center Events Calendar
TALK: Katsuhika Hokusai, Winslow Homer and the “Great Wave”
By Christine Guth (Stanford University)
Tuesday, January 30, 4:00PM
McCune Conference Room, HSSB 6020. UC Santa Barbara
Hokusai’s “Great Wave” is widely recognized as a modern icon, but the question of how it achieved this status is difficult to answer. In her talk, Guth will address this larger issue through an exploration of the early responses to this image in the United States, especially as seen in the paintings of Winslow Homer.
Christine Guth, pre-eminent scholar of Japanese art history now a Stanford Humanities Center Fellow, raise provocative questions on globalization through the lens of visual culture.
Sponsored by the IHC’s East Asian Cultural Studies Research Focus Group, the departments of East Asian Language and Cultural Studies, Global Studies, History of Art and Architecture, History and the East Asia Center.
Venerated for her brush painting and folding screens, Wako Kido will return to Los Angeles, Nov. 18- 19 at Japan Expo
Prayer – Nature’s Wisdom by Wako Kido
Width 3.6 meters (12”) x Height 1.7 meters (5”7’)
The official artist of the 2005 Aichi World Expo, Wako Kido of Nagoya, will return to the annual Japan Expo which is held at Los Angeles Convention Center on Nov. 18 and 19.
This is her fifth exhibition at the Japan Expo in Los Angeles. She also held her exhibition in Las Vegas, and New York City. In 2002, Wako presented an exhibition at the New York and New Jersey Port Authority entitled “The Year of 9/11,” which was well received.
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg remarked on Wako’s picture book when the book party was held in New York City in July 2005.
Wako’s latest exhibition was held at the Japan Information & Cultural Center, Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C. from March 1 through April 14, 2006. Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Aso praised Wako for her artwork in his message to the exhibition.
A folding screen with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s portrait was displayed at Clinton’s New York Office from July 2005 through August 2006.
Wako is seeking true beauty by her Oriental brush painting which is influenced not only by traditional Japanese painting but also by Western painting.
Wako Kido’s artworks have been accepted at the City of Los Angeles, the Municipality of Washington D.C., the Washington Cherry Blossom Festival Association, Gorge Mason University, actor Tom Cruise and other dignitaries.
Japan Expo Exhibition Hour
Nov. 18 (Saturday), 10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Nov. 19 (Sunday), 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Los Angeles Convention Center, South Hall-K
Parking : South Hall parking www.lacclink.com
Japan Expo (213) 617-0868 www.japanexpo.org
Oshibana, art of pressed flowers, through Nov. 25 at Balboa Park in San Diego
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Verdure (Hisui) 2000, wisteria flower and silk, “In early summer, by the stream behind my dwelling, gratitude for the purple blue splendor of mountain wisteria” (Yoko Nishijima)
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Dance (Mai), 2006, cherry blossom and silk, “Cherry blossoms that flower around Vernal Equinox, were buds in winter cold, now vividly abloom with secret joy” (Yoko Nishijima)
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Lane (Michi) 2005, violets, fern, wasabi flower and silk, “Mountain grass and trees that herald the arrival of spring. Ferns that have endured the cold and white wasabi flowers, then a single violet… they seem to signal the end of winter and this present lull.” (Yoko Nishijima)
By Motoko Shimizu
While ikebana, Japanese cut flower arrangement, is now practiced in all parts of the world, oshibana, its sister art of making pictures with pressed flowers, has remained relatively unknown.
Beginning this month at Balboa Park in San Diego, visitors will have a chance to view some 20 oshibana works by Kyoto artist Yoko Nishijima that are imbued with a particular Japanese sensibility.
Unlike ikebana (literally "living flowers"), which can be considered a form of live installation, oshibana (“pressed flowers”) might be likened to still-life painting. While dynamic arrangements of ikebana modifies its appearance instant by instant, oshibana remains quietly suspended in time.
Typically, oshibana flowers are fixed with glue on postcard-sized washi paper. Nishijima, however, begins with dying silk fabric that forms the base, weaving in and out the pressed flowers and plants, petal by petal, leaf by leaf, almost in the manner of brocade. Generally measuring 30 by 70 centimeters her pieces are much larger than the norm.
The silk and flowers are then sealed between glass on the front and aluminum in the back, to prevent discoloring. Even so, the fading of natural colors and ink dye over time is inevitable. The result is a seemingly rustic, understated composition of ink brush tones and earth-tinted hues that perfectly express a wabi, sabi aesthetic.
As with most forms of decorative art in Japan, Nishijima's oshibana is deeply attuned to the seasonal cycles of nature. Spring, summer, autumn, winter -- each season imparts a distinct mood and style. She notes:
In spring, the dazzle of life
In summer, the rigors of life
In autumn, renewal
In winter, amongst withered leaves, a re-birth
Since making her habitat in the quiet hills of Shizuhara, northern end of Kyoto city, almost two decades ago, the artist has turned a contemplative eye to wild flowers encountered on daily walks. Gathering these humble plants she thus transforms them into visual poems that pay homage to their vivid life-force and grace.
She works in solitude and has remained unaligned to any school or group show. Instead Nishijma exhibits her oshibana annually at Kyoto’s Honen-in, which perhaps connects her art to the ritual floral offerings in Budhist temples from which ikebana too originates.
The exhibition runs through Nov. 25 at Japanese Friends Garden in Balboa Park, located at 2125 Park Blvd., San Diego, CA 92101.
The Garden was first conceived as a tea pavilion constructed for the 1915–16 Panama-California Exposition and now comprises two acres of land including a Zen garden, a koi pond, wisteria arbors and bonsai displays as well as a sukiya-style house where classes are offered in sushi-making, bonsai, calligraphy, and conversational Japanese.
The Garden is open Tuesdays thru Sundays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. closed Mondays (except Labor Day.) Entrance fee is $3; free for children under age 6. For more information call (619) 232-2721 or visit their website at www.niwa.org
Motoko Shimizu is formerly arts editor for Asahi Shimbun Newspapers in Tokyo. She currently lives in Pasadena and works as a free-lance writer.
The Ruth and Sherman Lee Institute for Japanese Art Presents:
The Tanabe Family: Four Generations of Bamboo Artists
September 5, 2006 – December 2, 2006
(Photo) Tanabe Chikuunsai II (1910-2000), Tapered senshu-ami weave flower basket. Bamboo with lacquer. Lee Institute Permanent Collection.
(Photo) Tanabe Chikuunsai III (1940-), Circles and Squares (Hoen). Bamboo with lacquer. Courtesy of the Tanabe Family.
Hanford, California: The Lee Institute is pleased to announce the opening of a special exhibition devoted to one of the great lineages of bamboo artists in Japan. Ranging from traditional baskets woven for flower arrangement and tea ceremony to abstract sculptures of plaited bamboo, this exhibit will present over forty works by master artists of the Tanabe line, more than half borrowed from private collections in the U.S. and Japan.
The exhibited baskets and sculpture cover a century of artistic production, from the early 1900s to the present, providing visitors with an unprecedented opportunity to view the growth of this art form over time, and within the traditional familial master-disciple system of Japanese crafts. Viewers will experience both the innovations and underlying continuity of the Tanabe masters, as each applies the family’s techniques to a unique conception of what bamboo art can and should be, in keeping with his or her times.
The Tanabe family, revered as the longest continuous lineage of bamboo artists, was established as masters of basketry by Chikuunsai I (1877-1937). In his time, bamboo baskets were an indispensable part of the sencha (roasted leaf) tea ceremony, which unlike its more Japanese-oriented matcha (powdered tea) version, was based around appreciations of Chinese culture. Chikuunsai I’s decorative baskets were heavily influenced by those of the Chinese literati tradition, but took on an unmistakable Japanese sensibility in his experiments with the form.
These experiments were brought to fruition by his son and successor, Chikuunsai II (1910-2000), whose use of thinner bamboo strips with expansive spacing allowed him to create vessels with a light, ethereal quality and brilliant moiré patterning. The third Chikuunsai (1940-), while continuing the family tradition of eye-pleasing basketry, ventured into abstract, geometrical sculpture, using rod-like arrow bamboo to create architecture-like constructions.
The youngest Tanabe master, currently Shōchiku (1973-) but slated to become Chikuunsai IV, also works in both basketry and abstract sculpture. In the latter pursuit, he creates organic forms with pale strips of spotted tiger bamboo, which wrap tightly around one another to define the body of the piece, creating swirls of energy from the repetition and occasional breaks in their concentric lines.
Finally, The Tanabe Family: Four Generations of Bamboo Artists also provides us with the opportunity to consider one possible kind of interaction between man and nature, in the engagement of a line of sophisticated artists with a revered natural material.
Bamboo, as both natural material and conceptual metaphor, holds an ancient, noble lineage in the Far East. Fast-growing and plentiful but marvelously rare in its combination of flexibility and hardiness, bamboo has from prehistoric times served various roles in human workmanship and ideals of life.
In poetry, it has served as a symbol of the feminine; in Confucian philosophy, as a metaphor for the perfected gentleman; in myth, as the very source of life. Its strength and pliancy also make it an exceptional material for craftsmanship, and the implied cultural meanings of bamboo are never far beyond the striated earth tones of its gleaming surfaces.
This exhibition is guest curated by Mr. Robert Coffland of the TAI Gallery in Santa Fe, NM, who along with Dennis and Alexandra Lenehan of Los Altos Hills, CA and Wendy and Stan Simpson of Visalia, CA, generously provided support for its creation.
The Lee Institute is located 6 miles south of downtown Hanford at 15770 Tenth Avenue.
The gallery and reference library are wheelchair accessible and open to the public Tuesday-Saturday from 1:00–5:00 pm. Fees are $5 for adults, $3 for students; members and children under 12 are free. Docent tours of the exhibition are held every Saturday at 1:00 pm and special pre-arranged group tours are available for an additional fee.
Please see our website at http://www.shermanleeinstitute.org or call (559) 582-4915.
Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College
Chikanobu: Modernity and Nostalgia in Japanese Prints
Through Oct. 22
Yoshu Chikanobu
Customs of Edo: Enumerated Fortunes: Blessed with Children, 1890
Woodblock print: ink on paper
14 in. x 9 3/8 in. (35.56 cm x 23.81 cm)
Gift of the Aoki Endowment for Japanese Arts and Cultures
Photo by Susan Einstein
CLAREMONT, CA-Scripps College presents the first exhibition to comprehensively examine the 30-year career of one of Japan’s most popular and prolific woodblock print designers, Yoshu Chikanobu (1838-1912).
Born into a samurai family, he became an artist famous for images of warriors, kabuki actors, beautiful women, children and the imperial family. Chikanobu was known for creating ‘brocade prints’