Outline

The Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art proudly presents the next edition in our Collection Viewpoint; which is a series of exhibitions that seeks to re-examine the works of art in our collection from new perspectives. The focus this time is works of modern and contemporary painting that form the core of the museum’s collection; and the viewpoint from which the roughly ninety selected works are examined is that of art historian and critic Michio Hayashi, whose unique perspective will surely shed new light and bring new pleasure to the viewing experience.

Works created by artists such as Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, Morris Louis, Frank Stella and others in Modernism’s quest for the essence of painting as an autonomous genre are said to represent a pinnacle of postwar American art. As a result of these artists’ work, painting reached a state of saturation as a self-concluded medium and quickly went into decline, with artists in the 1960s turning to a diversifying variety of non-painterly media such as three-dimensional works. However, painting would never disappear, and today it is bringing to us works in rich abundance like never before. Michio Hayashi’s observation and contemplation of the development of this perpetual, undying art of painting has led to the birth of unique new terms to describe its progress. In this exhibition, four such terms have been chosen to explore the potential of painting to serve as a model for human sensibilities, imagination, and thought.

We present this exhibition in hopes that the vision and thoughts of Michio Hayashi, reflected in it, will lead to new insights into the breadths and depths of the issues that painting addresses.

Comment from Michio Hayashi

“The twentieth century represented a major turning point in the history of art - one of the greatest in scale and depth since the Renaissance. The unique collection of the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art is a rare and valuable lode well worth mining to understand this pivotal century. Into this lode I dug four different shafts.

They are (1) the closed rooms that crystallized the gaze of the artists; (2) the reduction to the most minimal elements of art production that was in turn folded back onto the question of the environment; (3) the dull but delicate existence of the everyday; and (4) painting as a stage for [sometimes abrasive] stimulation of the human senses. 

By “cross-positioning” the works—many of which have not been displayed for some time—I sought to direct light into these four shafts in a way that created an interlacing network. Interwoven into this brightly lighted “maze” are multiple layers of time and space, and several hidden narrow paths and trails. Welcome to the great pleasure of being lost and choosing your own path through.”

Lecture and Gallery Talk

Lecture

*All will be conducted in Japanese

Michio Hayashi (Art Historian, art critic; Professor, Sophia University)
August 5 (Sat.): The Artist’s Gaze, in Closed Rooms
August 12 (Sat.): Freezing Point of Image – The Phenomenology of Perception
August 19 (Sat.): The Anti-Aesthetic of Gray
August 26 (Sat.): Painting as Surface – The Murmur of Silence

Time (each day): 13:30－15:00（open from 13:00）
No reservations needed｜Limit 80 people｜Museum admission necessary
 

Gallery Talk

*All will be conducted in Japanese

July 8 (Sat.): Michio Hayashi (Art Historian, art critic; Professor of Sophia University)
July 15 (Sat.): Discussion type talk “mite!” by Museum guide staff 
July 22 (Sat.): Kiyoko Maeda (Associate Curator) 
July 29 (Sat.): Art Teller Tony 
August 19 (Sat.): Discussion type talk “mite!” by Museum guide staff
Regularly scheduled tours by the Museum guide staff are held daily except on days of the above-listed gallery talks

Daily 14:00－15:00
No reservations needed | limited to first 60 people | Gather at the Entrance Hall 14:00 |
Museum admission necessary