NYC Art Shows- Hiroko Takeda at Hunter Dunbar Projects

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Fiber Arts, New York Art Shows, Sculptors / Sculpture
Apr 222025
 

“Matsushima Triptych”, 2025, Monofilament, cotton, linen, kid mohair

“River Triptych”, 2023, Monofilament, cotton, linen, kid mohair

The two triptychs above are from Hiroko Takeda‘s solo exhibition, The Ten Thousand Threads at Hunter Dunbar Projects. These works evoking environmental patterns are presented along with others more focused on geometric forms.

From the gallery about the artist and her work-

Hiroko Takeda (b. 1966, Nagoya, Japan) is a Brooklyn-based artist who expresses her world in thread. She has taken her rigorous training in the Mingei Undo-the Japanese Arts and Crafts Movement-which honors and emphasizes the characteristics, capacities, treatments and beauty of materials-to boundary-crossing distances and depths in nearly 40 years of global practice. Mingei was developed in the mid-1920s in Japan by philosopher and aesthete Yanagi Soetsu (1889-1961), along with a group of craftsmen, including the potters Hamada Shoji (1894-1978) and Kawai Kanjiro (1890-1966).

The Ten Thousand Threads takes its title from the Taoist concept of “the ten thousand things.” Often attributed to the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, it refers to the notion that in spite of the variety visible in the world, all things are fundamentally one. Applying this to Takeda’s practice, the multitudinous variations in weft and weave, color, pattern, and structure in her work can be seen as having an underlying connection; the works reside within the “the rule-bound world of weaving” and simultaneously emphasize an “invitation  to the accidental, disorderly, or unexpected.” Takeda’s works in The Ten Thousand Threads strive to transcend boundaries between light and dark, raw and refined, geometry and fluidity, painting and sculpture. 

The exhibition features works from 2016 to 2025, consisting of varying approaches to structure, pattern, and color. The Blueprint and Still Life series utilize the ‘Giant Waffle’ technique to evoke Minimalist rectilinear patterns. The deeply structured grids created by the warp and weft of Takeda’s weaving push the compositions dramatically into three-dimensional space.

Works using transparent thread, on the other hand, imply subtle and dreamlike landscapes. In her recent Matsushima triptych (2025), for example, Takeda uses staggered horizontal passages of fine and coarse textures to suggest the seascapes and islands of tsunami-weathered northeastern Japan. Whether underscoring geometric form or expressive vistas, Takeda’s work illuminates the fundamental tensions between tradition and innovation as well as complexity and reductionism.

As Takeda points out, “the world I see, like the world of warp and weft, has rules and constraints that are supposed to be good for us, but disorder happens naturally, and the other side of tension is fluidity. I manipulate and orchestrate the elements and welcome accidental moments of material behavior.” Whether underscoring geometric form or expressive vistas, Takeda’s work illuminates the fundamental tensions between tradition and innovation as well as complexity and reductionism.

This exhibition is on view until 4/26/25.

Los Angeles Art Shows- “Sensing the Future: Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.)” at The Getty

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Conceptual Art, Design, Drawing, Films, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Mixed Media, Performance Art, Photographers / Photography, Public Art, Sound Art, Video and Film
Feb 212025
 

As part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, The Getty is highlighting the incredible work created by the engineers and artists that made up the group Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T). The exhibition focuses on the history of the group and two of its most ambitious projects- 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering (1966) and the Pepsi Pavilion from Expo ’70 in Japan.

From the museum-

In 1966, engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer and artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman founded Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting and supporting collaborations between artists, engineers, and scientists. These partnerships brought disparate fields together, bridging the gap between culture and emerging technology. E.A.T.’s debut event, 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering (1966), integrated art, theatre, and engineering at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City, resulting in a technology-aided performance experience that proved to be a launchpad for artistic exploration. Their second major project, the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion at Expo ’70 in Osaka, Japan (1970), presented a multisensory environment featuring experiments with sound, light, lasers, a mirrored dome, and fog. Through their collaborations, E.A.T. artists and engineers came to believe that such team efforts could benefit society; subsequent multidisciplinary endeavors, such as Projects Outside Art (1970), addressed issues of housing, education, environmental sustainability, and communication.

About 9 Evenings–

In 1965, Swedish electrical engineer Billy Klüver and American artist Robert Rauschenberg gathered 10 avant-garde artists and 30 Bell Labs engineers to participate in a collaborative, multidisciplinary project combining new technologies with theatre, dance, and music. The event,9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, took place at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York, from October 13-22, 1966. More than 10,000 people attended performances by John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Oyvind Fahlström, Alex Hay, Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Rauschenberg, David Tudor and Robert Whitman. These performances incorporated technological equipment such as photocells, doppler sonar, remote controls, infrared cameras, and transistors. In addition, 9 Evenings engineers created the Theatre Electronic Environmental Modular, a flexible, wireless, networked control system, and the Proportional Control System (PCS), which used photocells to adjust light and sound levels. The event led to the founding of Experiments in Art and Technology the following month.

Below are images and objects from two of the nine evenings, Open Score and Physical Things–

Performance description of “Open Score” by Robert Rauschenberg

About Open Score–

Open Score began with a tennis match between professional player Mimi Kanarek and painter Frank Stella. Engineer William Kaminski wired their rackets with transmitters that caused every strike of the ball to emit a loud sound and extinguish an overhead light. The game continued until the Armory was completely dark. At that point, a cast of 300 volunteers walked onto the court and performed a series of loosely choreographed movements while infrared cameras projected their images onto large screens. Rauschenberg described the action as “the conflict of not being able to see an event that is taking place right in front of one except through a reproduction,” an idea that resonates in today’s world of social media, streaming, and smartphones. For the second performance, Rauschenberg added a third section in which he carried dancer Simone Forti around the Armory in a burlap bag while she sang an Italian ballad.

About Steve Paxton and Dick Wolff’s Physical Things–

For 9 Evenings, Paxton created an enormous, inflated sculpture using Polyethylene and box fans and invited visitors to walk through the structure at their own pace, confronting different environments and performances along the way. After climbing through a 100-foot inflated tower, participants emerged into an enclosed area with wire loops suspended above their heads. Using modified transistor radios, they could listen to an array of sounds, including animal noises and sports commentary. One’s location underneath the sound loops determined which part of the score was audible, allowing people to choose where to linger and what to listen to.

One of the group’s most ambitious projects was for the Pepsi Pavilion (pictured above).

From the museum-

In 1970, the Pepsi-Cola Corporation commissioned E.A.T. to design a pavilion for Expo ’70 in Osaka, Japan. Artists Robert Whitman, Robert Breer, David Tudor, and Forrest Myers made early contributions to the design of the pavilion; eventually the design team included 20 artists and 50 engineers and scientists.

Outside the pavilion, a water-vapor cloud sculpture by the artist Fujiko Nakaya covered the white, faceted dome. On the plaza, seven of Breer’s Floats, six-foot-high dome-shaped sculptures, glided in slow motion while emitting sounds.

Visitors entered the pavilion through a tunnel and descended a staircase into a clamshell-shaped room lit by moving patterns of laser light. On the far end, another staircase led up into the Mirror Dome, a 90-foot diameter, 210-degree spherical mirror made of aluminized Mylar. Within the Mirror Dome, visitors’ reflected images appeared to float upside down above their heads.

You can find more images and further documentation here.

This exhibition closes 2/23/25.

Brooklyn Art Shows- “Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (feat. Takashi Murakami)” at Brooklyn Museum

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Brooklyn, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Printmaking
Aug 022024
 

It’s the last few days to see Utagawa Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo at Brooklyn Museum. They are incredible to view in person, but are also available to view in their entirety on the museum’s website. The exhibition also includes a few images of the places depicted in the prints today as well as Takashi Murakami’s large painted versions of some of the prints.

From the museum-

What are the must-see locations in your favorite city? Where do you go when you need a breath of fresh air? What makes certain neighborhoods famous? Join an artist-insider on a tour of nineteenth-century Tokyo (then known as Edo), from lumberyards to destination restaurants, and see if his choices illuminate your own relationship with the cities you know well.

For the first time in twenty-four years, Utagawa Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo—one of the Brooklyn Museum’s greatest treasures—returns to public display. The Museum’s complete set of these celebrated prints is among the world’s finest, full of vibrant colors preserved by decades in the dark.

While most presentations have centered on the prints’ technical sophistication and influence on European artists, here we focus on their urban subject matter. Originally published in 1856–58, the series captures the evolving socioeconomic and environmental landscape of the city that would become Tokyo. Through both the prints and complementary objects drawn from the Museum’s collection, you’ll be immersed in mid-nineteenth-century Edo and see it through the eyes of the ordinary people who populate Hiroshige’s settings. You’ll encounter all four seasons in scenes of picnics beneath cherry blossoms, summer rainstorms, falling maple leaves, and wintry dusks. The exhibition also includes modern photographs to show how Hiroshige’s scenes morphed into today’s Tokyo.

Artist Takashi Murakami (born Tokyo, Japan, 1962) takes Hiroshige’s views into a more fantastical realm with a set of his own paintings. Created in direct response to 100 Famous Views of Edo, these works invite us to reconsider Hiroshige’s world and his contributions to global art history.

Below are a few more selections from the exhibition from the museum’s website.

This exhibition closes 8/4/24.