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Email PageTriple X: Extended, Exploded, Extracted - Naoto Nakagawa, 1965-1975
March 8, 2007- March 31, 2007
Reception: March 8, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Naoto Nakagawa
White Box
525 W 26th St Naoto Nakagawa Breaking Event performance (1971) |
Eric Shiner, guest curator of this mini-retrospective, explains the exhibition concept in the accompanying catalogue as follows:
Three key words of Triple X - “Extended,” “Exploded,” and “Extracted” - summarize the evolution of his early painting. Taken from the title of his first solo exhibition, held at the vanguard Judson Gallery, “Extended” alludes to the artist’s surrealist experiments in painted pastiche with everyday objects and a subsequent, more studied approach to the formal arrangement of objects in space, albeit with a strong attention to visual conceit.
“Exploded” refers to the “explosive force” felt in his large-scale works throughout 1970–72. Also characterized as the “Angry Objects” by art critic John Perreault, these “Exploded” canvases are populated by huge household objects rendered in bright hues, which seem to be engaged in an epic struggle—violence, sexual tension, and anger seem to animate them throughout.
Finally, “Extracted,” corresponding to the Hyperreal Still Lifes in Perreault’s terminology, indicates a new direction in Nakagawa’s work, in which a calmer temperament, meticulous observation, and formal perfection help him “extract” familiar objects from the mundane world, as powerfully as his “Extended” and “Exploded” works.
With all of the works in Triple X, the iconography of Nakagawa’s imagery provides a window onto the painter’s inner thoughts and struggles. They typify his own journeys, relationships, and artistic output, representing the pivotal progress of a young painter’s search for a fully unique style. The exhibition includes examples of all of these periods, in addition to several drawings and works on paper, some from the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Many of Nakagawa’s large-scale paintings will be displayed for the first time, giving the viewer a rare chance to see these pivotal works that helped to shape the artist’s later output. From “Curator’s Note”
Naoto Nakagawa (born in Osaka, Japan, 1944) studied fine art at Osaka University of Arts. In 1962, inspired by an exhibition in Osaka of works by American Abstract Expressionists, he emigrated via freighter to New York. There he studied at the Brooklyn Museum of Art School, and his work was first exhibited at Judson Gallery in Greenwich Village, Lending Gallery of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Moore College of Art in 1968.
Nakagawa's recent solo exhibitions have been at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City, Davidson College in North Carolina, the Nielsen Gallery in Boston, Victoria Munroe Fine Art in New York City, Tamada Projects Co. in Tokyo, Japan, and Gallery Holly Snapp in Venice, Italy.
Nakagawa's work is included in many public and private collections, among them The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; Worcester Art Museum; Lester Avnet Foundation; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; The National Museums of Modern Art, Kyoto; The National Museum of Art, Osaka; Fukuoka Art Museum; Osaka City Museum of Modern Art (preparatory office); Fukuyama Museum of Art; Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo; Oita Art Museum; and Takamatsu City Museum of Art.
In 1976 Naoto Nakagawa was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant. He has taught at Columbia University, Parsons School of Design, and Windham College. He has been a guest lecturer and panelist at various universities; Japan Society, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and on Manhattan Cable Television, National Public Radio, and Fuji Television, Japan.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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