Image and matter. Japanese prints from the Seventies

The exhibition at the Japanese Cultural Institute, curated by Takizawa Kyōji (Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts), presents 50 prints by 14 Japanese artists who, in the seventies, photographed, engraved, photoengraved and printed, giving voice to matter and different materials.

The exhibition is divided into two sections: The era of the photographic image, which focuses on the use of photography in the medium of printing and Autonomous expressions of matter, which offers works modeled and suggested by the matter itself. In the first, new techniques developed since the 1970s are presented, such as screen printing and offset printing, which have made it possible to work with photographs to convert them into prints, for example, through the use of photoengraving. In many of these works, every trace of manipulation is absent or has been eliminated to cancel the emotional content and, at the same time, codify the image.

In the second part however, it is highlighted how, in the period between 1968 and the early Seventies, a new trend in art manifests itself in which some simple elements such as stone, wood, paper, cotton and steel sheets are presented as works, both alone and in combination with each other. Consequently, photography was also influenced and a  movement was born in which a strong emphasis was placed on the possibility of using matter and materials, such as printing blocks, paper and ink. These subjective expressions, based on photographic images and material, have greatly expanded the possibilities of the print medium, while at the same time helping to influence trends in contemporary art as a whole.

Among the artists present in the exhibition we highlight Lee Ufan, Takamatsu Jirō, Noda Tetsuya, Kimura Kōsuke, Matsumoto Akira, Saitō Satoshi, Kimura Hideki, Hagiwara Sakumi, Yoshida Katsurō, Enokura Kōjie and other names who have made the history of the Japanese artistic avant-garde since the post-war period.

Photo credits: courtesy of the Japanese Cultural Institute official site