KAZUYO KINOSHITA: A Retrospective

KAZUYO KINOSHITA, who studying painting at Kyoto University of the Arts, began exhibiting while still a student. During the 1960s, influenced by the avant-garde art collective Group "i"gathering of artists in Kobe, she began to explore more deeply her burgeoning interest in questions of existence. In the 1970s she produced numerous works that used photography to ponder the relationship between image and perception, and image and matter. Kinoshita's photo series, lucid expres- sions of her idea that "while there is absolute existence and relative existence, there can be only one existence," earned her high acclaim at home and abroad for their distinctly cerebral ap- proach. It was an approach also in keeping with currents in international art during this period, leading to a solo exhibition for Kinoshita in Heidelberg in 1981.

Coinciding with this first overseas solo outing, Kinoshita undertook a series of experiments to see if it were possible to make works using a method other than photography, without changing her actual concept. The early '80s saw her wielding pastels in works that explored com- patibility of material and expression, before returning once more to painting. Having reached the conclusion that the best approach would be to personally create existence itself on the picture plane, Kinoshita succeeded in breaking away from schematic concepts. After naming the first work inthisnewseries'82-CA1,Kinoshitaalteredthelookof "existence"onthepictureplanefrequently, with each new iteration of her ever-changing brushwork. On receiving a cancer diagnosis in 1990 she visited Los Angeles several times seeking treatments, continuing to work untiringly during her sojourns in the city. In 1994 Kinoshita passed away in Kobe, at the age of fifty-five, leaving a legacy of paintings and drawings numbering over 700 just since her return to painting in 1982.

This book is composed of three chapters tracing different periods of Kinoshita's career, exploring every facet of her practice via very early works rarely or never shown in public, the photographic works that made her name in Japan and further afield, and the paintings that became her life's work after 1982. The constant, underlying theme of Kinoshita's practice -- interrogating the nature of existence -- resonates as strongly in today's world as it did during her lifetime.

"This work was done by initially painting with a brush, then wiping with a cloth. The wiping means that the plane of the canvas and plane with the paint on it are of equal value. I did this because in my own mind, this is the same as it has always been, because I have a constant desire to make two-dimensional planes equal. Adopting that method, making the work itself an entity. All entities, like stars in the heavens, were created by the gods and may appear to be random, but exist in a specific relative order. But as far as we can tell, they exist naturally, and that existence is incred- ibly powerful. I want the painting to be an entity like that. "

Excerpts from "An interview with Kinoshita Kazuyo"

contribution:

 "Kinoshita Kazuyo: A Remembrance"  Kumada Tsukasa（Art Historian）

"Photography and Conceptualism"  Tatehata Akira（Director, the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama）

"Crystallizations of Artistic Thought: The Photographic Works and Paintings of Kinoshita Kazuyo"  Mitsuda Yuri（Professor, Tama Art University Graduate School Director, Tama Art University Art Archives Center Director, peu/art cottage）