ART-PRESENTATION: Shinkichi Tajiri

Shinkichi Tajiri, Ronin (Detail), 1996, Bronze, 88 x 28.5 x 26 cm, Photo: Egon Notermans, © 2017 Shinkichi Tajiri Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS)-New York / c/o Pictoright Amsterdam, Courtesy of the Estate and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/TokyoShinkichi Tajiri is primarily a sculptor who plays with the themes of violence and eroticism in metal assemblages where he brings loose elements of metal and junk together to form a new coherence. Highly experimental and multicultural Tajiri was a dynamic avant-garde artist whose works figure prominently in modern art museums, public spaces and a number of private collections.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Blum & Poe Gallery Archive

Two core bodies of work from Shinkichi Tajiri’s  sculptural oeuvre, the “Warriors” and the “Knots” are on presentation at Blum & Poe Gallery in  Tokyo.  Shinkichi Tajiri was a child of first-generation immigrants to the USA from Japan, and grew up in the U.S. Following the Japanese attack in at Pearl Harbour the Tajiri family were one of many who were detained in a U.S. internment camp and lost their family home. More to escape the camp than out of Patriotism, Tajiri enlisted in the all-Japanese American regiment of the American Army. His recurrent themes of war and violence were a way for Tajiri to crystalise the horrors he had personally experienced. Associated early on with CoBrA Group, a short-lived but highly influential artist collective formed in Paris, named for the three northern European cities that its founders originated from (Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam), Tajiri began his career with a sculptural style that could be described as Abstract Surrealism. This quickly diversified into a wide-ranging, innovative practice that spanned film, video, photography, and computer art, mixing elements of Surrealism, Pop, and Minimalism. Shinkichi Tajiri moved to Paris in 1948, where he studied with Ossip Zadkine and Fernand Léger. There he met Karel Appel, Constant, and Corneille as they were forming CoBrA with Asger Jorn and others. They invited him to take part in the International Exhibitions of Experimental Art, at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1949) and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Liège (1951). Tajiri resided in Paris throughout the early ‘50s. In 1957, he married the Dutch artist Ferdi and moved to the Netherlands, where he was later granted citizenship. Tajiri’s “Warriors” are abstract figures inspired by samurai armor, modern weaponry, and manga imagery. The artist was interested in the full range of their potential roles: as sentinels keeping watch for attack, as samurai who serve the nobility, or as rōnin (the exiled samurai who wander the land with shifting loyalties. Originating from his experience of internment, front-line combat and self-exile, these figures connote at once strength, violence, protection, and vulnerability. “They expressed the need to purge myself of the horrors of war”. The exhibition also features key examples of Tajiri’s “Knots” Despite their minimalist simplicity they are forms imbued with contradiction, symbolizing both peaceful union and tangled complexity. The sculptures vary in scale, from intimate and fragile wallmounted works made of paper to monumental public sculptures, which are located all over the Netherlands and Los Angeles.

Info: Blum & Poe Gallery, 1-14-34 Jingumae, Shibuya, Tokyo, Duration: 8/9-21/10/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.blumandpoe.com

Shinkichi Tajiri, Ronin, 1995, Bronze, 64 x 25 x 38 cm, Photo: Egon Notermans, © 2017 Shinkichi Tajiri Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS)-New York / c/o Pictoright Amsterdam, Courtesy of the Estate and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo
Shinkichi Tajiri, Ronin, 1995, Bronze, 64 x 25 x 38 cm, Photo: Egon Notermans, © 2017 Shinkichi Tajiri Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS)-New York / c/o Pictoright Amsterdam, Courtesy of the Estate and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo

 

 

Shinkichi Tajiri, Ronin, 1996, Bronze, 88 x 28.5 x 26 cm, Photo: Egon Notermans, © 2017 Shinkichi Tajiri Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS)-New York / c/o Pictoright Amsterdam, Courtesy of the Estate and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo
Shinkichi Tajiri, Ronin, 1996, Bronze, 88 x 28.5 x 26 cm, Photo: Egon Notermans, © 2017 Shinkichi Tajiri Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS)-New York / c/o Pictoright Amsterdam, Courtesy of the Estate and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo

 

 

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