Ushio Shinohara
Encyclopedia
Ushio Shinohara nicknamed “Gyu-chan”, is a Japan
ese Neo-Dada
ist artist. His excited, bright, oversized work has exhibited at prestigious institutions internationally, including the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Guggenheim Museum Soho, New York; the Japan Society, New York; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Leo Castelli Gallery, New York; Galerie Oko, Berlin; The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seoul, among others.
was created in the seventh century and was the preferred verse of the Japanese Imperial Court but of women and men engaged in courtship. This type of poetry was extremely expressive and used between lovers and also used a gift for others. Shinohara’s mother was a Japanese painter who went to school at Woman’s Art University (Joshi Bijutu Daigaku) in Tokyo Japan.
Shinohara also got influence from Hollywood culture, comic books and jazz culture. He created works of art that were very expressionistic and was very interested in making avant-garde work. The ‘goal’ of avante-garde artists was to make art that was new and experimental, they had to do with the ‘now’ and reflected art, culture and politics.
The Neo-Dada
ism Organizers, including fellow Yomiuri Independent Exhibition participants Akasegawa Genpei
, Shusaku Arakawa, and Yoshimura Masanobu, eventually transitioned into the Neo Dada movement. The Neo-Dada movement can be considered a phase into Pop Art and was influenced by many of the avante-garde artists. The art that was crafted during the Neo Dada movement was made with everyday items. Another artist that was influenced by Neo-Dadaism was Andy Warhol
.
During this time Shinohara created paintings called “boxing paintings” in which the artist dipped boxing gloves in sumi ink or paint and literally punched paper or canvas in order to splatter it with pigment. He also became known for his "junk art" sculptures composed of found objects including discarded trash, motorcycle parts, mass media-related objects and other tokens of modern society, used both as sculptures in and of themselves and as components of Happenings organized by the Neo Dadaism Organizers. Around 1963 Shinohara went on to making pieces called Imitation art. Imitation art were works of art that were purposely made to imitate Western Neo Dada and Pop Art works and specifically included imitations of Jasper Johns
’s Three Flags and Rauschenberg’s Coca Cola Plan.
Shinohara, similar to many action-painting oriented artists of the 1950s and 1960s, cared more for the gesture and vitality, and less for the beauty of the image. As Julia Cassim observed in her oft-quoted 1993 review of Shinohara's retrospective at Tsukashin Hall – Amagasaki, Japan, “His kaleidoscopic paintings of pneumatic, rubber-nippled nudes, bikers and Coney Island’s garish glories are painted in the acid reds, greens and pinks common to Asian street fairs from Tokyo to Bombay. They burst at the seams with detail. Seemingly slapdash and rapidly painted, they are, in fact, as carefully composed as any more formal work.”
In 1982, the Japan Society in New York City hosted a one-person show of Shinohara's work, entitled "Tokyo Bazooka." It was curator Alexandra Munroe's first project at the museum after having studied Japanese art through the mid-19th century, and reportedly inspired her research into modern and contemporary Japanese artists practice, including the 1994 exhibition and catalogue "Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky."
In 1965 before Shinohara left for New York he started one of his most successful works called Oiran. An Oiran is a title given to the highest ranking of a geisha but instead of making his work look beautiful to represent what an Oiran's personality was really like he made her look ugly and based this work off work in the Edo Period. The Edo period was the period in time from 1603 to 1868 in Japan. This time period could be known as the beginning of the modern period of Japan.
The Oiran work of art was a backlash or rejection of what society believed to be beautiful. He used fluorescent paint and showed the grotesque beauty that was ignored many times in Japanese art. For the Oiran Series, Shinohara was awarded a prize by the William Copley Foundation.
In New York he loved being a tourist and getting inspiration from anything and anyone he ran into. He kept with the concept of reinventing different American art such as comics and neo-dada works. He remained fixed on the freedom of America, he knew very few people in America and he English was extremely poor but because of these hardships his work excelled. It was easier for him to express his ideas because of all the new experiences that were going on around him.
His next works of art became motorcycles done around 1970. In his mind motorcycles represented America. He created these motorcycle works out of found objects; they were rough, tough sculptures. The motorcycles were extremely dynamic and reminiscent of what America meant to him but many times these sculptures oddly enough had geisha’s riding in the backs. These sculptures were painted in greens, pinks and red which paralleled the colors of Asian Street fairs in Tokyo. The sculptures were full of detail and extremely carefully composed and extremely large pieces. They were extremely well thought out and planned, which shows how talented Shinohara really is as an artist. Shinohara wanted these pieces to have a large effect on the viewer and accomplished that with the dynamic composition, fun colors and the scale of the work.
Around 1990 his boxing paintings were soon revived. He did these paintings by using a huge piece of paper, putting on boxing gloves and dipping them into neon paint and throwing punches at the piece of paper over and over again. This art was soon turned into a performance. Shinohara now does performances in front of audiences so people can experience his fun creativeness. He also turned these performances into ‘battles’ where he battles against other artists to please the crowd. These performances usually occur in New York. A clip from one of these boxing performances can be seen if you click on this YouTube link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25fF1qL9Yl8 .
In 1990 Ushio Shinohara work was part of a traveling exhibition that was sponsored by MoMA, Museum of Modern Art in New York. Also his boxing painting and motorcycle sculptures were a part of an exhibition at MoMA from September 17 through November 6, 2005. Throughout Ushio Shinohara career he tried not to abandon his image and a sense of where he came from. He is an important artist in Japanese as well as American culture. His art is powerful, exciting, expressive and unforgettable.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese Neo-Dada
Neo-Dada
Neo-Dada is a label applied primarily to audio and visual art that has similarities in method or intent to earlier Dada artwork. It is the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme. Neo-Dada is exemplified by its use of modern materials, popular imagery, and absurdist contrast...
ist artist. His excited, bright, oversized work has exhibited at prestigious institutions internationally, including the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
The Hara Museum of Contemporary Art is one of the oldest museums of contemporary art in Japan. The museum is in The Roppongi district, in the Akasaka area of Tokyo. It's street address is: 4-7-25 Kitashinagawa, Tokyo 140-0001....
; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Guggenheim Museum Soho, New York; the Japan Society, New York; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Leo Castelli Gallery, New York; Galerie Oko, Berlin; The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seoul, among others.
Growing Up
His parents instilled in him a love for painters such as Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin. Shinohara’s father was a tanka poet who was taught by Wakayma Bokusui. Tanka poetry is an unbroken thirty one-syllable poem. It is a form of a Japanese song writing called Waka. TankaTanka
Tanka may refer to:* Tanka, a form of Japanese waka * Tanka prose, a literary genre which combines tanka poems and prose* Thangka, a pictorial representation in Tibetan Buddhism...
was created in the seventh century and was the preferred verse of the Japanese Imperial Court but of women and men engaged in courtship. This type of poetry was extremely expressive and used between lovers and also used a gift for others. Shinohara’s mother was a Japanese painter who went to school at Woman’s Art University (Joshi Bijutu Daigaku) in Tokyo Japan.
School
In 1952 Ushio Shinohara entered the Tokyo Art University (later renamed to Tokyo University of the Arts), majoring in oil painting. Shinohara was unhappy with the strict curriculum and never graduated.Influence
A photographer named Tomatsu Shomei was one of his strongest influences on his art. Tomats Shomei was a Japanese photographer who studied at school called Aichi University. He took photos for Japanese photography magazines that were controversial and showed what was happening in the now. He is a photographer that is still celebrated in the Japanese culture and still works today. Shomei, the Japanese photographer, brought Japanese fears to life with the photos he took many of them taken after the Second World War.Shinohara also got influence from Hollywood culture, comic books and jazz culture. He created works of art that were very expressionistic and was very interested in making avant-garde work. The ‘goal’ of avante-garde artists was to make art that was new and experimental, they had to do with the ‘now’ and reflected art, culture and politics.
Organizers
In 1960 Ushio Shinohara created a group called Neo Dadaism Organizers. This group of artists showed their works of art in an exhibition in the 1960s called the Yomiuri Independent Exhibition. This exhibition was sponsored by a newspaper, was completely open to the public and was not judged by anyone. This type of exhibition was a form of an anti-salon and was a steppingstone for Shinohara’s sculptures of found object that gained the named “junk art.”The Neo-Dada
Neo-Dada
Neo-Dada is a label applied primarily to audio and visual art that has similarities in method or intent to earlier Dada artwork. It is the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme. Neo-Dada is exemplified by its use of modern materials, popular imagery, and absurdist contrast...
ism Organizers, including fellow Yomiuri Independent Exhibition participants Akasegawa Genpei
Akasegawa Genpei
is a pseudonym of Japanese artist .He used another pen name for literary works.- Biography :During the 1950s and 1960s, Akasegawa became involved within the Neo-Dada movement, along with Ushio Shinohara, Shusaku Arakawa, and Yoshimura Masanobu...
, Shusaku Arakawa, and Yoshimura Masanobu, eventually transitioned into the Neo Dada movement. The Neo-Dada movement can be considered a phase into Pop Art and was influenced by many of the avante-garde artists. The art that was crafted during the Neo Dada movement was made with everyday items. Another artist that was influenced by Neo-Dadaism was Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
.
During this time Shinohara created paintings called “boxing paintings” in which the artist dipped boxing gloves in sumi ink or paint and literally punched paper or canvas in order to splatter it with pigment. He also became known for his "junk art" sculptures composed of found objects including discarded trash, motorcycle parts, mass media-related objects and other tokens of modern society, used both as sculptures in and of themselves and as components of Happenings organized by the Neo Dadaism Organizers. Around 1963 Shinohara went on to making pieces called Imitation art. Imitation art were works of art that were purposely made to imitate Western Neo Dada and Pop Art works and specifically included imitations of Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
’s Three Flags and Rauschenberg’s Coca Cola Plan.
Shinohara, similar to many action-painting oriented artists of the 1950s and 1960s, cared more for the gesture and vitality, and less for the beauty of the image. As Julia Cassim observed in her oft-quoted 1993 review of Shinohara's retrospective at Tsukashin Hall – Amagasaki, Japan, “His kaleidoscopic paintings of pneumatic, rubber-nippled nudes, bikers and Coney Island’s garish glories are painted in the acid reds, greens and pinks common to Asian street fairs from Tokyo to Bombay. They burst at the seams with detail. Seemingly slapdash and rapidly painted, they are, in fact, as carefully composed as any more formal work.”
In 1982, the Japan Society in New York City hosted a one-person show of Shinohara's work, entitled "Tokyo Bazooka." It was curator Alexandra Munroe's first project at the museum after having studied Japanese art through the mid-19th century, and reportedly inspired her research into modern and contemporary Japanese artists practice, including the 1994 exhibition and catalogue "Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky."
New York
By 1965 the Neo Dada Organizers group gave way and Shinohara soon left for New York in 1969 with a grant from the John D Rockefeller 3rd Fund. New York was Shinohara’s dream travel, he left with the intention that he was going to stay in New York for a small period of time to work and create new ideas because of the different surroundings. After being there for a short amount of time he loved the cities spirit and the different mix of ethnicities so much he decided not to return home to Japan.In 1965 before Shinohara left for New York he started one of his most successful works called Oiran. An Oiran is a title given to the highest ranking of a geisha but instead of making his work look beautiful to represent what an Oiran's personality was really like he made her look ugly and based this work off work in the Edo Period. The Edo period was the period in time from 1603 to 1868 in Japan. This time period could be known as the beginning of the modern period of Japan.
The Oiran work of art was a backlash or rejection of what society believed to be beautiful. He used fluorescent paint and showed the grotesque beauty that was ignored many times in Japanese art. For the Oiran Series, Shinohara was awarded a prize by the William Copley Foundation.
In New York he loved being a tourist and getting inspiration from anything and anyone he ran into. He kept with the concept of reinventing different American art such as comics and neo-dada works. He remained fixed on the freedom of America, he knew very few people in America and he English was extremely poor but because of these hardships his work excelled. It was easier for him to express his ideas because of all the new experiences that were going on around him.
His next works of art became motorcycles done around 1970. In his mind motorcycles represented America. He created these motorcycle works out of found objects; they were rough, tough sculptures. The motorcycles were extremely dynamic and reminiscent of what America meant to him but many times these sculptures oddly enough had geisha’s riding in the backs. These sculptures were painted in greens, pinks and red which paralleled the colors of Asian Street fairs in Tokyo. The sculptures were full of detail and extremely carefully composed and extremely large pieces. They were extremely well thought out and planned, which shows how talented Shinohara really is as an artist. Shinohara wanted these pieces to have a large effect on the viewer and accomplished that with the dynamic composition, fun colors and the scale of the work.
Around 1990 his boxing paintings were soon revived. He did these paintings by using a huge piece of paper, putting on boxing gloves and dipping them into neon paint and throwing punches at the piece of paper over and over again. This art was soon turned into a performance. Shinohara now does performances in front of audiences so people can experience his fun creativeness. He also turned these performances into ‘battles’ where he battles against other artists to please the crowd. These performances usually occur in New York. A clip from one of these boxing performances can be seen if you click on this YouTube link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25fF1qL9Yl8 .
In 1990 Ushio Shinohara work was part of a traveling exhibition that was sponsored by MoMA, Museum of Modern Art in New York. Also his boxing painting and motorcycle sculptures were a part of an exhibition at MoMA from September 17 through November 6, 2005. Throughout Ushio Shinohara career he tried not to abandon his image and a sense of where he came from. He is an important artist in Japanese as well as American culture. His art is powerful, exciting, expressive and unforgettable.