• Deutsch
• English

ART BRUT from JAPAN

16 July - 18 October 2009

In the exhibition "Art Brut from Japan", KUNST HAUS WIEN presents – for the first time in Austria and in the context of "Austria-Japan Year 2009" – the works of 15 self-taught artists from Japan.

The French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) invented the term "Art Brut" and was the major pioneer in the collection and promotion of autodidactic art. In 1971 he donated his collection to the City of Lausanne, thus enabling the establishment of the Collection de l'Art Brut, which was inaugurated in 1976. KUNST HAUS WIEN presented a solo exhibition devoted to Dubuffet in 1995. With the 2009 exhibition "Art Brut from Japan", KUNST HAUS WIEN brings an exhibition of works from the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne to Vienna for the first time.

The exhibition presents 15 autodidactic artists who live in various Japanese cities, in particular Kioto, Kobe und Yokohama. As outsiders of Japanese society, immune to the influences of cultural conditioning and social assimilation, their creative inventiveness has developed untouched by art-world considerations such as competition, acclaim or social promotion to create autonomous, highly personal worlds.

Masao Obata, for example, who was born in 1943, focuses on the central theme of marriage ceremonies in his works drawn with coloured pencil on pieces of used cardboard and dominated by his favourite colour: red. Takashi Shuji, born in 1974, creates works with pastels and an eraser. Taking everyday objects as his starting point, he pares away their colour values to create compositions that seem to manifest the inner essence of the feeling his motif inspires in him. Shinichi Sawada (born in 1982) forms mysterious creatures from a private mythology out of clay, while Eijiro Miyama (born in 1934) rides his bicycle through the streets of Yokohama, decked out in clothing decorated with dolls and eccentric headgear created out of recycled objects.

The exhibition curated by Lucienne Peiry, who has been the director of the Collection de l'Art Brut since 2001, presents the following artists: Shinichi Sawada – Satoshi Nishikawa – Mitsuteru Ishino – Hidenori Motooka – Masao Obata – Yuji Tsuji – Takashi Shuji – Takanori Herai – Yoshimitsu Tomizuka – Eijiro Miyama – Toshiaki Yoshikawa – Moriya Kishaba – Chiyuki Sakagami – Kunizo Matsumoto – Yumiko Kawai.

Pictures of the exhibition opening

Print