HIROSHI SENJU
HIROSHI SENJU Although Hiroshi Senju is inevitably described as a Japanese artist, his painting transcends any one culture or label. He is indeed one of Japan’s most celebrated artistic figures, but he has been straddling the art worlds in Tokyo and New York with equal ease and to great acclaim for more than a decade. Senju has long recognized that boundaries around the world are dissolving, and as a result, ideas can be exchanged more easily and fluidly than ever before. His genius for combining elements from the East and West has yielded wholly original paintings that have an ability to inspire awe in viewers of every stripe. Hiroshi Senju was born in Tokyo in 1958. He completed his PhD program in fine art from Tokyo University of the Arts and was the first Asian painter to win an Honorable Mention Award at the Venice Bienniale. Senju divides his time between painting in New York and teaching at Kyoto University of Art and Design, where he is the president of the art and design department. He is a seminal figure of the Nihonga School, a thousand-year-old tradition of Japanese painting. He also continues the legacy of the renowned Tenshin Okakura, who was a founder of Nihon Bijutsuin, the modern art movement devoted to preserving Japan’s ancient artistic traditions. At the same time, his art acknowledges the role of Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko and graffiti. He brilliantly melds modernism with traditional artistic techniques. Senju has persistently labored to give direct expression to nature. It is difficult not to be awed by the sheer force of his ongoing series of cascading Waterfall paintings, which he began in 1990. Serially produced, their repetitiveness is akin to a mantra that slowly but surely induces a sense of calm and reflection. Western artists from the Impressionists onward have produced works in a series, however, their approach to painting has traditionally been retinal—a desire to reproduce what the eye can see. In contrast, Senju’s Waterfall series—and the new Cliff images he’s produced over the past year—are created from an inner vision. His Waterfalls and Cliffs aren’t simply illusionistic representations
of particular landscapes, but conceptual forms. He heightens this exquisitely beautiful imagery through the painting medium itself, making his own pigments by crushing minerals and corals which are interlaced with animal-hide glue and then applied to a surface of heavy mulberry rag paper mounted on board. His goal, he has said, is to give the viewer the experience of the “sound of the roaring water, of the cool mist or smell of the air.” To create his Cliffs—an image the artist began exploring in 2007—Senju spontaneously applies mineral pigments onto paper. The structure of the paper and its subtle creases and wrinkles inspire the composition of the landscape. Senju then carefully applies dark pigments allowing delicate rivulets of paint to move across the surface. What emerges are ethereal, intricately rendered images. Although the waterfall and cliff might appear to offer limited possibilities for such lengthy aesthetic explorations, Senju proves again and again that in a master’s hands, they can possess an infinite and surprising variety of forms. —Sundaram Tagore, New York, 2012 (Adapted from the foreword to the book Hiroshi Senju, first published in 2009 by Skira Editore)
Installation of Art House project Ishibashi, Benesse Art Site, Kagawa, Japan, 2009 Photo by Nacasa & Partners Inc.
Cliff, 2012, natural and acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 102 x 71.6 inches
Cliff, 2012, natural and acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 89.5 x 63.8 inches
Cliff, 2012, natural and acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 89.5 x 71.6 inches
Cliff, 2012, natural and acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 63.8 x 63.8 inches
Cliff, 2012, natural and acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 76.3 x 153.9 inches
Installation at OUB Building, Singapore, 2012 Photo by Nacasa & Partners Inc.
Water Shrine, Tokyo International Airport (Haneda), International Terminal, 2010 Photo by Nacasa & Partners Inc.
Waterfall, 2012, natural and acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 44.2 x 63.8 inches
Waterfall, 2011, natural and acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 89.5 x 63.8 inches
Hiroshi Senju Museum Karuizawa, Karuizawa, Japan, designed by Ryue Nishizawa, 2011 Photo by Daici Ano
CU RRICU LU M VITAE 1958 1982 1984 1987
Born in Tokyo BFA, Tokyo University of the Arts MFA, The Graduate School of Tokyo University of the Arts PhD program in Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts Lives and works in New York
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2012 Cliffs, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York 2010 Senju Hiroshi: World of Blue- Echoes of Higashiyama Kaii, Higashiyama Kaii Setouchi Museum, Kagawa, Japan 2009 New Light from a Far, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Beverly Hills Out of Nature: Cliffs and Falling Water, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Hong Kong 2007 Haruka Naru Aoi Hikari, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York Hyakubashira wo Tateru, Kusokuzeshiki, Senju Hiroshi (Building One Hundred Pillars, Emptiness is the form, Hiroshi Senju), Matsumoto City Museum of Art, Nagano, Japan 2006 The 6th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea Hiroshi Senju, Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo 2005 Hiroshi Senju, 77 Panels of fusuma (sliding screens), Daitoku-ji Temple, Fukuoka Asian Museum, Fukuoka, Japan 1998 Tidewater Gallery Shiraishi, Tokyo 1996 Hiroshi Senju, Waterfalls & Glasses, The Hakone Open-Air Museum, Kanagawa, Japan 1995 Hiroshi Senju, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei NICAF Pacifico Yokohama 1994 Hiroshi Senju: 1980-1994, Takamura Museum, Yamanashi, Japan 1993 Flatwater, Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York 1989 The End of the Dreams, Manly Art Gallery & Museum, Sydney 1988 SENJU, Galeria Forni, Bologna, Italy
MAJOR COLLECTIONS Hiroshi Senju Museum Karuizawa, Karuizawa, Japan Tokyo University of the Arts University of California, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama, Kanagawa, Japan The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan Kushiro Art Museum, Hokkaido The National Museum of Art, Osaka Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art MOA Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan SFMOMA, San Francisco ARCHITECTURAL ART COMMISSIONS 2010 Installation, Ayu no kaze, Akane sasu, (Water Shrine, Passing Cloud), Haneda Airport, International Terminal, Tokyo 2009 Installation, Art House Project, Ishibashi, Benesse Art Site, Kagawa, Japan 2008 Wall painting, Akasaka Biz Tower, TBS Broadcasting Center, Tokyo 2007 Paintings on fusuma (sliding screens) at Shofuso Japanese House and Garden, Philadelphia 2006 Installation, Naoshima Standard 2, Benesse Art Site, Kagawa, Japan 2005 Installation, Lexus L-Finesse, Milano Salone, Teatro Arte, La Triennale di Milano 2003 Mural for the foyer of The Grand Hyatt Hotel, Tokyo HONORS & AWARDS 2002 Grand Prize, 13th MOA Mokichi Okada Award, Japan 2000 Michiaki Kawakita Award, for Life, exhibited in Ryoyonome, Exhibition: Painting in the 21st Century, Japan Konju-hosho (Dark Blue Ribbon Medal) for Hachigatsu no Sora to Kumo (August Sky and Clouds), collected by Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art 1995 Honorable Mention Award, 46th Biennale di Venezia 1994 4th Kenbuchi Picture Book Award for When Stardust Falls..., Japan
Sundaram Tagore Galleries www.sundaramtagore.com Hong Kong 57-59 Hollywood Road Central, Hong Kong Tel 852 2581 9678 Fax 852 2581 9673 hongkong@sundaramtagore.com President and curator: Sundaram Tagore Director, New York: Susan McCaffrey Director, Hong Kong: Faina Goldstein Designer: Russell Whitehead Printed in Hong Kong by CA Design
New York 547 West 27th Street New York, NY 10001 Tel 212 677 4520 Fax 212 677 4521 gallery@sundaramtagore.com
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Art consultants: Teresa Kelley Joseph Lawrence Benjamin Rosenblatt Melanie Taylor
First published in Hong Kong in 2012 by Sundaram Tagore Gallery Text Š Sundaram Tagore Gallery Photographs Š Sundaram Tagore Gallery All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.