Traumatic Memory • William Kentridge • Combat Paper Project • Eric Avery • China 1946 • Japanese War Games Gerald Cram
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US $25 The Global Journal of Prints and Ideas January – February 2017 Volume 6, Number 5 Traumatic Memory • William Kentridge • Combat Paper Project • Eric Avery • China 1946 • Japanese War Games Gerald Cramer • Marcantonio • Kingdom of Images • Associated American Artists • Garo Antreasian • News January – February 2017 In This Issue Volume 6, Number 5 Editor-in-Chief Susan Tallman 2 Susan Tallman On Trauma Associate Publisher Kate McCrickard 4 Julie Bernatz William Kentridge: Drawing Has its Own Memory Managing Editor Isabella Kendrick Jared Ash 11 The Combat Paper Project Associate Editor Julie Warchol Marjorie B. Cohn 16 Eric Avery’s AIDS Works Manuscript Editor Prudence Crowther Shaoqian Zhang 20 Woodcuts in the Aftermath of War Online Columnist Sarah Kirk Hanley Rhiannon Paget 24 Sugoroku of Imperial and Wartime Japan Editor-at-Large Exhibition Reviews Catherine Bindman Paul Coldwell 30 Design Director Gérald Cramer in Geneva Skip Langer Genevieve Verdigel 32 Stepping out of Raphael’s Shadow Carand Burnet 34 Creative Printmakers in Japan Book Reviews Victoria Sancho Lobis 36 French Prints in the Age of Louis XIV Brian D. Cohen 38 Art in (Middle) America Peter S. Briggs 41 Garo Antreasian and American Lithography Prix de Print, No. 21 44 Juried by Trevor Winkfield A Cloud in Trousers On the Mailing Bag: Eric Avery, RX (2014–16) for Art in Art in Print. Original artwork letterpress- by Thorsten Dennerline printed by the artist and Dave DiMarchi. Art in Art in Print Number 6 46 Eric Avery Cover: Eli Wright, Broken Soldiers (2009), Print Life: Neurogenesis 2016 screenprint on hand-stitched handmade paper from military uniforms. Courtesy the artist. News of the Print World 49 This Page: William Kentridge, detail of Contributors 64 Four Instruments (2003), drypoint. Printed by Randy Hemminghaus, Galamander Press, New York. Published by David Krut, New York. Art in Print 3500 N. Lake Shore Drive Suite 10A Chicago, IL 60657-1927 www.artinprint.org Art in Print is supported in part [email protected] by an award from the 1.844.ARTINPR (1.844.278.4677) National Endowment for the Arts. No part of this periodical may be published Art Works. without the written consent of the publisher. EXHIBITION REVIEW Sharpened Imagination: Creative Printmakers in Japan By Carand Burnet Hamanishi Katsunori, Japanese Classic Calendar (2015), mezzotint printed in color, each panel 59.6 x 36.1 cm (quadriptych). Art Museum, University of Saint Joseph, West Hartford, CT. Purchase with a gift from Edwina Bosco ’50. ©Hamanishi Katsunori. “Hanga Now: stages. In the first decade of the 20th The quintessence of harmony—a Contemporary Japanese Printmakers” century, however, artists such as Hakutei time-honored Japanese value—is appar- University of Saint Joseph Art Museum Ishii, Kanae Yamamoto and Kogan Tobari ent in the technical control of breath- West Hartford, CT adopted the European practice of design- taking mezzotints by Yozo Hamaguchi 23 September – 18 December 2016 ing, cutting and printing their own works (1909–2000), Toru Iwaya (b. 1936) and in small editions. Katsunori Hamanishi (b. 1949). Hama- ttenuated lines, shimmering gild- Sōsaku-hanga brought the Western guchi’s Field on Deep Blue (1985–1992) A ing, gossamer textures and deft emphasis on individuality to bear on presents a band of multicolored striations compositions suffused the exhibition Japanese techniques and aesthetics. Mov- that emerge from navy-colored paper— “Hanga Now: Contemporary Japanese ing away from the popular-cultural sub- a hilly landscape distilled into a gradient Printmakers” at the University of Saint jects of ukiyo-e, these artists explored structure of color, shadow and highlights. Joseph in Hartford. More than 60 wood- landscapes and figures that offered an Reika Iwami (b. 1927), a pioneering cuts, etchings, lithographs and mono- opportunity for abstraction and creative woman in the creative print movement, types by 35 artists—most produced manipulation. They also strove to make incorporates both the real and the mys- during the past 25 years—attest to the visible the singular characteristics of the tical in lyrical terrains. In Water of Mt. ongoing vitality of Japan’s sōsaku-hanga artist’s hand, as is evident in Yamamoto’s Fuji (2002) she omits most physical detail, (creative print) movement. Selected by woodblock Fisherman (1904), where rough disrupting the silhouette of Japan’s iconic curator Ann Sievers, these prints do not carved lines contour the figure and set- mountain with a vaporous gray pattern ask the viewer to gaze from afar; they ting.1 After World War II, the reputation suggestive of clouds or undulating water, beckon us closer. of such prints grew, both inside and out- and a waving band of gold leaf that glis- The famous ukiyo-e prints of the 18th side Japan. Once scorned by critics and tens like a river. Such material enhance- and 19th centuries are often aesthetically categorized as a craft (and labeled as such ments of the paper surface are frequent in pleasing but were intended as commer- by the Japan Art Academy to this day),2 by her work: the black background in Poem cial products, made to reflect the mar- 1951 sōsaku-hanga had gained global stat- of Water (1971) is strewn with glitter- ket rather than personal expression, and ure: in that year’s São Paulo Art Biennial ing dust, causing it to appear to levitate they were produced through a system of the only Japanese artists to win awards in the light, and Border of the Sea God’s specialized painters, block cutters, print- were the printmakers Tetsuro Komai and Realm (1999) includes an embossed tear- ers and publishers, working in separate Kiyoshi Saito. drop-sized silhouette that hovers over 34 Art in Print January – February 2017 Left: Goto Hidehiko, Silent Light from the portfolio Hope: Aspirations in the Abstract (2012), woodcut printed in color, 49.5 x 37.5 cm. Art Museum, University of Saint Joseph, West Hartford, CT. Purchase with a gift from Edwina Bosco ’50. ©Goto Hidehiko. Right: Tamekane Yoshikatsu, White Nocturne (1997), woodcut, gold leaf, embossing and mica powder, 50.8 x 69.9 cm. Collection of Ronald A. and Pamela J. Lake. ©Tamekane Yoshikatsu. a topography of roaming shapes. The prints—based on memories illustrated in everything from a refreshing simplicity woodblocks of Hidehiko Goto (b. 1953) the artist’s journal. An open cookie box, to incredible complexity, as their one-of- evoke the movement of water even more seen from above, is tinted with green and a-kind viewpoints are honed from a sen- abstractly: in Silent Light (2012) the grain yellow, recalling the hand-colored albu- sitivity to their medium. “Creative” of the woodblock provides an illusion of men prints that were widely popular in printmakers are always alert to the liquid condensation within a rectilinear Japan in the mid- to late-19th century. nuances of their own lyrical vision, and composition veiled in a blue. Other artists favor bold color and pat- “Hanga Now” is no exception. Printmak- One of the striking features of these tern: in Yuji Hiratsuka’s (b. 1954) etching ing in Japan is alive and well, shining with prints is the abundance of gold leaf. More and aquatint Medieval River (2016), violet grace and possibility. than a third of the works on view incor- water is enclosed by pink-shaded, snowy porated gold, and not only in woodblock. ground. The repeating branches, leaves Shuji Wako’s (b. 1953) immaculately com- and flowers of the multicolored forest Carand Burnet is an essayist, poet and posed Right on Target (2007) uses lithogra- merges into a wondrous, chromatic tap- arts correspondent. phy’s tonal attributes to render a peculiar, estry. if visually convincing, still life—a fragile Nobuyuki Oura’s (b. 1949) Holding Per- Notes: ball supporting a target pierced by two spective Portfolio (1981–1983) appropriates 1. There was also a concurrent movement in arrows, perched above carefully drawn and juxtaposes popular images—histori- modern Japanese printmaking that revived the kimono fabric. Each of these objects is cal photographs, anatomical illustra- collaborative system, known as shin-hanga, or elaborately embellished with gold leaf. tions, natural specimens—in complex, “new print.” Unlike Wako, Yoshikatsu Tamekane symbolic self-portraits in screenprint and 2. Michiaki Kawakita, “The Modern Japanese Print,” in Contemporary Japanese Prints, tr. John (b. 1959) exploits gold leaf as an adaptable, lithography. The overlaid parts combine Bester (Tokyo and Palo Alto: Kodansha Interna- textural medium that can be lightened, in ways that recall Japanese textile pat- tional, 1967), xiii–xv. layered or obscured. The thinly applied, terns, but his work exhibits the complexi- 3. Tomo Kosuga, “The Art of Taboo: Nobuyuki irregular gold in the corner of his abstract ties of Japanese identity within a global Oura,” Vice Magazine video, 7:58, 21 October woodblock and collagraph print White contemporary art world. (The inclusion 2016, http://www.vice.com/en_ca/video/the-art- of-taboo-nobuyuki-oura-japan. Nocturne (1997) reveals color beneath its of photographs of Emperor Hirohito radiant surface. within Holding Perspective was perceived Natural forms and materials are only as disrespectful by the prefecture of part of the story, however. Sōsaku-hanga Toyama, and museum catalogues con- artists have also explored found and taining the work were destroyed.)3 prefabricated images, adapting, colla- All the prints in “Hanga Now: Con- ging and recomposing them as personal temporary Japanese Printmakers,” dem- statements. Tetsuya Noda’s (b. 1940) onstrate precision, and no space on the Diary 471 Dec 26 ’09 (2009) is part of an paper goes unnoticed. The innovative ongoing project—now totaling over 500 work of sōsaku-hanga printmakers exudes Art in Print January – February 2017 35.