22 Gallery Shows


RISING IN FIRE Hantoo Art Group


Tis large-scale exhibition of Taiwanese contemporary art at the gallery marks the first collective entry of the Hantoo Art Group in Europe. Featuring over 60 works by 13 leading Taiwanese artists, the exhibition highlights nearly three decades of fierce resilience and groundbreaking creation in shaping Taiwan’s contemporary art history. For this London edition, the artists will attend the opening reception and take part in a public symposium to engage in dialogue with the UK art community. Founded in 1998, the


Hantoo Art Group has, for 27 years, experienced the turbulence of authoritarian rule, social transformation, and globalisation. Teir work bears witness to Taiwan’s cultural journey from the margins toward self- definition, steadfastly defending artistic independence and a spirit of critique. Tey transform individual experience into collective memory, and local identity into the language of contemporary art – constructing a Taiwanese aesthetic that is inclusive, autonomous, serene yet pungently sharp. Hantoo’s language is deeply rooted in Taiwan’s land, refusing to be a


Distance (2013) by Lee Ming-Chung, oil on linen, 190 x 230 cm


simple appropriation of Western vocabularies; rather, it is a mosaic of diverse local contexts coalescing into a distinct spiritual landscape. Te artists of Hantoo


emerged during Taiwan’s transitional era, persisting in creation despite the marginalisation of art in the economic sphere. Tey inscribed Taiwan’s art history with their very lives, writing in fire. Te brotherhood is central to Hantoo’s identity, leaving a bold imprint on Taiwan’s art history. As Taiwan traversed dramatic shifts – from Japanese colonial modernisation


(1895-1945), through martial law under the KMT (1949-87), the lifting of martial law in 1987, and the first direct presidential election in 1996 – its political and cultural contexts profoundly shaped artistic trajectories. By the 1980s, art moved from political struggle toward explorations of identity and memory; in the 1990s, globalisation expanded forms and perspectives. It was in this climate that Hantoo was founded.


• From 16 October to 31 December, Bluerider Art, London, blueriderart.com


KENJI YOSHIDA


October Gallery is presenting works by Kenji Yoshida (1924-2009) at Frieze this year. Selected works on paper, from the 1960s and 1070s, will highlight waypoints in the evolution of a unique synthesis of Japanese traditional and European modernist styles. Yoshida is best known for the monumental, almost spiritual works that deploy precious metals of gold and silver leaf upon Japanese lacquer and coloured paint on canvas. Tese earlier works reveal Yoshida freely experimenting with colour and form to elaborate the iconic visual language that illuminates his mature canvases. Yoshida studied art under


Furukido Masaru. Aged 19, he was conscripted and consigned to become a kamikaze pilot. While many of his comrades flew away to certain death, Yoshida’s eventual survival came about only because the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, exactly 80 years ago in 1945, precipitated Japan’s sudden surrender. Tese traumatic experiences left Yoshida profoundly conscious of the fragility of life and the proximity of death, an awareness that permeates all the work that followed.


Action de la vie (1978) by Kenji Yoshida, oil on paper, 29 x 36 cm, courtesy estate of Kenji Yoshida and October Gallery, London © Estate of Kenji Yoshida.


Returning to his art, Yoshida moved to Paris, in the early 1960s, to study graphic art techniques at Stanley Hayter’s influential Atelier 17. Te works from the 1960s


and 1970s highlight Yoshida’s flowering in this heady environment, as he began to produce innovative etchings using subtle varieties of colour to highlight primary forms on the same plate. Te 1960s etchings already show Yoshida exploring metallic effects that lead into the delicate serigraphs and oil and ink on paper works


of the 1970s. We again see him investigating the possibilities offered by gold and silver leaf as he moves ever more confidently towards the mesmerising multi-panelled works of the 1980s and 1990s, where highly mobile forms reveal the influence of European formalist abstraction while also recalling the irregular forms that pattern the grounds of traditional Japanese screen painting.


• From 15 to 19 October, October Gallery at Frieze Masters, London, octobergallery.co.uk


KENRO IZU Mono no Aware – The Beauty of Impermanence


Black Sun vertical sculpture (2023) by More Lee, mesh fabrics, silicone, liquid clay, fired clay, jute ropes, peristaltic pump, and other mixed media 330.2 x 144.9 cm, courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers. Photo: Dario Lasagni © Mire Lee


MIRE LEE


Te work of Mire Lee (b 1988) fuses volatile substances with traditional sculptural materials and industrial remnants to produce haunting objects and installations. Equally beautiful and grotesque, her sinuous compositions twist into positions that evoke bodies, entrails and skeletal forms and touch upon notions of psychological tension and trauma. Following Lee’s major installation at Tate’s Turbine Hall last year, this is the artist’s first solo exhibition


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in Los Angeles, which brings together new sculptural works that build upon the artist’s recent installations, along with two early videos. Faces (2018) is a video work


that captures brief excerpts from Japanese adult films, focusing only on the moments just before violence begins. Lee isolates close-up shots of women’s faces in scenes that suggest something unsettling is about to occur. Sleeping Mom (2020) is a looped video showing Lee’s mother asleep. Te image is still, quiet and uneventful.


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Te loop echoes something familiar: the rhythm of nights, of inert bodies. Both videos are projected onto panels that were once part of Lee’s earlier installations. Lee sees these surfaces as skins; stained, worn and marked by use. Tese past installation elements include floor pieces, dripping trays, and used form-works – construction materials that carry traces of labour and residues of substances.


• Until 25 October, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, spruethmagers.com


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Te exhibition features luminous works by master printer Kenro Izu (b 1949) who has spent 50 years photographing sacred spaces worldwide. Te term mono no aware (the pathos of things) expresses the Japanese concept of appreciating the transient beauty of life and objects. Te project focuses on three subjects: 14th-century Japanese noh masks; the stones and trees that surround the remains of ancient shrines; and the wildflowers and grasses that bloom briefly near Izu’s home. Izu invites viewers to encounter the depth of his subjects through lustrous images that explore impermanence and refined aesthetic through three ideas: yugen (mystical and profound), sabi (beauty with aging), and wabi (austere beauty). Te gelatin silver and


platinum palladium prints on view are uniquely matted using antique silverleaf recovered from historic folding screens and trimmed with fabrics taken from vintage kimonos, making every work a one-of-a-kind fusion of photographic artistry and Japanese heritage. ‘Art and life are intertwined


for me and my thoughts have often turned to the notion of beauty as understood in both Western and Japanese contexts. Encounters with noh masks sparked a deep curiosity in their human expressions, a fascination that


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No 50, Masukami (2018) by Kenro Izu, gelatin silver print, 20 x 24 inches


intensified with time. Te gaze of the masks seemed to penetrate one’s inner being, reminding me that to observe is also to be observed,’ states Izu. ‘My exploration of Noh extended to its origins, rooted in Shinto traditions and the Jinja shrines of Japan. I was drawn particularly to shrine forests, where sacred trees, rocks, and dense spiritual groves evoke a sense of timelessness. During the Covid-19 lockdown, my focus


shifted to nearby subjects – wildflowers and grasses arranged in clay vases made from locally sourced materials. Te fleeting beauty of their unnoticed bloom and decay resonated deeply with me. I continue to be reminded of how daily life and environment shape artistic creation’.


• Until 22 November, Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, howardgreenberg.com


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