ARAKAWA Meaning of Colors
Information
- Number of items exhibited
- 17
- Period
- July 6 (Sat.)–Sept. 21 (Sat.) 2024
- Closed
- 2nd and 4th Saturdays, Sundays, national holidays
- Admission
- Free (entrance to the separate Toko Gallery requires a fee)
- Event
- Gallery Talk by museum curator (advance reservations unnecessary)
July 6 (Sat.), August 3 (Sat.), September 7 (Sat.)
Time (all three days): 2:30-3:30 p.m.
About the Exhibition
Today, Shusaku Arakawa is known for his unusual forms and ultrachromatic architecture, such as seen at the Reversible Destiny Yoro site (Gifu prefecture) and Reversible Lofts: Mitaka (Tokyo), but his distinctive color palette evolved through the development of his work. Arakawa made a name for himself in Japan at the end of the 1950s with a series concrete lumps laid out in box called coffins, but he changed his style dramatically after moving to the United States in 1961, when he began creating diagrams (diagrammatic paintings) that show the contours and movement of objects in a variety of pale colors. In Mechanism of Meaning (1970), which developed from these experiments, the colors on the canvas became elements of mental experimentation, and later became a component of the space in his experimental works and architecture.
This exhibition focuses on the “No!” Says the Signified Untitled series, created after the release of Mechanism of Meaning, in which intense colors coexist with contrasting gray tones. This exhibition will be an opportunity to take a fresh look at Arakawa’s use of color as a signifier of meaning on the canvas.