{"id":343,"date":"2020-02-18T21:07:30","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T21:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/?p=343"},"modified":"2020-04-25T20:06:37","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T20:06:37","slug":"ushio-and-noriko-shinohara-bullie-the-boxer-and-cuties-catharsis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/18\/ushio-and-noriko-shinohara-bullie-the-boxer-and-cuties-catharsis\/","title":{"rendered":"Ushio and Noriko Shinohara: Bullie the Boxer and Cutie’s Catharsis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Happy New Year and welcome to the beginnings of our 2020 blog series!  We have had such vast growth and momentum at the gallery recently that we had to let this go for a while, but we are so happy to start again! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today I am going to focus on our artists who currently have exhibitions at Deborah Colton Gallery: Ushio Shinohara and Noriko Shinohara, alias \u201cCutie and the Boxer.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ushio Shinohara, Yellow Iris<\/em>, 2020, Acrylic on Canvas, 60 x 192 Inches.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Born in Tokyo in 1932, Ushio Shinohara (nicknamed “Gyu-chan”) is a Japanese Neo-Dadaist artist and international Pop painter who has lived and worked in the United States since 1969. His parents, a tanka poet and Japanese painter, instilled in him a love for artists such as C\u00e9zanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin. Most recently known for his exuberant boxing paintings, which are artifacts of his performances, Ushio Shinohara works in several mediums, including painting, printmaking, drawing and sculpture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ushio’s bright and frequently oversized work has exhibited at prestigious institutions internationally, including the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art; Centre Georges Pompidou; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Japan Society, New York; the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pusan; the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Tate Modern, among others. His work was also featured in International Pop<\/em>, a landmark exhibition at the Walker Art Center that chronicles the global emergence of Pop art from the 1950s through the early 1970. A New York Times article on the exhibition reads: “Ushio Shinohara… engaged in a practice that might have been called punk if the concept had existed then\u2026” reinforcing his position as a leading figure of the avant-garde art world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ushio Shinohara, Winter Sky<\/em>, 2020, Acrylic on Canvas, 72 x 48 Inches.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now to take a more personal\nshift, when I was first introduced to Ushio\u2019s\nboxing paintings I was still in school at the University of North Texas. As a\nbudding art student honing my critical eye, I must admit that the pressure to\nhave something to say in class critiques \u2014 the\ndesire to establish a voice, and demonstrate one\u2019s\ncompetence \u2014\noften led to a hasty judgment of the\ngiven subject matter. Ushio\u2019s patented boxing paintings\nwere no exception, and as such, I designated them as a gimmick. Much like how\none may have determined Pollack\u2019s style to be a gimmick; the\nidea is surely novel, but the novelty is quickly diminished across reiterations.\nI\u2019ll explain why I was wrong, but first I need to\nprovide some more context. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m\nsure you\u2019ve heard the expression \u201cmy\nchild could paint that,\u201d which is a common critique\nregarding abstract expressionism. However, the reason this critique should be\ndismissed is because it considers only the treatment of the materials, while\naltogether ignoring the exposition of the artwork. In Ushio\u2019s case, the apparent flippancy demonstrated in his\nboxing paintings often overshadows the commentary, and it seems to me that this\nis an issue he has grappled with for over half a century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1960 Ushio helped found the\nNeo-Dadaism Organizers. Their mission: deviate from any conventional form of\nart. Akin to European Dadaists, who\u2019s art\nsought to reveal the customary and often repressive conventions of logical\norder and rationality, the Neo-Dadaism Organizers embodied a similar ethos.\nThis can chiefly be seen in akushon, <\/em>meaning \u201caction\u201d, which is the practice of\nemphasizing the human body as an artistic medium. In particular, its aim is to\nshock the audience via impulsive and sometimes disturbing performances.\nDepending on the means and magnitude of such a performance, the disturbance may\nseem to take precedence over the object of the art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, the premise of the artwork, and why it remains challenging to some, is because the object of the art is not the artwork itself. Instead, the artwork itself is more like a consequence \u2014 an epiphenomenon if you will. The real substance of the artwork lies in the sensibility, or ethic, with which the artist is using to communicate with you, the viewer. For Ushio, this sensibility is encapsulated in what has become his personal trinity \u201cbe speedy, beautiful, and rhythmical.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Artist Ushio Shinohara, Tokyo, 1961, photo by William Klein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I must confess that in the beginning the prospect of his \u201cwild man\u201d personality did not appeal to me, and in my haste to make a judgment, I let that prospect overshadow a more meaningful interpretation. Though now, with a better understanding of Ushio\u2019s sensibility, I think you\u2019ll find there is actually a great depth of complexity and sophistication in his artistic production. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Noriko, the subject matter\nis a different story, literally. Whereas Ushio\u2019s\nwork is primarily drawing upon the sensations of the marks being made, Noriko\u2019s work is presented as a narrative. Noriko’s work has\nbeen exhibited frequently in New York and Japan, and is part of the permanent\ncollections of the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noriko Shinohara was born in 1953 in Takaoka City, Japan, moved to New York in 1972 to study art, and soon met Ushio in 1973. She has worked as an artist for many years, but the work she is best known for is her Cutie and Bullie<\/em> series. Since beginning this series in 2006, it now includes drawings, paintings, and prints featuring her characters Cutie and Bullie, and gives us a glimpse into the dynamic between herself and Ushio. Truthful to the point of discomfort, the works which chronicle Cutie and Bullie<\/em> follow Cutie’s early trials of being married to an alcoholic older man and the difficulty of being an artist in New York. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scenes are graphic representations inspired by events highlighted in the award winning documentary Cutie and the Boxer<\/em>. The film was nominated for the 2014 Academy Award for Best Documentary, placed second in Audience Awards during the 2013 Tribeca Film festival, and earned Special Mention in Grierson Awards for the London Film Festival. Cutie and the Boxer <\/em>won Best Director Award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, where the committee cited: \u201cIt\u2019s rare to see a film so beautifully crafted in all aspects. It captures the complex nature of love and art in a mesmerizing and deeply human way.\u201d The film was also nominated for Grand Jury Prize at the same festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Artist Noriko Shinohara in front of The Metamorphosis of Cutie<\/em>, 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the surface, the imagery\nappears light and playful. The line-work and color palette of her illustrations\nhave an outward pretense of levity, adolescence, and humor. However, these\nconditions are underscored by much deeper psychological motifs. Marked by\ngrowing pains characteristic of a coming of age drama, Noriko\u2019s story chronicles the projection of herself \u2014 a character named Cutie \u2014 as\nshe contends with the harshness of reality. Drawing distinctions between her\nexperiences and her expectations, Cutie learns the difference between being\nidealistic and pragmatic. The imagery, maintaining the likeness of a picture\nbook, invites notions of mysticism and fairy-tale. Yet, as the narrative\nunfolds, the strength of Noriko\u2019s metaphors begin to dissolve\nthrough the allegory to reveal the real-life trials of an individual becoming\ndisenchanted with her circumstances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one comes to understand the veiled comparison between herself and Cutie, the buoyancy of her figures cascades from something symbolic of simple light-hearted narration into an effigy actual consequence. In this process, the story of Cutie is an analogy for Noriko: as the tone of the Cutie\u2019s story inflects from one of youth and amusement to one of rumination and humility, so does the viewer\u2019s impression of Noriko. Furthermore, I only imagine that for Noriko Shinohara, the story of Cutie is a monument to her own artistic culmination into who she has become today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by Grayson Chandler<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All works of Ushio and Noriko Shinohara Available through Deborah Colton Gallery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy New Year and welcome to the beginnings of our 2020 blog series!  We have had such vast growth and momentum at the gallery recently that we had to let this go for a while, but we are so happy to start again! Today I am going to focus on our artists who currently have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[2,3,4,25],"tags":[34,32,9,30,31,29,28,27],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375,"href":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deborahcoltongallery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}