Amagasaki (City)

This work, which takes its name from an industrial city north of Osaka, Japan, presents an architecture of overlapping shapes and linear elements. Across the work's surface, color and form reverberate and dissolve to evoke an evanescent landscape. Dense, geological and squared-off forms contrast with gestural, painterly passages: pictorial tensions that position the artist in the midst of global tendencies in late 1950s abstract painting.

Japanese abstraction emerged from a repressive wartime climate into a period of intense activity. A variety of artist groups staged exhibitions, published journals, and participated in debates about the role of art in postwar society that increasingly emphasized by international exchange. One prominent group, the Gutai Art Association, emphasized physicality, materiality, and improvisation––concerns echoed by Abstract Expressionists in the United States and by Informel artists working in Europe. Kunimata belonged to the same generation as many of the Gutai artists, and had studied, taught, and exhibited in the same region of Japan.

Global Gestures: Post-War Abstraction from the Lowenthal Collection (2.15-3.21.2019)