2013 / Pomona College museum exhibiting Hirokazu Kosaka’s avant-garde artworks, Sept 03 – Oct 20
Project Series 46: Hirokazu Kosaka: On The Verandah Selected Works 1969-1974
September 3 – October 20, 2013
Pomona College Museum of Art
330 North College Ave, Claremont, CA 91711
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 7, 5-7 pm
Art After Hours: Thursday, October 17, 5:15 pm An archery demonstration and calligraphy workshop by Hirokazu Kosaka
The Pomona College Museum of Art presents the first solo exhibition examining the early performative artwork of Hirokazu Kosaka.
In 1966, Kosaka left Kyoto, Japan to study painting at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles.
Deeply influenced by his knowledge of Buddhist spirituality, Zen archery, Noh and Kabuki theater, the ground-breaking experimental art of Japan’s Gutai Group, and his exposure to contemporary art in Southern California, Kosaka began experimenting with body art and performance.
Merging his youthful experiences in Japan with the emphasis in body art on physical endurance; in Conceptual art on process; in Minimal art on repetition; and in Gutai on concrete forms, Kosaka created performative artworks that attempted to creatively reconcile avant-garde artistic innovations with spiritual practices such as meditation, pilgrimage, and Zen archery.
The title, “On the Verandah,” refers to Kosaka’s conception of in-between spaces such as those between East and West, nature and culture, the physical and the spiritual, and, as Kosaka says, a series of “infinite maybes.”
This exhibition, co-curated by Rebecca McGrew and Glenn Phillips, brings together documentation of Kosaka’s early artworks and rarely-seen films and is accompanied by a publication with an essay by Glenn Phillips and an annotated and illustrated chronology of artwork by Shayda Amanat.
Born in Wakayama, Japan in 1948, Kosaka lives in Los Angeles, where he is an ordained Shingon Buddhist priest and serves as Artistic Director at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center.
The Pomona College of Art is located at 330 North College Ave, Claremont. The museum is open to the public free of charge Tuesday through Sunday, from noon to 5 pm, and Thursday, from noon to 11 pm.
For more information, call (909) 621-8282 or visit the museum’s website: www.pomona.edu/museum
