Hiro yamagata
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"...Hiro Yamagata has uncovered something simple but profound, a model of the spark of creativity." | Walter Robinson, ArtNet.
Japanese-American artist Hiro Yamagata marks a dramatic shift in aesthetic in his new series titled Transient. Known through the eighties and nineties as a master of Pop spectacle, Yamagata transforms his passion for dialogue between macrocosmic and microcosmic considerations into a distinctly new pictorial domain. The result is a profoundly introspective examination of the collective and individual psychic template.
This interface is depicted in hauntingly beautiful works done in black and white on hand-made rice paper attached to canvas. Often monumental in scale, these works convey a sense of timelessness and impart an isolation that is both compelling and forbidding. This series speaks to the issue of time, place and perspective while its elements insinuate an unfolding apocalyptic splendor which lies just beneath or above our dimension.
A global force in contemporary art for over thirty years, Yamagata stakes a claim in new philosophical terrain with this historic series of somber abstractions. The work calls upon his rich heritage and imbues it with his visionary grasp of the metaphysical and the spiritual. He couples this with an exacting mastery of technique and media to great theatrical effect.
This new series, Transient, is a tour de force that celebrates the cosmic dance between tectonic forces and frail temporal overlays in a dizzying and cinematic symphony of monotones. This series ensures this kaleidoscopic artist will maintain his place at the forefront of the visual avant garde.
Artist Bio
BORN | 1948 May 30th in Maibara city, in Shiga prefecture, Japan
EXHIBITIONS AND CATALOGUES
2007
Transient, Gehry Partners, Los Angeles, CA
2006
AIR, Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2004
Quantum Field X3, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
2003
Exhibition of collaboration with NASA, Yokohama Seaport, Tokyo, Japan
2002
Exhibition of Quantum Induction at Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA
2001
Photon 999, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
NGC6093, Ace Gallery, New York City, NY
2000
An Active Life, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH
The Solar System Installations, Project 1: Hiro Yamagata Laser Laboratory, A Major Installation: Yamagata Studio, Malibu, CA
1999
American Lips, Marlborough Gallery Chelsea, NY
The Source (Feature Documentary on the Beat Generation, Produced by Hiro Yamagata), LA Premier, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Laumeier Lights, Major outdoor laser installation, Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO
1998
Earthly Paradise for Rome, Rome, Italy
George Herms, Parade of Sculpture; Hiro Yamagata, Sculpture of Light; the First St. Bridge, Los Angeles, CA
Earthly Paradise, Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO
1997
Eternity or What, Fred Hoffman Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
Earthly Paradise, K'nigs-Galerie, Kassel, Germany
A Night at the Oscars, works from Earthly Paradise incorporated with laser exhibition for the decor of the Academy Awards Governor's Ball
Earthly Paradise, Austrian Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), Vienna, Austria
Element-A Laser Installation, Fred Hoffman Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
1996
Earthly Paradise, Fred Hoffman Fine Art, Art 1996 Chicago, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL
Earthly Paradise, Royal Muse, Palace of the King of Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden
1995
Earthly Paradise, Hakone Open Air Museum, Hakone, Japan
Earthly Paradise, Zitelle Centro Culturale di Esposizione e Comunicazione, Venice, Italy
Earthly Paradise, Collection De Voitures Anciennes de S.A.S. Le Prince III De Monaco, Les Terrasses De Fontvieille, Monte Carlo, Monaco
Earthly Paradise, Villa Borghese, Montecatini, Italy
Earthly Paradise, Museo di Automobile, Turin, Italy
1994
Earthly Paradise, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park, Los Angeles, CA
1988 Official commemorative painting for the 100-year anniversary of the Eiffel Tower
essays
LATITUDE OF LOVE
by Walter Robinson, ArtNet, 2010
Hiro Yamagata is master of the pop spectacle. In the mid-1990s, the Japanese-born artist, who now lives in Los Angeles, painted a fleet of Mercedes Benz Cabriolet motorcars with a cascade of flowers and butterflies. He has produced paintings for the Olympics and the 100th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower, and made an official portrait of President Ronald Reagan.
Hiro has collaborated on projects with Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and designed a set of stamps for Japan. He has produced laser installations in Paris, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Bilbao, Yokohama and Cape Town, some monumental in scale. He has involved himself with worthy charities for people with disabilities, for earthquake victims, and for orphaned children.
For the last five years, Hiro has turned his attention to the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan, where he proposed a $60-million project for a laser-beam recreation of the destroyed buddha statues there (fueled by solar power). But after several trips to the country, and meetings with government officials, he was forced to abandon the project.
In its stead he has been producing a series of somber yet beautiful abstractions, paintings done in black-and-white with rice paper collaged on 6 x 6 ft. canvases, seven of which are now on view in the humble exhibition space of the Tenri Cultural Institute of New York. These works, frankly inspired by Hiro’s visits to Afghanistan, suggest a soaring bird’s-eye view of a dramatic and desolate landscape.
The model of consciousness here is a profound one. As we can’t help but draw out in our minds a world of snow and shadow, mountain and crevice, expansive spaces and hollows of human habitation from this fragile surface of thin paper, ink and glue, so do people fill the empty present with all the imagined possibilities of human life. Nowhere is this more true than in the war zone. In these abstractions, in this "Atmosphere," Hiro Yamagata has uncovered something simple but profound, a model of the spark of creativity.