Exhibition ‘Kikuhata Mokuma kaiko ten – Sengo / Kaiga’ Opened

The exhibitions titled ‘Kikuhata Mokuma kaiko ten – Sengo / Kaiga’ opened at the Fukuoka Art Museum (July 9 – August 28) and the Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum (July 16 – August 13). They traced the works of KIKUHATA Mokuma, one of the leading figures in postwar Japanese art, from his debut to the present day. To comprehensively showcase the full scope of KIKUHATA’s diverse output – encompassing objets d’ art, paintings, drawings, and television programs, the exhibitions were divided across two venues: the Fukuoka City Museum focuses on the ‘postwar’ period, primarily showcasing objets d’ art, while the Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum presented the ‘paintings’ section, including major works from the mid-1980s onwards. Each venue functioned as an independent exhibition, allowing visitors to appreciate the works in this distinct format. After gaining attention in the 1950s as a leading figure of the ‘Kyūshū School (Kyūshū-ha)’, KIKUHATA engaged in writing and television program production, distancing himself from the so-called art world for approximately twenty years from the late 1960s. His trajectory, marked by the successive unveiling of large-scale paintings from the mid-1980s onwards, reflected how the avant-garde movements that emerged across postwar Japan transformed within the new art world order centered on major cities, following the Expo ’70 and the period of high economic growth. His works raised questions that prompted a reconsideration of postwar art. (Japanese)