For the inaugural exhibition, we are pleased to present “Kimiyo Mishima Solo Exhibition 1950s - 2021.” Mishima’s works are also concurrently on display at the Mori Art Museum, in the exhibition “Another Energy: Power to Continue Challenging – 16 Women Artists from around the World.” The commemorative exhibition at SOKYO ATSUMI will feature Mishima’s paintings from the 1950s, some of which will be displayed for the first time, as well as oversized comic books, 90 garbage cans, and a three-dimensional work combining pieces of wood, metal, and volcanic ash.
In 1971, Mishima presented a ceramic piece described as a “breakable printed matter.” That same year, her work “Package” was selected for the Japan Ceramic Art Exhibition and traveled to the United States and Canada, attracting international attention. Her career has continued to thrive and as recently in 2019, her work “Comic Book 17-S” was displayed in “The Citi exhibition Manga” held at the British Museum, and ultimately added to the museum’s collection. Mishima has made remarkable achievements in recent years, as she is the only artist working in Japan to be included in the “Another Energy” exhibition at Mori Art Museum, and “Printed Pipes-75,” her experimental work on unbreakable ceramic, has been included in the collection of the Centre Pompidou. This fall, she is scheduled to join “The Flames. The Age of Ceramics” group exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, in France, further increasing her international reputation. In the solo exhibition at SOKYO ATSUMI, she will present “Work 12-C2,” an early piece from the same series that will be displayed in “The Flames. The Age of Ceramics” exhibition, as well as “Box Sunkist 20” and “Box Coca Cola 21-2” from the Box series, to show the current state of breakable printed matter.
In addition to ceramics, Mishima creates three-dimensional works that combine discarded pieces of metal and wood. Her studios located in Toki and Juso are used for production, but they also serve as storage space for the objects that Mishima collects and finds interesting. Most of these collected items are generally considered trash, such as metal drums and pieces of wood that had been cast aside for many years, but for Mishima, they have an important meaning in the creation of her works. The “Work 21-B” and “Work 21-B2” are the latest examples of such works produced using waste and volcanic ash. The “Work 72-J,” created in 1972, is one of the oldest of these works. It is a groundbreaking piece of art that combines chicken wire, tree branches, and transfer paper, and marked the starting point for Mishima’s discovery of new expressive styles through trial and error.
Particularly, “Comic Book 03-1” and “Comic Book 03-2” have a striking presence in the exhibition, being giant comic books made from molten slag* based on the motifs of Shonen Magazine and Shonen Jump. Unlike her ceramic comic books, these are examples that belong to a lineage of three-dimensional works created using waste materials. In contrast to “Another Rebirth 2005-N,” installed outside on Naoshima Island, made from melted slag and waste soil, these giant comic books are created using melted slag only, which is unique among Mishima’s works. These comic books were also displayed at the “Art of Earth: Clay Works of The New Century” exhibition held at the National Museum of Art, Osaka in 2003.
The highlight of the current exhibition is a series of previously unexhibited paintings created in the 1950s and 1960s. As she described during a recent interview with art historian Hans Ulrich Obrist, Mishima started painting when she was attending a high school for girls. At that time, Mishima was learning traditional Japanese dance, but she found it constricting because the dance had to be performed in accordance with a fixed pattern and she was not allowed to choreograph freely. On the other hand, her art teacher at the high school taught her to paint what she liked, so she immersed herself in painting to create freely. Then, in the 1950s, she began attending Shigeji Mishima’s art school to create paintings. Under his tutelage (he would later become her husband) she created collages by using printed materials and waste materials including newspaper, magazines, horse race betting tickets, and mosquito nets.
“Untitled,” created in 1957, is one of her earliest works. This work will be presented for the first time in the public. The rough surface of the oil painting is a valuable element that characterizes her early works.
The works “Work 64-III” and “Work II” are representative of Mishima’s two-dimensional works, in which newspapers and magazines are pasted onto a dark-colored canvas. The collage of newspapers, which is particularly prominent in “Work 64-III”, seems to embody what Mishima calls “the fear of information,” as the intertwined sentences spliced together on the canvas and the enormous amount of unclear information all jump forth at once.
“Work 68-A” and “Work 68-B,” both of which have been displayed at the Dokuritsu Exhibitions, are a pair of works with the same structure. Here, the huge colored surface in the center is positioned as the main visual element.
It would be a great pleasure if you could see Mishima's works from the 1950s to the present, many of which will be exhibited for the first time in the public. Additionally, we will publish an exhibition catalog featuring a three-hour interview between Hans Ulrich Obrist and Mishima on February 28, 2021.
MISHIMA Kimiyo was born in Osaka in Japan in 1932, and lives and works in both Juso, Osaka and Toki, Gifu. She exhibited her paintings at Dokuritsu Exhibition from 1954. She received the Rockefeller Scholarship ACC, U.S.A. and stayed in New York, NY from 1986 to 1987. Awards include: Osaka City Prize, Dokuritsu Exhibition (1961), Grand Prix and Suda Prize, Dokuritsu Exhibition (1963), Winner of the Prize, The 9th Annual Shell Exhibition (1965), Gold Prize, International Ceramic Exhibition, Faenza (1974), Winner of the Prize, The 11th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan (1975), Gold Prize, Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture Exhibition, Toki (1988), Grand Prix, Sai no Kuni Saitama Chokoku Variety (1996), Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum Prize and The Citizen Prize, The 19th Contemporary Japanese Sculpture Exhibition (2001), Sardi per l’Arte Back to the Future Prize at Artissima, Torino, Italy (2019), Ando Tadao Cultural Foundation Prize as the first artist to receive the prize (2019). Permanent collections include: The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan; The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Osaka, Japan; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, Kyoto, Japan; Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Hyogo, Japan; Benesse Art Site Naoshima, Kagawa, Japan; International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Italy; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, U.S.A.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, U.S.A.; British Museum, London, UK; M+, Hong Kong; The Centre Pompidou, Paris, France and more. Current and forthcoming museum group exhibitions are “Another Energy: Power to Continue Challenging - 16 Women Artists from around the World” at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan from April 22 to September 26, 2021; and “The Flames. The Age of Ceramics “at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France on October 15, 2021 to February 6, 2022.
＊Glass powder made by firing garbage at 1,400°C.
