GROUP EXHIBITION

Graphic designer and art director Issay Kitagawa is best known for his numerous corporate logo commissions. This exhibition showcases graphics-based works by Kitagawa that pursue the possibilities of print. Also featured are works by Yamamoto and Hino, who have carved out cutting-edge calligraphic practices by creating arrangements not only of characters but also associated symbols, illustrations, and pictures formed from letters, and referencing the state of written text in todayʼs world. Based on an understanding that calligraphy is none other than ‘language art,’ the works of Yamamoto and Hino explore new possibilities for joining calligraphy and art, through full-body acts of writing.

Script and art grew extraordinarily close in the context of the conceptual art of the 1960s and ʼ70s, as evident too in the works Japanese Letters and English Words by Jiro Takamatsu, who from the late ʼ60s through the first half of the ʼ70s introduced the conceptual quality and graphic elements of written characters into fine art.”

Letterforms and White Space—a working title

Letters/characters lend feeling to the meaning of words, which is conveyed to the viewer. Characters are pictures. The life experiences of writer and reader achieve an emotional resonance, entwined with vision, sound and meaning. Characters are pictures. In them resides something not to be forgotten: white space. White space is transparent, so there are those who cannot see it. It may not be visible, yet it certainly makes itself felt by the viewer.

—Kitagawa Issay