On May 21st, "Moyuan Festival: A Retrospective Exhibition of Inoue's Works" opened at the Powerlong Art Museum in Shanghai.
Inoue was a famous Japanese calligraphy artist of the late 20th century and is considered a marvel of the art of Writing Kanji in Japan in the 20th century. He devoted his life to the study of calligraphy, and marched like an ascetic on the road of exploring the art of calligraphy.
The 73 works in this exhibition run through Inoue's entire creative career, and the exhibition presents the artist's important works from the 1950s and 1980s according to the units, presenting his most authentic and unknown side to the audience, guiding the audience to explore his spiritual world and artistic situation in depth, and reviewing his monastic and lamentable artistic career.
This exhibition is the first tour exhibition in Shanghai after the exhibition of "The Bells of Toei - Retrospective Exhibition of Inoue's Works" at the Tsinghua University Art Museum in 2020, which has profound academic significance and high cultural value.
In the 1950s, Inoue began to be active on the international stage, and when he was not confused, he had already achieved great results, at this time, he chose to go abroad, and his works began to intervene in abstract expression. In just one year, Inoue completely revisited and reinvented the original calligraphy, and later returned to the text.
From the second half of the 1950s to the 1960s, Inoue made a tireless research technique with great results. Taking the one-character book as the first, he created a variety of expressions, such as the composition of the picture beyond the picture, writing words in thick ink or light ink, etc., constantly changing in composition, brushwork, and ink color, and tried various independent and restrictive expression methods.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is the carpet hanging in the middle hall of the exhibition hall that Inoue used in his creation, which condenses the tears, ink, emotions and dreams of Inoue's life, which is the battlefield of his life, which is both poetic and unrestrained. The exhibition specially uses mercury mirrors to reflect on the ground, bringing the audience a feeling of going back to the past years. A painter is very affectionate and sensitive to the painting tools that accompany him, and when the painting carpet is opened in the exhibition hall, it immediately attracts people to enter the painting world.
Inoue was born in Tokyo in February 1916. In 1950, Inoue made his debut on the book scene. The following year, he won the third place in the "Third Daily Calligraphy Exhibition" and gradually became active in the international stage, participating in important art events such as the Biennale of São Paulo in Brazil and the Documenta exhibition in Kassel. Inoue's "one-character book" is one of his most handy forms of calligraphy, and it is also the personal style creation that has had the most profound impact on art history.
Inoue is regarded as a representative of modern japanese art after the war, and he called himself a "book ghost" and devoted his life to calligraphy. "Keeping the poor and waving sixty-seven frosts, the desire for the end of the original can not" is inoue's last life when he fought against the disease, this sentence is also a portrayal of his life's practice.
It is reported that the exhibition will last until August 29.
Author: Yuan Jing
Editor: Wang Bailing