What is the intention of the high-level attention paid to the works and exhibitions of female artists recently? This summer in Tokyo, a year-long delayed Olympics held without audience. Before I leave Tokyo, the must-see exhibitions are scheduled at 10 a.m., because I afraid that some exhibitions are not seen now and will never be seen again, also worry about losing the sense in different states.
There was an exhibition very impressed, MORI ART MUSEUM’s “Another Energe”, the exhibition brings together the works of 16 female artists around the world. Also, they are aged between 72 and 106, this viewpoint is extremely interesting. The exhibition of 16 female artists from 14 countries in the world attracted great attention. From Yoko ONO In the 1970s and 1980s to Yayoi KUSAMA in 1990s, till today’s Chiharu SHIOTA, their explosive influence on contemporary art is exhilarating. The Japanese art handstick magazine was made a special issue of the theme of female artists’ art history in time.
From the perspective of feminine studies, whether the art circle’s attention to female artists is worth? Our politics and economy operates around men, making the art history male-dominated.
The primary point of Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” is based on existentialism to rationally analyze women’s issues from a biological and philosophical and comprehensive civilizational perspective. But the title of “The Second Sex” still represents she protests that the female as the “other ‘is subordinate to the male’ principal”. “The choice is based on the premise of freedom, conducted in the complex whole; No sexual destiny dominates an individual’s life” is she summed up the wider whole life after a thorough analysis of the gender gap. The professor of Tokyo University Chizuko UEBO’s best-selling book explains the women’s studies in Japan still has a long way to go, meanwhile the speech at the University of Tokyo’s freshman admission become the center of the conversation. The “recommendation to die alone” seems at odds with the “Solitary death” which the government is concerned. A personality with an independent spirit need to complete lots of procedure of life alone. I lost a book in the seat belt of Shinkansen which I bought in Kyoto Station, and I also forget to bring it back from the Lost and Found, I will have to pick it up next time I go back.
Emi UCHIDA lives in Ushimado, Okayama Prefecture, it is the holy place of Bizen pottery, many workshops have been there for generations. In 2020, in the midst of pandemic, the Setouchi Art Museum held a spectacular solo exhibition of Emi UCHIDA, one collector feverishly collected several of her masterpieces at once. The aura and size of the works made local cities hard to find such a large external packing related industry. I had to set the frame in Tokyo and send it to Okamoto, the artist bound the works and carried it in an open-top car and a truck. The excitement of moving and handing over works to the collector who truly love them is also memorable.
This exhibition is Emi UCHIDA‘s solo exhibition in Shanghai after 10 years, it is the process of her new works and evolution since 2011 when Shun Art Gallery was in M50 space. The careful depiction of the oil color and the remaining white shaped under the stroke of charcoal, the “interspace”，in the transition caused by the tens of thousands of lines’ “quantity” and the color draws “quality”, give the picture a degree of completion. it is poignant no just beautiful, just like the “struggle” of a butterfly metamorphosis. The sound of summer cicadas is gone, only leave an empty, transparent outer in the trunk, a summer soul gently fly past.
In Kyushu, I met the “Feather black dragonfly” again in summer. The creature with black feather laying low in the wood, tiny and silent, flying in the green, the story I nostalgia is about you. The summer, the person.
For some reasons, the two beautiful spiritual creatures, dragonflies and butterflies, always remind people of woman, probably because the origin of female’s true beauty is comes from a completely natural biological beauty.
In the COVID pandemic of 2020，UCHIDA exhibited the nine places of her butterfly series at the Setouchi Art Museum, seems more can explain the value of life. In these two years, our views on life, attitudes to epidemics and vaccines have a lot of disagreements and different understandings. Artists with depression chose to leave the world before the solo exhibition, leaving behind a large number of works. Trace of life, you left six years ago, left lots of books, cause you love books and music.
The artist lives in the mountains, with almost no signal, except for her works, she pays little attention to social media, and has no time to juggle in this unexpected world. While I was walking along the remote country road, I met a Japanese old man walking alone in the field and insisted wearing a mask, but no one else around, It showed a extraordinary funny seriousness in the empty, wide field.
A Fiery red on the frames made of black charcoal. The birth of a new series, Crystal clear series, butterfly series, it’s a continuation of her “Trace” idea. The artist’s 10 years of thinking about the evolution of life in now in front of us through the exhibition, I faced the work, my heart for a long time can not calm, because I saw some secret. The artist, who is still creative, said the studio cats always accompany her to paint. The moment I picked up my pen, in Okamoto, Japan, the artist was also working hard to create art for one more piece for her solo exhibition in Shanghai. I can imagine her serious eyes quietly watching her heart, and dialogue with herself earnestly.
Autumn, in Shanghai, the typhoon is heading across the Korean Peninsula towards Kyushu. Her works in on its way to Shanghai.
Always, on the road, people and works.
So are butterflies.
– Shun, in an isolated hotel
Progress
Duration: Sep.25th, 2021 (Sat.) – Nov.28th, 2021 (Sun.) 11am – 7pm
Artists： Emi UCHIDA
Producer: Shun
Host: Shun Art Gallery
Address: Room 108, No. 3, Lane 1363, Middle Fuxing Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai
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