Adam Cooley | |
|---|---|
 Self portrait | |
| Occupation(s) | Painter, sculptor, performance artist |
Adam Cooley is an American artist whose works include painting, sculpture, performance art, fashion design, lithography, interior design and film. He currently lives between Osaka, Japan and New York. [1]
Adam Cooley was born in Rochester, New York. His family moved over 11 times to various parts of New York State. He grew up in a small rural community in Western New York State. [2] The direction of his work was decided early in life and at the age of twenty-two he suffered the first of several heart attacks due to a medical condition which influenced the themes of his artwork and was a major catalyst for the direction of his future works, abundant output and deliberate, focused work-ethic. [3] : 250–251
Cooley's imagery is often overly fantastic and suggest a strong surrealist influence. It is not only the subject of the paintings that reflect this idea but the techniques and processes used in their development. This can extend to how he exhibits his art. At an exhibition in Kyoto, at the Gallery Maronie, the works themselves were manipulated, touched, and handled by spectators. The resulting change, wear and tear that emerged was intended by the artist as part of the artwork itself. One such work – a painted ball contained in a sandbox that spectators were encouraged to roll, touch, and move – helped in the transformation of the ball by tearing and scratching its painted surface. [4] Other works are laden with metals and gold-leaf, which he transforms using processes such as oxidization and aging to finish his pieces. Often it can take months or even years of aging before the artist considers the works done. It is this transformation of the work itself, a physical object, which mirrors the more fundamental concept, namely transformation of the spirit that is often the subject of his paintings, sculptures and performances. [3] : 206–7
Cooley began exhibiting works – mostly paintings – along with performance art pieces while living in New York. He regularly exhibited works after settling in Asia during the early 1990s. [3]
The artist has created and executed various performance art pieces throughout his career, which have rarely been documented. One exception is a piece titled "Bonsai (2003)" which was documented in a book and corresponding documentary broadcast on public television in fall 2005. Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa by Karin Muller. [5]
Cooley has created in multiple art forms including performance art, interior design, fashion design, painting, sculpture, lithography, printmaking and film. [6] In 2001, selected works – including the painting "Cooking Dinner for the Little Lady" – were exhibited in the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art.[ citation needed ] The museum has also procured two of his works: "Cockadoodle Surprise" and "The Black Beauty" for their permanent collection.[ citation needed ] He was the first living foreign artist to have a solo exhibition in the Daimaru and Hankyu Department stores. [1]
In 1998, an exhibit of over 70 works, entitled "Anella", was held at the Maronie Art gallery in Kyoto, Japan. The concept was to exhibit artworks in a barrier free environment in order to broaden the sensual appreciation of art. The works themselves were all highly textured and tactile. They were placed in low positions, allowing spectators to enjoy through touch as well as visual sensation. He approached the Nippon Lighthouse Organization (organization for the blind and visually handicapped) who were excited by the idea and helped to publicize his exhibition. This exhibit allowed visually-impaired spectators to experience otherwise traditional artworks through the sense of touch. The exhibit consequently became highly publicized, with all of the major newspapers – including The Mainichi Newspaper, Asahi Newspaper and The Daily Yomiuri – covering the show. [4]
His works sometimes demonstrate a playful eclecticism, with respect to theme and technique, as shown by an exhibit held in Kyoto in 1999. The exhibit featured amulets constructed of wood and gilded gold-leaf with glass. The "hand-crafted wooden charms" suggested a contrast with modern consumerism and the traditional spirituality that is associated with Japanese animism and the Shinto religion. The small hand-sized amulets were entitled "Kamisamagotchi", as a play on the Japanese word for God: "Kamisama" and the ubiquitous "Tamagotchi" so popular in Japan at the time. [7]
Cooley's paintings are featured in the Japanese film "Spit and Honey" (唾と蜜, Tsuba to Hachimitsu, "Spit and Honey"), by film maker Kenji Maki.[ citation needed ]
Ōsaka Station is a major railway station in the Umeda district of Kita-ku, Osaka, Japan, operated by West Japan Railway Company. It forms as one of the city's main railway terminals to the north, the other being Shin-Ōsaka.
Paul Schuss is a French artist of the Ecole de Paris. Born after World War II, he is a part of "La Jeune Peinture" de l'Ecole de Paris.
Taiji Arita was a Japanese commercial photographer who exhibited non-commercial nudes and other work, and later a painter and sculptor.
Takeji Iwamiya was a Japanese photographer particularly known for his depiction of architecture, gardens, and Japanese crafts.
Michiko Matsumoto is a Japanese photographer.
The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto is an art museum in Kyoto, Japan.
Mr. is a Japanese contemporary artist, based in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. A former protégé of Takashi Murakami, Mr.'s work debuted in both solo and group exhibitions in 1996, and has since been seen in museum and gallery exhibitions in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hong Kong, Seoul, Daegu, Paris, New York, Minneapolis, Chicago, Miami, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, and London.
Syoh Yoshida is a Japanese artist of the nihonga and ink painting genre.
Sarah Brayer is an American artist who works in both Japan and the United States. She is internationally known for her poured washi paperworks, aquatint and woodblock prints. In 2013 Japan's Ministry of Culture awarded Sarah its Bunkacho Chokan Hyosho for dissemination of Japanese culture abroad through her creations in Echizen washi. She currently resides in Kyoto, Japan and New York, U.S.A.
Baikei Uehira (上平梅径), born Tatsuyoshi Uehira in Izumisano, Japan, is a master calligrapher and teacher as well as president of the Seisho Calligraphy Association in Osaka. Originally pursuing calligraphy only for the love of writing, he has gone on to develop new pathways and styles of traditional Japanese calligraphy through collaborations, art shodo, and live performances. Uehira is considered a pioneer of live calligraphy and continues to create innovative works with hopes of expanding interest in Japanese writing to others.
Madokoro Akutagawa Saori was a Japanese painter whose works were often associated with primitivism, folkloric and mythological subjects, as well as unique dyeing techniques. Her paintings from the 1950s manifest various themes from distorted and dramatic portrayal of women to divine narratives based on traditional Japanese folklore. After briefly studying and living in the US, Akutagawa shifted her artistic exploration towards abstraction before her death at a young age in 1966.
Jirō Takamatsu was one of the most important postwar Japanese artists. Takamatsu used photography, sculpture, painting, drawing, and performance to fundamentally investigate the philosophical and material conditions of art. Takamatsu's practice was dedicated to the critique of cognition and perception, through the rendering and variation of morphological devices, such as shadow, tautology, appropriation, perceptual and perspective distortion and representation. Takamatsu's conceptual work can be understood through his notions of the Zero Dimension, which renders an object or form to observe its fundamental geometrical components. Takamatsu isolated these smallest constituent elements, asserting that these elements produce reality, or existence. For Takamatsu the elementary particle represents “the ultimate of division” and also “emptiness itself,” like the a line within a painting—there appears to be nothing more beyond the line itself. Yet, Takamatsu's end goal was not to just prove the presence or object-ness of these elements, but rather used them as a way to challenge and prove the limits of human perception, leading to his fixation on “absence” or the things that are unobservable.
Kumi Sugai was a Japanese painter and printmaker. Driven by an interest in avant-garde painting, Sugai moved to Paris in 1952 where he quickly attracted critical attention, participating in numerous exhibitions in Paris and abroad. First working in a style resembling informalism or lyrical abstraction, he became affiliated with the Nouvelle École de Paris. During the early 1960s, his artworks radically transformed when he developed a hard-edge abstract style influenced by his interest in automobiles and contemporary urban living. While he did not officially associate himself with any single artistic movement or group, he collaborated on multiple projects with his poet friends, Jean-Clarence Lambert and Makota Ōoka.
Jane Kallir is an American art dealer, curator and author. She is co-director of the Galerie St. Etienne in New York, which specializes in Austrian and German Expressionism as well as self-taught and “outsider” art. Kallir has curated exhibitions for many American and international museums and is the author of the catalogue raisonné of Egon Schiele’s work in all mediums.
Saburo Murakami was a Japanese visual and performance artist. He was a member of the Gutai Art Association and is best known for his paper-breaking performances (kami-yaburi) in which he burst through kraft paper stretched on large wooden frames. Paper-breaking is a canonical work in the history of Japanese post-war art and for the history of performance art. Murakami’s work includes paintings, three-dimensional objects and installation as well as performance, and is characterized by a highly conceptual approach that transcends dualistic thinking and materializes in playful interactive forms and often thematizes time, chance and intuition.
Ikuyo Fujita is a Japanese artist who works primarily in needle felt painting and mogol art. She is known for rabbit and cat art. Her kawaii style needle felt paintings are popular among rabbit lovers in Japan.
Shigeru Onishi (大西茂)(1928-1994) was a Japanese visual artist. Onishi produced photography-based work and abstract ink paintings. Michel Tapié introduced Onishi's calligraphic works to Europe with works by the Gutai group artists in the context of the Art Informel movement. These calligraphic works used the sumi method that Japanese painters traditionally use from ink made from soot or oil and animal glue.
Seated Nude is an oil on canvas painting by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani created in 1918. The painting is one of the dozens of nudes created by Modigliani between 1916 and 1919.
Gendai Bijutsu Kondankai was a study and discussion group founded in 1952 to facilitate interdisciplinary and cross-genre exchanges among Japanese artists based in the Kansai region. Among the participants were key figures of Japanese avant-garde art after World War II, such as calligraphers Shiryū Morita, Yuichi Inoue and Sōgen Eguchi, potter Yasuo Hayashi, and painters Waichi Tsutaka, Kokuta Suda, Jirō Yoshihara and future members of the Gutai Art Association. Genbi's activities, which included monthly meetings and group exhibitions, ceased in 1957.
Masunobu Yoshimura, was a Japanese visual and conceptual artist associated with the Neo-Dada movement. In 1960, he was the founder and leader of the short-lived but influential artistic collective Neo-Dada Organizers, which had as members several young artists who would later become well-known, including Genpei Akasegawa, Shūsaku Arakawa, and Ushio Shinohara. His "White House" atelier in Shinjuku, Tokyo served as the center of the group's activities.