Fergus McCaffrey is proud to present its third solo exhibition of Jiro Takamatsu (1936–1998), featuring paintings, sculptures, photographs, text works, and drawings dating from 1966 to 1978.
Perhaps the most influential artist working in Japan during the 1960s and 1970s, Jiro Takamatsu altered the evolution of visual art in Japan as an artist, theorist, and teacher. As a cofounder of the legendary collective Hi Red Center in 1963 and the central inspiration for Mono-Ha, Takamatsu dominated Japanese artistic discourse during these years.
His work would be incomprehensible without acknowledging the discourse and aesthetic precedents of Surrealism and Minimalism, as well as his background in the Anti-Art and NeoDada movements. A contrarian by nature, Takamatsu challenged the prevailing orthodoxy of paintings purged of representation and sculptures that emphasized truth to materials and the antiillusional.
