Fergus McCaffrey is pleased to announce its inaugural show at its new location at 514 West 26th Street. We are honored to present the first solo exhibition in the United States of Natsuyuki Nakanishi, one of the most important artists working in the post-war period in Japan.
Nakanishi’s career as an artist spans over 50 years and his investigations, which began with his series of Rhyme paintings in 1959, have consistently addressed philosophical and aesthetic issues pertaining to painting and performance. His analytical and experimental thinking have resulted in a radical reconfiguration of the terms of art-making.
Nakanishi was born in 1935 and grew up in Tokyo, where he attended Tokyo National University of Arts and Music. He began his career as a painter and has consistently and persistently explored that medium. The textural quality of his early works, such as Map of Human, made up of paint, enamel, and sand, evoke a sense of the ancient, while at the same time suggesting contemporary concepts of cell structure and DNA paths. Structural topological elements also make themselves felt in his Rhyme series from 1960. Cast off elements from the everyday, such as string and cotton, or even shirts, make their way into these works, and are particularly evident in Rhyme S’, 1960. The materiality of such compositions are in keeping with developments in international art of the period, such as that of Robert Ryman and Piero Manzoni.