Kitasono Katue
La Disparition d’Honoré Subrac, (1960)
Collection of John Solt. © Hashimoto Sumiko
Kitasono Katue: Surrealist Poet – exhibition at LACMA The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents the first U.S. exhibition of Japanese artist Kitasono Katue (Japan, 1902–1978). August 3–December 1, 2013.]]>
Source: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
“Kitasono Katue: Surrealist Poet” highlights over eighty original photographs, paintings, and drawings, as well as many rare publications drawn from the collection of Los Angeles based poet and scholar, John Solt. Among the works in the exhibition are all of Kitasono’s poetry collections, including his first, “Album of Whiteness” (1929). The exhibition, organized by Hollis Goodall, LACMA curator for Japanese Art, portrays Kitasono as a leading participant in visual as well as literary avant-garde movements during both pre- and post-war eras.
About Kitasono Katue
A pioneering avant-garde spirit, Kitasono made a priority of finding common ground with poets, artists, and writers in Europe and the Americas,from whom he initially sought stimulus to develop his early modes of poetry. First entranced by the modern art movements of Dadaism and Surrealism, he also thoroughly absorbed the ideas of Futurism, Cubism, and, in the postwar era, Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. He would introduce elements of each into his poetic mode.
At the beginning of his career, Kitasono had hoped to be a painter, but immediately gained notice instead for his avant-garde poetry. In the mid-1950s, Kitasono began to produce “Plastic Poetry” —a photographic genre he invented— after being inspired by the Surrealist photography ofregular contributors to VOU. “Plastic Poems” fit in a category more broadly referred to as visual poetry and was based on tabletop arrangements ofvarious unrelated elements.
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