YU-ICHI INOUE - 1916-1985 - Calligraphy liberated
From 14 July to 15 September 2018 to House of Culture of Japan in Paris, 101 bis, quai Branly, 75007.
Calligrapher Yu-ichi Inoue is one of the most creative representatives of Japan's avant-garde artistic avant-garde. Transcending conventional conventions and rules, he made calligraphy a contemporary art. This first retrospective in France brings together 76 characteristic works from different periods of his career. Immersion in a monochrome universe with surprisingly rich and multiple forms.
As early as the 50 years, Yu-ichi Inoue explores unexplored territories of calligraphy and creates his first works consisting of a single character (ichijisho). During his life, he will tirelessly produce a multitude. Even today, it is primarily known for these great ideograms drawn in styles evolving over the years. Ai (Love), Hana (Flower) and H (Denial) were among those he loved the most. During the 60s and 70s, Inoue experimented with various materials and techniques: collage of newspaper, more or less diluted inks, frozen ink, characters deliberately leaving the surface of the sheet ... ichijishoInoue never stopped producing works with multiple characters. In the impressive Ah Yokokawa National School (1978), he fiercely denounces the absurdity of the war by recounting the 1945 bombing of the school where he was teaching. In 1979, liver cirrhosis is diagnosed. Paradoxically, the years until his death in 1985 are the most productive of his career, and many of his masterpieces date from this period. As the disease declines its strength, it realizes several kotobagaki ("Writing of words") in graphite, Conté pencil and charcoal. With fierce energy, he calligraphy a famous children's tale by Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933), The bears of Nametoko Mountain. In this monumental work, which is generally considered to be his last, the text is 14 meters long. Until his last days, Yu-ichi Inoue will have "freed calligraphy".
