HONG KONG — Tokyo-based Whitestone Gallery will open its new Hong Kong gallery on May 16.Founded in 1967 in Tokyo’s upmarket Ginza district, Whitestone Gallery dealt mostly in European post-Impressionism up until the 1980s, before diversifying its business into Japanese nihonga painting starting in the late 80s, and contemporary art from the year 2000 onwards.Located in the flourishing contemporary art enclave of Wong Chuk Hang on the south side of Hong Kong Island, Whitestone’s Hong Kong space will open with a solo exhibition devoted to the works of Gutai artist Chiyu Uemae (b. 1920). Gallery director Koei Shiraishi spoke with BLOUIN ARTINFO recently to talk about the gallery’s expansion into Hong Kong, the ongoing reassessment of and surging market interest in the avant-garde Gutai movement, and the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of Uemae as a true artistic original.What led to the decision to open a gallery in Hong Kong? Do you have many clients from Hong Kong and the wider Asian region?Hong Kong is a vibrant city with many international galleries and auction houses. Its multicultural art scene and collectors are also attractive to us.Whitestone Gallery has concentrated on introducing audiences to the Japanese avant-garde Gutai art movement, along with other postwar Japanese artists such as Yayoi Kusama over the past several years, and we believe that our efforts have largely been successful.With the opening of our new space in Hong Kong, we want to expand our focus to modern and contemporary art from East Asia. There have been many valuable artists and art scenes that have been undervalued and overlooked compared to their Western counterparts, including the Gutai movements and its artists. In our opinion, Hong Kong is the best place to introduce audiences to our focused vision of East Asian art — not to mention the fact that having a presence there will grant us easier access to our clients from all over the Asia-Pacific region.The market for Kazuo Shiraga, one of the leading Gutai artists, has seen incredible growth in the US and Europe, and Shiraga is now prominently featured in the collections of Francois Pinault and Howard Rachofsky, for instance. Have you observed the same trend in the Asian market?Yes, we have indeed. In fact, several Asian collectors previously noticed the historical value of the Gutai artists we represent — Kazuo Shiraga, of course, but also Chiyu Uemae, Tsuyoshi Maekawa, and Yasuo Sumi — and started acquiring these works for their private collection or museum. These acquisitions include several historically significant works from the Gutai period. And these same collectors are actively cooperating with art institutions as well.Do you consider Chiyu Uemae to be an undervalued and under-recognized artist? What makes his work distinctive in the context of Gutai?We believe that there are many undervalued artists from the Gutai group, not just Chiyu Uemae. The same might be said of the work of Tsuyoshi Maekawa and Yuko Nasaka, whose art works are more material oriented.Many action- and performance-oriented artists like Kazuo Shiraga and Atsuko Tanaka were among the first to be recognized by Western art critics. Owing to the fact that they were also actively involved with Western galleries in New York and Paris, it is easily to overlook the importance of material-oriented artists like Uemae.Of course, the innovative methods of creation and groundbreaking performances are a very important part of Gutai art. However, Gutai founder Jiro Yoshihara clearly stated in his “Gutai Manifesto” (1956) that Gutai art does not alter the material. Rather, it speaks of the delicate interaction between spirit and material that ultimately enables art to tell a story, and to possess a certain vitality and freshness.Even Chiyu Uemae, along with Maekawa and Nasaka, consistently focused their attention on the flat picture plane. Their use and manipulation of materials always emphasizes the relationship between body and matter in pursuit of originality.Uemae, in particular, uses a style akin to that of a craftsman, in the sense that it is very labor-oriented. He expends a great deal of time and handiwork in order to carefully finish a piece. His technique consists in piling up multiple layers of paint, and he is very particular about how the paint is applied. His stitched works also demonstrate the unfathomable diligence and perseverance involved in sewing it stitch by stitch.And we believe that Uemae is gradually getting more recognition. His work was selected for “Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949-1963,” organized by Paul Schimmel at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles in 2012. He was also recently featured at the exhibition “Parallel Views,” held at The Warehouse in Dallas, which showed Howard Rachofsky’s extensive collection of Uemae’s historical works.Wong Chuk Hang is shaping up to be a force to be reckoned with in Hong Kong's growing gallery scene. What other developments in Hong Kong's art ecosystem have you been excited by?First of all, we are very excited to open a space in Wong Chuk Hang, where we don’t have to compromise on the size of the space. We’re also excited to have so many fresh and innovative galleries close by.We are also very excited by the West Kowloon Cultural District project. We are sure that it will boost the cultural cachet of the region and bring it to another level, attracting more mature collectors from all over the world.Chiyu Uemae’s “A Solitary Path” runs at Whitestone Gallery Hong Kong (28/F, Global Trade Square, 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road) from May 16 through June 12, 2015. After Uemae, the gallery will show Yayoi Kusama (June 27 through July 25), and then Shozo Shimamoto in September.Follow @ARTINFOHongKong
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