Keiji Uematsu (b. 1947, Kobe, Japan) is a conceptual artist associated with the post-war Japanese art movement, Mono-ha. Over a nearly five decades-long career, Uematsu has developed a highly cohesive body of work that has consistently sought to make visible the invisible relationships between objects and the spaces they inhabit. In 1972, he wrote: ‘What I want to do is to make visible existence, visible connections and visible relations appear more clearly. And to cause non-visible existence, non-visible connections and non-visible relations to appear. And to cause visible existence, visible connections and visible relations not to appear’. The ideas of ‘de-familiarising’ space and focusing our attention on the natural forces of gravity, tension, and material attraction, whether through photography, drawing or sculptural installation, underpin his entire practice.
Uematsu graduated from the department of Fine Arts, Kobe University in 1969, at the very time when the new group of artists whose work later came to be associated with the name Mono-ha were rising to prominence. They proposed a radical conceptual practice which moved away from traditional forms of representation toward an engagement with materials, objects and their properties and it was in this creative context that Uematsu developed his artistic language. Yet although Uematsu came of artistic age during this time, his work is distinct from that of the Mono-ha group, influenced as it is by Western theory. In 1975 he moved from his native Japan to Dusseldorf. The following year he was the first Japanese artist ever to show at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and he quickly developed concurrent exhibiting activities in Europe and Japan. His move came not only in the context of a rapidly developing conceptual art movement in Japan, but also of intense exchange between artists in Europe, North American and Asia. Uematsu’s international influence today is far reaching thanks to both his innovative, conceptual approach to art making and his global outlook.
Ways of Touching the Invisible - Intuition
Uematsu’s multidisciplinary practice strives to illuminate the invisible relationships between objects and the spaces they inhabit. For more than five decades the artist has carried out the terms of a rigorous manifesto that spotlights the de-familiarization of space and draws his viewers’ attention to the interplay of such natural forces as gravity, tension and material attraction through media including photography, drawing and sculptural installation.
Inside Out: Jiro Takamatsu and Keiji Uematsu In Conversation
This exhibition of work by Jiro Takamatsu (1936-1998) and Keiji Uematsu (b.1947) will bring post-war Japanese sculpture associated with the influential Mono-Ha (School of Things) to a wider audience.
The first pairing of these artists aims to provide an insight into the new ways of thinking about sculpture that developed in post-war Japan.
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Image: Keiji Uematsu, Floating form - Invisible axis, 2015
Keiji Uematsu: Films and Videos 1970–1976
To coincide with the exhibition of Simon Lee Gallery, New York, Invisible Force, there will be a film screening of the artist’s work, on 25 April.
For more information, please click here.
Image: Keiji Uematsu, Stone/Rope/Man II, 1974
Radical 60s Gallery Hop
Japan Society Gallery cordially invites you and your guest to a Radical 60s Gallery Hop, an exploration of the experimental art of the 1960s and onward, focusing on Radical Japanese artists! Join Yukie Kamiya, Director of Japan Society Gallery, as we visit four must-see NYC gallery exhibitions, among them Keiji Uematsu: Invisible Force at Simon Lee Gallery focusing on radical artists from the 1960s and onward.
Saturday, April 6th, 1-5pm
Image: Keiji Uematsu, Vertical Position, 1973
Keiji Uematsu at the Panasonic Museum
On the occasion of the 100 year anniversary of the Panasonic Museum in Osaka, Japan, Keiji Uematsu has been commissioned to make a new sculpture. Floating Form – vertical (2018) can be found outside the entrance of the Hall of Manufacturing Ingenuity.