Kyoko Ibe | In Praise of Shadows

 

Drawing inspiration from Junichiro Tanizaki’s seminal 1933 essay of the same name, the exhibition explores the subtle interplay of light, shadow, material, and space through Ibe’s pioneering approach to washi, traditional Japanese paper. For decades, Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows has served as a philosophical guide for Ibe, whose practice centers on the expressive and sculptural possibilities of washi. In this new body of work, the artist returns to what she describes as her “starting point” — both conceptually and formally — revisiting the square compositions through which she first developed the groundbreaking “Ibe Method.” Combining years of technical refinement with renewed experimentation, the exhibition reflects what the artist considers both a beginning and a pinnacle.

Born in Nagoya, Japan, in 1941, Kyoko Ibe first worked with washi-traditional Japanese hand-made paper-during the 1960s. She is now one of Japan's most senior and respected artists in the medium, creating site-specific installations and theater sets that can fill large architectural spaces, as well as more domestic-scale panels and folding screens fashioned out of dyed and pulped antique documents originally brushed with handwriting in sumi ink. Appointed by the Japanese Government as a Special Advisor for Cultural Exchange, Ibe has worked in many parts of the world as an international ambassador for washi and is well known in the United States for her installations and stage designs. She was a professor at the Kyoto Institute of Technology for ten years and a director for the Japan Paper Academy for 25. She has received many awards, nationally and internationally; and was selected to be a Cultural Ambassador in 2009 by the Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan.