Yoichi Umetsu “New Romancer”
Yoichi Umetsu, who has just wrapped up his solo exhibition “Pollinator” at the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art.
This show is composed entirely of new drawings produced after the closing of “Pollinator.”
The show was mounted on short notice after the originally scheduled exhibition — a group show of California-based artists selected by Barry McGee — had to be postponed due to shipping delays. Umetsu completed twenty drawings in just three days and managed to open the show on time.
Comment by Yoichi Umetsu — “In my practice, I have often consciously referenced art history in an explicit way. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, however, I have started to face my work in a more immediate, physical manner. Lately I hardly write any texts. But that does not mean I have simply returned to a naive kind of making. Nor is what I do painting as form, or painting as information. I recall once describing my drawings as ‘the privatization of painting,’ but that may have been a mistake. When they work, drawings can hold both a theoretical structure and a poetic space at once. These new works are also a detailed report on my past few days, yet they feel almost eternal to me.”
Twenty drawings that hardly feel as if they were made in such a short span.
Umetsu’s drawings pack in a wealth of information and fine detail when viewed up close, while offering an entirely different reading from a distance — deeply satisfying works.
He has clearly been immersed in ceramics of late, but this exhibition reminded me once again of the strength of his paintings.
