ICN Gallery Part 1 What is Ukiyo-e? Event report

Date: 2012 April 21 13:46

Posted by Priss

The ICN gallery London opened this month with the first in a series of exhibitions exploring the iconic historic Japanese artist movement, Ukiyo-e. The works explore the tradition and an influential legacy that has shaped the face of modern Japanese artistry.

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The ICN Gallery, secreted in the stylish centre of Shoreditch, is modest exhibition space which offers both refreshment and stimulus for the senses through an array of enchanting works by Japanese artists.

The core focus of the exhibition entitled "What is Ukiyo-e?" is a collection of artworks produced by the Adachi Institute of Woodcut Prints. These pictures have been faithfully reproduced according to the techniques originally employed by master crafters such as Hokusai, Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige. Visitors are given a glimpse of the "fleeting life" as they would have appeared when they had been freshly pressed and printed by the artist. It is apparent for anyone with an interest in antique prints that the skill and attention to detail is impeccable. They are at once dynamic and delicate, powerful and provocative portraying the character of the land, the people, the culture and mythos of Japan.

One might be inclined to ask, what is the point in an exhibition that is principally made up copies? The answer, as the Victorians knew all too well, is in presentation and the preservation of history. (To see a prime example of this, visit Cast Courts of the Victoria & Allbert Museum, where a curious and eclectic collection of replicas of world sculpture and architecture can be viewed in one place). As much as collectors may extol the virtues and value of an original print, it is a sad reality that such artworks are not eternal and are destined to fade and deteriorate. It is with this foresight that the Adachi Institute has worked with the seminal sources of the movement, restoring and resurrecting the original designs from the woodcuts made by renowned masters.