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AAWAA ARTIST PROFILE
Masako Takahashi
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Born in Topaz Relocation Center , Utah , U.S.A. of Japanese/American parents, Takahashi attended the San Francisco Art Institute, California , Bard College , New York , and graduated with a B.A. in Art from the University of California at Berkeley , California.
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| Selected Individual Exhibitions (complete C.V available upon request) |
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| 2007 |
"Takahashi", Galeria Jesus, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico |
| 2005 |
"Masako Takahashi", Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA
"LIBERACION/LIBERATION", El Museo de la Ciudad, Queretaro, Mexico
"LIBERACION/LIBERATION", Galeria Quetzalli, Oaxaca, Mexico |
| 2004 |
"LIBERACION/LIBERATION", El Centro Cultural Negromante, Bellas Artes,
San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico |
| 2003 |
"Pelo/Hair", El Instituto de Artes Graficas de Oaxaca (IAGO), Oaxaca, Mexico |
| 2001 |
"Hair Texts", Gallery Soolip, West Los Angeles, CA, USA |
| 2000 |
"HAIR", Gallery Soolip, West Los Angeles, CA, USA |
| 1999 |
"HAIR", Galeria Duo Duo, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico |
| 1997 |
"Selected Works, a Ten Year Retrospective", El Centro Cultural Negromante, Bellas Artes, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico |
| 1996 |
"Emotional Tones", El Espacio Abierto, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato,
Mexico |
| 1995 |
"Levity", Janice McCarty, Los Angeles, California, USA |
| 1994 |
"Las Cascadas", LA Artcore Brewery Annex, Los Angeles, California, USA |
| 1993 |
"Fortune", Cafè Katsu, Los Angeles, California, USA |
| 1990 |
"The Ladders and After", Tokoro Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA |
| 1988 |
"Ladders", The Sculpture Gardens, Venice, California, USA |
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Selected Group Exhibitions (complete CV available upon request)
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| 2009 |
“Global Warming”, Bellas Artes, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico"Illiterature", Arena 1 Gallery, Santa Monica, California, USA |
| 2008 |
"Illiterature", Limn Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA |
| 2007 |
"Quiet Time", Katherine Nash Gallery, University of Minesota, MN, USA"Colectivo 2007", Galeria Diana, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico |
| 2006 |
"Embroidered Stories/Knitted Tales", Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek,
California"
"Contemporary Embroidery", Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek , California , USA
"Masako Takahashi/Laurie Litowitz", Galeria Mero, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
"Microcosmos", Galeria Lenoir, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico
"Colectivo", Galeria MERO, San Miguel de Allende, Gto. Mexico. |
| 2005 |
"Quiet Time", The 18th Street Arts Complex, Santa Monica, California, USA |
| 2004 |
"Quiet Time", Rockford College Art Gallery, Rockford, Illinois, USA
"Machiko Agano/Masako Takahashi", Thompson Art Gallery, San Jose
State University, San Jose, California, USA
"Primavera", La Galeria Diana, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico |
| 2003 |
"Inaugural Exhibit", La Galeria de la Luz, Oaxaca, Mexico
"Sexual Entanglements", www.Fiberscene.com, a cyberspace gallery |
| 2002 |
"Milagros", Galeria Diana, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico |
| 2001 |
"Gatos", Galeria Pedro Friedeberg, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico |
| 2000 |
"MEXICO 2000, Las Hijas de Artemis", El Museo de la Ciudad de Queretaro, Mexico |
| 1999 |
"Millenium", Gallery Soolip, West Los Angeles, California, USA
"NEEDLE ARTS: A Postmodern Sewing Circle", traveling museum exhibition, Initiated by the Bedford Art Gallery, Walnut Creek, California, then going to Museums and University Galleries throughout the USA |
| 1996 |
"Inaugural Exhibit", La Galeria El Chorro, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato |
| 1995 |
"Latent August", Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, California, USA
"Fifty Years: Hiroshima", The New Gallery at 18th Street Gallery, Santa Monica California, USA |
| 1993 |
"Salon II", Art In General, New York City, New York, USA |
| 1990 |
"Ancestors Known and Unknown", a traveling exhibition starting in NYC, traveling to Galleries and University Museums across the USA |
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Reviews
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| 2005 |
Frank, Peter "Pick of the Week", LA Weekly, April 4, 2005, Los Angeles, California
Geer, Suvan "Quiet Time" at 18th Street Arts Center", Artweek, Palo Alto, California
Editorial, "Busca La Liberacion Con El Arte", A.M. Queretaro, 21 April, 2005, Queretaro, Mexico |
| 2004 |
Editorial, "De Pelos", Imparcial, Oaxaca, 12 April, 2004, Oaxaca, Mexico
Editorial, "Masako Takahashi", El Petit Journal, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico, May, 2004 |
| 2000 |
Editorial, "Gallery: Masako Takahashi's 'Hair'", Los Angeles Magazine, January, 2000 Gerstler, Amy "Masako Takahashi", Gallery Soolip catalog, West Hollywood, California |
| 1999 |
Cohn, Terri "Needle Art", New Art Examiner, September, 1999
McMannis, Sam "Bedford's Needlework Exhibit Pokes Holes in Gender Roles", San Francisco Chronicle, June 11, 1999
Onishi, Ryoko "Masako Takahashi", Rafu Shimpo, Los Angeles, May 22, 1999
Editorial, "Hair; Takahashi Exhibit", Atencion San Miguel, January 25, 1999 |
| 1997 |
Wright, Anthony "Finding A Muse in San Miguel", Mexico City Times, January 3, |
| 1996 |
Failoni, Margaret "Preview: Masako Takahashi to exhibit at Bellas Artes", Atencion San Miguel, December 30, 1996 |
| 1994 |
Chung, Carol "Art: Commemorating an Atomic Bombing", Rafu Shimpo
Newspaper, Los Angeles, California, July 19, 1995
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| 1991 |
Sherman, Susan, editor "The Nineties, Moving Forward, Reaching Back/A Multicultural Odyssey", IKON #12/13 A Double Issue, New York
1991 Moorman, Margaret "Box Sculptures Offer History, Emotion", Newsday, February 7, 1991
Harrison, Helen A. "Examining Lineage as a Means of Enrichment", The New York Times, March 3, 1991
Johnson, Patricia C. "Finding Common Ground", Houston Chronicle, May 12, 1991 White, Garrett "Talking Art: Masako Takahashi", BUZZ Magazine, December/January 1991 Leffingwell, Edward "The Ladders of Masako Takahashi", essay, August 1991 |
| 1989 |
Lippard, Lucy/Byard, Carol "Ancestors Known and Unknown; Boxworks", catalog |
| 1988 |
Ayres, Anne "Taking Liberties", Loyola Law School exhibition catalog, Los Angeles, California |
| 1986 |
"A Women Of Color National Artists Book Project Travelling Exhibit" catalog |
| 1983 |
Bannon, Anthony "Exhibit Offerings Run Quality Gamut", Buffalo Evening News, May 27, 1983 "The 26th Annual Chautauqua National Exhibition of American Art" catalog
Bannon, Anthony "Reviews", The Chautauquan Daily, July 1, 1983 |
| 1960 |
editorial, "Takahashi wins All City High School Art Competition", San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco, California |
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Dorlands Art Colony residency, San Diego County, California
Helen Logan Award for painting, Chautauqua, New York
First prize and painting scholarship, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California |
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PEN lecture, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 2004
Author/Photographer, MEXICAN TEXTILES;Spirit and Style, MEXICAN TILES; Color, Style, Design, and MEXICOLOR; The Spirit of Mexican Design, published by Chronicle Books, San Francisco, California, USA
Board of Directors (artist member), LAX; The Bi-annual, Los Angeles, California, 1991-1994
Board of Directors (artist member), Barnsdall Municipal Gallery, Los Angeles, California, 1988-1991
Women's Caucus For Art, Panelist, San Francisco, California, 1989
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Statement
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An American artist
Masako Takahashi - Interviewed by Robin Mitchell
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RM
When did you start to embroider with your hair?
MT
Since 1985 I've had a studio in Mexico, where I often see local women embroidering, and that influenced me. My first embroideries were done in the early nineteen nineties, starting on the pre-printed squares available in Mexican markets. I was especially drawn to the emotional pieces with expressions like "You are my Life", and "I'm Yours Forever"---sentiments that in the USA were considered unmentionable or excessive. I altered the designs, and soon moved on to embroider personal sentiments on domestic items, like tablecloths and bedspreads.
It became obvious that my own long hair was like thread, and by the early 1990's I was embroidering with it on handkerchiefs and silk lingerie, words like "yearning" or "rage".
RM
What made you invent your own language, that unique alphabet?
MT
I wanted to inscribe a universal language, one that could be interpreted individually. When I found a rectangular embroidery hoop, the fabric looked like a piece of paper in it, and I began making "words" with simple stitches. Ancient scripts inspire me. Each "word" is as long as the hair used to stitch it with allows.
An aspect of the work is the urge to communicate, and the difficulty of being fully understood.
RM
What do you mean to convey with the use of Japanese kimonos?
MT
Until recently I resisted the presumption that, being Japanese/American, I should use Japanese iconography. After my father died in 2002, I perceived my personal history in a new way. I wanted to somehow experience that element of my past, and those feelings guided me to use the iconography of the "Zen zero" symbol in the Hair Scan prints and to collect vintage Japanese textiles.
The installation piece "GENERATIONS" is composed of a number of formal black kimono jackets; each represents a life. The number of garments varies according to the installation space.
RM
What inspired your series on mending?
MT
My mother taught me how to darn socks, mend tears in fabric; however, I grew up in a consumer society and seldom mended anything. Now when I see carefully mended cloth or garments, they seem poignant, for the obvious care and thrift implied by the act. Mending creates future for the thing mended. There is so much disaster and waste in the world it seems natural to turn to this metaphor of mending.
At a Kyoto flea market I found rolls of carefully patched vintage kimono cloth. In exhibition, the cloths are installed in ways I hope to convey a sense of time passed and valued, worn, torn but worth mending-- as with the traumas of life, which deserve compassion and care. The addition of hair alludes to the need for human intervention in the act of repairing, mending, being healed.
RM
What made you turn to making the pompoms?
MT
While preparing for the "Liberation" show in Oaxaca, troubled by the triangular shape of one of the gallery rooms (as well as feeling unnerved by the turmoil in the world at that time), I saw a bowl of shocking pink pompoms from Guatemala in a shop. All worries momentarily vanished as I enjoyed their unapologetic, simple beauty. The idea of filling that oddly shaped room with gigantic pompoms came to mind, leading to the installations, the "Pompommeries", in which viewers can walk among the colored balls of squeezable art, becoming a part of that world. |
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http://www.masakotakahashi.com/
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