Exhibition information
kyoto ddd gallery The 238th Exhibition Saul Steinberg: Lines that Transform the Real World
August 09, 2023 - October 15, 2023
Steinberg defined drawing as “a way of reasoning on paper.” In sharp, clever lines endowed with humor and satire, he drew the gaps between reality and a mythologized American ideal and ludicrous absurdities, such as the intermingling of old and new, graceful and frenzied, as well as the invisible gaps between them. Visualizing invisible lines, objects, words, and structures, throughout his career he pursued the challenge of transforming meanings and concepts.
It seems that Steinberg himself had accepted the ambiguity of his profession, and was named in various ways as “a writer who draws,” as well as “an architect of speech and sounds,” “an artist on the borderline,” and “a draftsman of philosophical reflections”. Constantly crossing boundaries into unknown visual territory, he tried every style and every method of expression, from children’s drawings and adult doodling to classicism, baroque, mannerism, expressionism, cubism, and constructivism.
Remarking that “I appeal to the complicity of my reader,” Steinberg encouraged his viewers to participate, in order to draw their attention to the irrationality of reality. With such thoughts and ideas as weapons, he created images that transformed the pages of many publications, including the Italian humor newspaper Bertoldo and the prominent US weekly The New Yorker, into forums of art just as distinctly as pictures by Picasso on the walls of museums.
This exhibition is a traveling exhibition of the first large-scale solo exhibition held at ginza graphic gallery (ggg) in Japan, and will feature a total of approximately 170 works, including posters donated by the Saul Steinberg Foundation, lithographs, etchings, and other valuable works, as well as reproductions of representative works, mainly drawings.
According to exhibition supervisor Mr. Kijuro Yahagi, “Even if most people shown Steinberg’s drawings initially react by laughing at the impossible scenes, they soon become perplexed, halt their thoughts, and are left dangling.” We invite you to experience this sensation for yourselves at the exhibition.
Profile
Saul Steinberg was born in 1914 in Râmnicu Sărat, Romania. After studying in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Bucharest, he studied architecture at the Regio Politecnico in Milan (now Politecnico di Milano), graduating in 1940. In Milan he actively contributed to the humor newspaper Bertoldo, but fled in 1941 to escape Fascists anti-Semitism in Italy. During the war he served in the US Navy and after the war settled in New York and started producing drawings for The New Yorker. Over the next 50 years, he contributed 89 covers and more than 1200 inside drawings. His intellectual and refined style sparked a revolution in the graphic world, and the realm of fine art (drawing, painting, woodblock prints, collage, sculpture, etc.). In 1946, Steinberg was selected for the “Fourteen Americans” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, followed by his first one-artist exhibition At the Parsons-Janis Galleries in New York in 1952 and the Galerie Maeght in Paris in 1953. In 1978, he had a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Steinberg: Illuminations, a major traveling retrospective, opened in 2006. His books of drawing compilations include All in Line, The Art of Living, The Passport, The Labyrinth, The New World, and The Inspector. Steinberg influenced many Japanese cartoonists and illustrators, including Fujiko Fujio, Ryouhei Yanagihara, and Makoto Wada.
Dates
August 9 (Wed.), 2023 – October 15 (Sun.), 2023
Hours: 11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays)
Closed: Mondays (or the following day if Monday is a national holiday or a substitute holiday), September 12(Special closing), September 19, October 10(the day after a national holiday).
Venue
3F COCON KARASUMA, 620 Suiginya-cho, Karasuma-dori Shijo-sagaru, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto City 600 8411, Japan
Tel: 075-585-5370 Fax: 075-585-5369
A short walk from the Shijo Karasuma City Bus stop, Shijo Station on the Subway Karasuma Line (exit 2), and Karasuma Station on the Hankyu Kyoto Line (exits 23 and 25).
Free entrance. No parking.
Organizer
DNP Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Cooperation
The Saul Steinberg Foundation, Galerie Maeght
Supervisor, Exhibition Composition and Critique
Kijuro Yahagi
The Saul Steinberg Foundation official website
The Saul Steinberg Foundation official website
For more information about Steinberg, please check the Saul Steinberg Foundation official website,
offering rich contents about the artist, including his artwork images, chronology and selected bibliography.
https://saulsteinbergfoundation.org/
© The Saul Steinberg Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Enjoy the World of Saul Steinberg Online
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Through the 3D perspective system, you can explore the works exhibited in "Saul Steinberg: Lines that Transform the Real World“ sorted by themes and relationships.
It provides a spectacular view of the full range of Steinberg‘s diverse activities, together with his unique approach.
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