The Story of HOUJU

Details

Shoko Maemoto (b. 1957)
The Story of HOUJU
sealed Sho (lower right)
signed Shoko Maemoto, titled and dated Houju Monogatari ‘85 (on the reverse of left panel)
acrylic on panel (triptych)
162 x 390 x 6.5 cm.
(3)Painted in 1985

Literature

Gallery Kobayashi, THE EIGHTIES 80 nendai no bijutsu (Art in the 80s), (Tokyo, 1990), p. 88-89
Shoko Maeda, Issho ni iko paradaisu (Let’s go to Paradise Together), (Tokyo, 1992), p. 86-87
The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma and The Museum of Art, Ehime, Through a Collector’s Eye: Japanese Art after 1945, exhibition catalogue, (Japan, 2001), cat. no. 98, p. 115

Exhibited

1983: Rinkai geijutsu: ’83-nen no iso-ten (The critical point in art: exhibition of ’83 phase), Muramatsu Gallery, Tokyo
1986: ART in FRONT ’86, Seikimatsu geijutsu no saizensen (the front line of fin-de-siècle art), Aoyama Spiral Garden, Tokyo
2001 - 2002: Through a Collector’s Eye: Japanese Art after 1945, The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma and The Museum of Art, Ehime

Special notice

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Brought to you by

Anastasia von Seibold

avonseibold@christies.com +44 (0)20 7752 3217

Lot Essay

Shoko Maemoto was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in 1957. She graduated from Kyoto Seika College in 1980 followed by B-zemi Learning System of Contemporary Art in 1982. Resisting the general concept that only oil on canvas can be called “art,” she started to produce her own unique works in relief with applied materials including paper-mâché, marbles, beads, mirrors and sequins. Later she incorporated friends, artists and musicians into her work in a story-like manner. Key motifs are nude female figures richly decorated with patterns, masks and dresses, surrounded by explosions of vivid designs and colours.

Her work has been exhibited both in Japan and internationally including:

1984: 5th Sydney Biennale
1987: Monoha to posuto Monoha no tenkai: 1969-nen iko no Nihon no bijutsu (Art in Japan Since 1969 : Mono-ha and Post Mono-ha), Seibu Museum of Art
1989: Bijutsu no kuni no ningyotachi (Man: in Another Dimension of the Human Form), The Miyagi Museum of Art
1989-1991: Against Nature: Japanese Art in the Eighties, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and others

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