Learning to See: Shizuye Takashima in Retrospect
September 8 – November 16, 2008
Gendai Gallery (In the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre)
6 Garamond Court, Toronto, Ontario
Gallery Hours: 12pm – 5pm, Tuesday – Sunday (closed Mondays)
Free Admission
To help celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Japanese Canadian Redress achievement, a retrospective of Nikkei artist Shizuye Takashima will take place at Toronto’s Gendai Gallery. Learning to See: Shizuye Takashima in Retrospect will run from September 8 – November 16, 2008. Curated by Yoshiko Sunahara and Maiko Tanaka, the exhibition is an opportunity to view original works by Takashima, who passed away in 2005.
Best known to many as the author and illustrator of A Child in Prison Camp (1971), Takashima was first and foremost an accomplished visual artist. Learning to See explores the full spectrum of Takashima’s life-long works, featuring selections of earlier paintings, sketches and later spiritual works.
The show includes a rare audio component with intimate responses by friends of Takashima, including Joy Kogawa, Archie Graham, Olexander Wlasenko, David Fujino and Gerry Shikitani. Art works are on loan from the Toronto Public Library’s Osbourne Collection, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Burnaby Art Gallery, and private collections.
A beautiful catalogue has also been produced to complement the exhibition. Featuring 20 full-colour reproductions of Takashima’s works on display, the Learning to See catalogue includes essays from both curators as well as art writer Kyo Maclear. It will be available for purchase at Gendai Gallery through the duration of the show.
For more information visit: www.gendaigallery.org
About Gendai Gallery:
Gendai Gallery is committed to a multi-disciplinary program encompassing visual art, design, performing arts, and literature. We encourage inter-disciplinary work, collaboration, dialogue, and art education. We challenge culturally defined distinctions between art and craft, including artisanal practices.
Gendai Gallery Mission:
“To promote excellence in primarily contemporary art & design with a curatorial emphasis on the work by Canadian & International artists of Japanese ancestry and of the larger Asian Community.”