The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Hosts Emerging Artist Hiro Sakaguchi

Written by Carmen Pedregal Wednesday, 04 April 2012 23:08

Philadelphia, PA.- The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts is proud to presents "Hiro Sakaguchi: No Particular Place To Go", on view at the museum until August 28th. The series of exhibitions by emerging artists continues with a presentation of works by Philadelphia artist Hiro Sakaguchi. A 1996 graduate of PAFA, Sakaguchi creates fictional worlds in drawings, paintings, and sculptures where human endeavor and interconnections are juxtaposed with natural forces in images that explore the tension between dreams and reality. In Sakaguchi’s world, the violent event is defused and diffused through the miraculous transformations that drawing and painting can effect. The ammunition shot from tanks and planes in "Explosion Flowers" (2010) bursts into a bouquet of colorful blooms, while a volcano erupts in "Secret of Mt. Asama" (2010) like an engine spitting jetliners into the sky and taking passengers to far off places.

And while, at first, Sakaguchi’s approach might appear whimsical, it is his deliberate disruption of scale and deployment of faux naïf narratives that allow his works to speak openly to the question of how we live and how we imagine we should live. Blending his rigorous education in Western painting with influences from popular comic strips and animation, Sakaguchi composes a collage of the world from found and seen imagery, as well as from observation and memory.” A native of Japan and living in the States, it is as if Hiro Sakaguchi occupies a space between these two places. It can be thought of as a hybrid space that, while it opens onto both east and west, finds its center in his imagination. Bearing this in mind, Sakaguchi’s exhibition title, No Particular Place to Go, is not so much a commentary on being excluded from his native or adopted lands but, rather, an acknowledgment of his open fascination with wandering between them and absorbing all their influences.


Like his watercolor The Climber (2007), Sakaguchi is a traveler on the wing of an aircraft overlooking both the Matterhorn and Mount Fuji. However, while he finds his identity in the conjunction of these two signs, his relationship to the two monoliths is suffused with a nonchalance that ties him to neither. Born in Nagano Prefecture, Sakaguchi grew up in Tokyo, Japan, and in his twenties came to the United States to pursue a scholarship in the fine arts. A resident of Philadelphia since 1990, in 1993 he obtained a Bachelor's degree from The University of the Arts and in 1996 he was awarded an MFA from PAFA, where he presently teaches in the Continuing Education Program. Sakaguchi has exhibited extensively in the US, Europe, and Japan and is represented by Seraphin Gallery in Philadelphia.

Through the rare combination of spectacular galleries, an internationally known school of fine arts, and their public programs, the Academy strives to provide students and visitors alike with a unique and thrilling experience. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a national leader in fine arts education that brings together artists and the public through exceptional teaching programs, a world-class collection of American art, major exhibitions, and widely accessible public programs. A rare combination of a world-class museum and school of fine arts, PAFA will be a defining voice for education in the evolving traditions and cultural diversity of the fine arts in America. PAFA's museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th- and 20th-century American paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. Its archives house important materials for the study of American art history, museums, and art training. Since its founding in 1805, PAFA has been committed to fostering and collecting American art. Scholars have deemed PAFA’s one of the world’s three best collections of American art for its depth, breadth, and quality.With a collection of nearly 1,800 paintings, PAFA owns some of the most important and recognizable works in American art, including works by Benjamin West, Gilbert Stuart, Charles Willson Peale and Winslow Homer. The paintings collection is renowned for its holdings from the Federal period, including works by the Peale family, numerous portraits by Gilbert Stuart and Thomas Sully, and a fine collection of portrait miniatures. Works from the late 19th century, when American artists began working in a more international style, constitute one of the high points of the Academy's collection. Paintings bv William Merritt Chase, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, John Twachtman, Theodore Robinson, Childe Hassam, Henry O. Tanner, Cecilia Beaux and Thomas Eakins are among the most significant examples. In the early 20th century, the Academy collected works by some of its famous alumni, including Robert Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, Everett Shinn and George Luks, all of whom were connected with the Ashcan School.


Twentieth century developments in abstraction are documented in the collection by artists such as Arthur B. Carles, Florine Stettheimer, Stuart Davis, Georgia O'Keeffe, Ben Shahn, Jack Levine, Mark Rothko, Jacob Lawrence and Richard Diebenkorn. As a school synonymous with the figurative tradition, the Academy's collections also are rich in the works of 20th-century representational artists such as Edward Hopper, Guy Pène du Bois, Reginald Marsh, Isabel Bishop, Thomas Hart Benton, Alfred Leslie, Philip Pearlstein, Andrew Wyeth and Bo Bartlett. PAFA houses more than 12,000 works on paper, including drawings, watercolors, pastels and all media of printmaking. The Academy's collection is highlighted by noteworthy works by some of America's most important artists such as John Singleton Copley, John James Audubon, Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, Maxfield Parrish, John Sloan, George Bellows, John Marin, Charles Demuth, Charles Burchfield, Andrew Wyeth, Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol. Sculpture has been an intrinsic part of the Academy since its founding in 1805. With more than 300 works ranging from 1780 to the present, the Academy's sculpture collection is particularly notable for its portrait busts, neoclassical marble sculpture, French-inspired bronze figures, direct carvings in stone and wood and the overall variety of materials and techniques represented. William Rush, one of the three artists connected with the formation of PAFA, was also one of the nation's first sculptors, representative of the American craft tradition aspiring to European fine arts. The Academy holds several notable works by Rush, including a masterful self-portrait. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.pafa.org/Museum

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