{"id":36229,"date":"2017-03-04T07:50:27","date_gmt":"2017-03-04T13:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=36229"},"modified":"2018-09-09T07:55:43","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T13:55:43","slug":"lydia-okumura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/lydia-okumura\/","title":{"rendered":"Between Force and Fragility: Lydia Okumura and the gendered nuances of Minimalist sculpture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Between Force and Fragility
\n<\/span>Lydia Okumura and the gendered nuances of Minimalist sculpture
\n<\/em><\/span>by Scotti Hill<\/span><\/p>\n

When writing about sculpture, critics often use inadvertently masculine vernacular, expending such terms as \u201cdominant\u201d or \u201cforceful\u201d in describing a work\u2019s construction and effect. While feminist scholars are right to point out how such terminology perpetuates art history\u2019s highly patriarchal cannon, it\u2019s perhaps also uncommon to connote femininity with steel, wire and aluminum sculptures. Additionally, modern sculpture\u2019s use of industrial materials evokes a decidedly romantic notion of masculine middle class labor, one that artists like Jackson Pollock and Carl Andre used to posit themselves as the artistic \u201ceveryman.\u201d This is why, perhaps more so than any other artistic medium, sculpture is wrought with gendered nuances and contradictions.<\/p>\n

Lydia Okumura\u2019s\u00a0Situations<\/em>, now on view at Weber State University\u2019s Shaw Gallery, is a breathtaking exhibition that concentrates the artist\u2019s 50-plus-year career in modest but powerful form. In her first exhibition west of the Mississippi,\u00a0Situations<\/em>\u00a0debuts a remarkable assortment of sculptures and works on paper from throughout the artist\u2019s career. The visual magnificence of Okumura\u2019s work is blinding, effectively demolishing any remnant of gender, race or nationality.<\/p>\n

Born to a Japanese immigrant family in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, Okumura is much less known in the United States \u2014 where she has maintained a studio in New York City for decades \u2014 than in her native Brazil. The exhibit is the curatorial accomplishment of Rachel Adams, senior curator of exhibitions at the University of Buffalo (UB). \u201cI came across Lydia\u2019s work in March 2015\u2026when my good friend and curator Jennie Lamensforf sent me a picture of \u2018Untitled I\u2019 from 1981, a blue corner piece [that] was on view at the Independent Fair in NYC at her gallery\u2019s booth,\u201d Adams recounts. After seeing the image, Adams \u201cimmediately looked up Lydia\u2019s work and fell into an Internet wormhole-trying to find out as much as I could about her and her work. It just spoke to me so strongly,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

After moving to New York in 1974, Okumura labored intensely on her craft while simultaneously working as a freelance interpreter and a translator for the United Nations. Following a prolonged experimentation with largely monochromatic pieces, she began incorporating color into her works starting in the 1990s. While Okumura has enjoyed a number of solo and group exhibitions in New York, Brazil and Japan, the UB show marks the artist\u2019s first solo museum exhibition.<\/p>\n

Her use of materials was at least initially fueled by mere necessity. Living and working in a small studio in New York City, she used found materials and experimented with ideas through elaborate sketches, hoping to be afforded the spatial luxury of transforming these works into three-dimensional sculptures. What may have begun as preparatory sketches eventually became works of art in their own right, capturing both the artist\u2019s elaborate thought process and the visual dynamism of her mark making. By reconstructing works from her storied career,\u00a0Situations<\/em>\u00a0captures Okumura\u2019s methodical obsession with geometric forms, namely the combination between crisp line and bold color.<\/p>\n

Emblematic of her accomplishments is \u201cLabyrinth,\u201d first realized at Museu de Arte Moderna, S\u00e3o Paulo, in 1984. It is a colossal, multicolored sculpture that stands valiantly tall and is coiled on either end. Forged from stainless-steel wire mesh and acrylic paint, the translucent material allows one to both see through it and walk within it, creating a beautifully transcendental experience. It is perhaps this ethereal quality that denotes a certain femininity to her work, which serves as a stark contrast to the brute solidity of a stereotypically masculine work such as Richard Serra\u2019s weathering steel \u201cTorques Spiral.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the exhibition, visitors encounter Okumura\u2019s conceptual geometric experiments. \u201cDifferent Dimensions of Reality II,\u201d from 1972, is an installation of nine powder-coated aluminum plates combined with acrylic paint. Configured in an inverted \u201cT\u201d shape, the series calls to mind Sol LeWitt\u2019s \u201cIncomplete Open Cubes\u201d of 1974, which, however, it predates by two years. The works utilize the muted tones Okumura incorporates in many of her two-dimensional works, which serve as a starkly attractive backdrop atop which subtle black shapes are placed.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the inclusion of brightly colored planes gives the triptych \u201cDiagram of Dimensions A, B, C,\u201d (gouache and pencil on paper, 1978), a passionate intensity in otherwise meticulous geometric exercises. These exercises are studies for larger works that often use two-dimensional drawings to highlight the implied volume in a space \u2014 in a piece like \u201cPS1,\u201d from 1980, Okumura transfers these drawings to the corner of an exhibition space, where, seen from the correct angle, like the skull in Holbein\u2019s \u201cAmbassadors,\u201d they create a mental sense of massive volume, both solid and transparent.<\/p>\n

Viewers are likely to enjoy the glass piece \u201cIn Front of Light,\u201d first constructed at the International Biennial of Sao Paulo in 1977. The work\u2019s optical intersections of glass planes held together by long strings are dizzying, making it nearly impossible for one\u2019s eye to depart.<\/p>\n

Okumura\u2019s work presents an aesthetically tantalizing contradiction between force and fragility. With this in mind, Okumura\u2019s placement\u00a0within<\/em>, or, rather, a critical and unjust absence\u00a0from<\/em>\u00a0the Minimalist movement becomes apparent. Her conceptual geometric experiments rival her cross-national contemporaries and deserve additional critical exploration and adulation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between Force and Fragility Lydia Okumura and the gendered nuances of Minimalist sculpture by Scotti Hill When writing about sculpture, critics often use inadvertently masculine vernacular, expending such terms as \u201cdominant\u201d or \u201cforceful\u201d in describing a work\u2019s construction and effect. While feminist scholars are right to point out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 14:19:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36229"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36234,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36229\/revisions\/36234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}