JAPANESE TEXT
Judith Stone's series "Tokyo/Upsurge" seeks to recreate the charged quality
of Tokyo life as the artist discovered it during a year spent in Japan from
August, 1986 to August 1987. The year fell in a boom period in Japanese
commercial and cultural life. Stone retains the medium, graphite, that has generated
her drawings since 1977, as well as the central motif: construction machinery,
clear and universal metaphor for growth and change. A second stratum of
photographic imagery, perceived through tinted Plexiglas panes or embedded in plexi
boxes, locates the surging urban expansion in a Tokyo of startling commercial
energy. In contrast, lacquered metal 'found objects', construction site debris
saved from the stay, suggest rare imperfections discovered in an otherwise
flourishing urban environment. This exhibit, the initial stage of a long term,
more expansive project, focusses primarily on the omnipresent consumer Mecca,
the department store, a singularly opulent phenomenon in '80's Tokyo. Photos of
dazzling window displays reveal a pervasive paradox in Tokyo life: a longing
to both emulate Western ways and to remain, at the same time, utterly Japanese;
the distinctly Japanese take on the Bauhaus-generated urban tower is here as
well. The lean vertical pieces in their housing combine to communicate the
high-voltage 'otherness' of the Tokyo cityscape for stunned Westerners.
"Broken Sun "
"Temple Bell I"
"Nightfall"
"Temple Bell II"
