Robert Yasuda
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Robert Yasuda (born 1940) is an American abstract painter, most known for contemplative, atmospheric works that straddle painting, sculpture and architecture.Goodman, Jonathan. "Robert Yasuda at Elizabeth Harris", ''Art in America'', December 2002.Brennan, Michael
"Robert Yasuda,"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', October 2006, p. 26. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
McClemont, Doug, "Robert Yasuda, Sundaram Tagore," ''ARTnews'', September 2010, p. 109. He first attracted wide attention in the 1970s for large wall works merging painting and
installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific art, site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior intervent ...
, mounted at
MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution at 2201 Jackson Avenue in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in New York City, United States. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...
, the
Corcoran Museum of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art is a former art museum in Washington, D.C., that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Founded in 1869 by philanthropist William Wilson Corcoran ...
, and
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art art gallery, museum near Water Tower Place in the Near North Side, Chicago, Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is on ...
.Perreault, John. "Report Card: P.S. 1, I Love You," ''The Soho Weekly News'', June 17, 1976.Lewis, Jo Ann. "Yasuda at the Corcoran," ''The Washington Post'', February 5, 1977.Kramer, Hilton
"Modern‐Art Museum Reopens in Chicago,"
''The New York Times'', March 24, 1979. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
Since the 1990s, he has focused on paintings that disrupt conventional formats using hand-carved wood panels and custom framing elements, upon which he builds multi-layered iridescent surfaces that respond dynamically to shifting conditions of light, time and vantage.Tully, Judd. "Luminous Illusion", ''Cover Magazine'', March 1994, p. 15.Leffingwell, Edward. "Robert Yasuda at Elizabeth Harris", ''Art in America'', December, 2004.Wei, Lilly. "Robert Yasuda: Sundaram Tagore Gallery," ''ARTnews'', June 2014, p. 99. Reviewing this later work, ''ARTnews'' critic Barbara MacAdam described Yasuda as a "romantic minimalist" whose paintings present an intangible, fleeting reality that is nonetheless referential, showing his roots in their construction, shifting tones and titles.MacAdam, Barbara A. "Robert Yasuda," ''ARTnews'', June, 2002. Yasuda has exhibited internationally, including shows at the Museo di Palazzo Grimini (Venice Biennale), Galerie Bischofberger,
Betty Parsons Gallery Betty Parsons (born Betty Bierne Pierson, January 31, 1900 – July 23, 1982) was an American artist, art dealer, and collector known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She is regarded as one of the most influential and dynamic f ...
, The Clocktower, and
Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum located adjacent to Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York, United States. The museum shows modern art and contemporary art. It is directly opposite Buff ...
, among others.Heiss, Alanna. "Duo," interview in ''DUO: Judith Murray: and Robert Yasuda'', New York/Singapore: Sundaram Tagore, 2014.Grosvenor, Robert. "Painting Wall," ''57th Street Review'', January 1976.Frank, Peter. "Bob Yasuda," ''ARTnews'', February 1977.Sundaram Tagore Gallery
''DUO: Judith Murray: and Robert Yasuda''
New York/Singapore: Sundaram Tagore, 2014.
His art belongs to the public collections of the
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
,
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
and
New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...
, among others, and he has received awards from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...
,
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...
, and John Hay Whitney Foundation.Brooklyn Museum
''Daghistan'', Robert Masao Yasuda
Collection. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
American Academy of Arts and Letters
Awards
Retrieved January 8, 2021.
He lives and works in New York City and
Sugarloaf Key Sugarloaf Key is a single island in the lower Florida Keys that forms a loop on the Atlantic Ocean side, giving the illusion of separate islands. Although frequently referred to simply and with technical accuracy as "Sugarloaf Key", this island ...
, Florida with his wife, artist Judith Murray.


Life and career

Robert Masao Yasuda was born in
Lihue Līhue () is an unincorporated community, census-designated place (CDP) and the county seat of Kauai County, Hawaii, United States. Līhue is the second-largest town on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, following Kapaa. As of the 2010 census, the ...
, Kauai, Hawaii in 1940. He spent his childhood in rural Hawaii before attending boarding high school in Honolulu, where exposure to museums and concerts influenced his decision to be an artist. In 1958, he moved to New York City to study art at the
Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...
, earning BFA and MFA degrees and immersing himself in the work of the New York School artists. In the early 1960s, he rented a vacant cafeteria on Long Island for use as a studio and began painting multi-image abstract oil paintings on canvas. These early paintings were exhibited in solo shows at Galerie Bischofberger (Zurich and St. Moritz) in 1968 and 1969. In the early 1970s, Yasuda converted a space in
SoHo SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...
into a live-work studio and began exploring themes of perception and light in minimal paintings that increasingly took on a sculptural and architectural presence.Hess, Thomas. "Across the River into P.S. 1," ''New York Magazine'', April 25, 1977. This work evolved into large-scale wall-painting installations, the first of which he mounted at Betty Parsons Gallery in 1975; Over the next decade, he created site-specific installations determined by the venue architecture at The Clocktower Gallery, MoMA PS1, Corcoran Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage.Artner, Alan. "Robert Yasuda," ''Chicago Tribune'', March 25, 1979.Levin, Kim. "Art in the Anchorage," ''The Village Voice'', May 21, 1985. Later in his career, he turned to hand-crafted multi-panel paintings in solo exhibitions at Koplin Gallery in Los Angeles (1982–8), Elizabeth Harris Gallery (New York, 1993–06), Sundaram Tagore Gallery (New York and Singapore, 2010, 2014), and David Lusk Gallery (Memphis, 2000–19), among others.''Los Angeles Times''. "Robert Yasuda" (Review), November 5, 1982.Cohen, David. "Robert Yasuda," ''The New York Sun'', February 6, 1999. He has also appeared in group shows at the
McNay Art Museum The McNay Art Museum, founded in 1954 in San Antonio, is the first modern art museum in Texas. The museum was created by Marion Koogler McNay's original bequest of most of her fortune, her important art collection and her 24-room Spanish Coloni ...
,
Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art Sailors' Snug Harbor, also known as Sailors Snug Harbor and informally as Snug Harbor, is a collection of architecturally significant 19th-century buildings on Staten Island, New York City. The buildings are set in an park along the Kill Van ...
, and
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu The Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House, formerly The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, was integrated into the Honolulu Museum of Art under this name. It was the only museum in the state of Hawaii devoted exclusively to contemporary art. The Contem ...
.Wei, Lilly
''After the Fall: Aspects of Abstract Painting Since 1970''
Staten Island, NY: Snug Harbor Cultural Center/Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, 1997. Retrieved January 12, 2021.


Work and reception

Yasuda's paintings have been described as meditative investigations of ephemerality, perception and form that slowly reveal themselves through subtle marks, alterations and color shifts in relation to changing light and viewing conditions. Throughout his career, he has defied conventional painting boundaries, introducing new spatial contexts and idiosyncratic sculptural, architectural and framing elements, frequently in multi-panel works; these elements include bowed and carved wooden panels and forms, rounded or upturned corners, and incomplete frames suggesting lintel, gate or bridge forms, among others.Frackmann, Noel. "Robert Yasuda", ''Arts Magazine'', June 1977. He employs a collage-like process that generally begins with acrylic-painted wooden structures, which he then wraps with sheer fabrics, layers again with translucent,
fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...
-like veils of pigment, and lastly, varnishes to create light-active surfaces. Over time, he has moved beyond formal minimalism toward more subjective and sensual work that seeks to visually convey moments of perception and insight, along with allusions to nature and his heritage, including impressions of Hawaii and Florida and his childhood teachings in Buddhism.


Early work and wall painting installations (1970–85)

Yasuda's early work consisted of multi-panel, often unconventionally shaped paintings and large-scale wall painting installations. His wall paintings angled off existing walls or structures in forward tilts to create new, compressed and angular spaces, distinguishing themselves as objects rather than murals. He used diagonals, simple painted motifs, subtle lines and shifts in hue to both enhance and offset these physical and spatial sensations, exploring contradictions of perspective and perception. Critic
John Perreault John Lucas Perreault (New York, New York, August 26, 1937 – September 6, 2015, New York, New York) was a poet, art curator, art critic and artist. Early life Perreault was born in Manhattan and raised in Belmar and other towns in New Jersey. H ...
wrote that the installations demonstrated "abstract art's potential for spiritual power," while ''New York Magazines Thomas Hess described the work as "an art of delicacies" developed at an architectural scale. Yasuda's installation for PS1's inaugural exhibition "Rooms" (1976) occupied two connecting rooms.MoMA PS1
"Forty,"
Exhibitions. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
In one room, he displayed a large, tilted painting inscribed with a triangle and a subtle, mirrored double above it, which was arranged to be visible through the door to the adjoining room; in the other, two tilted paintings almost as large as the original walls featured diagonals that reflected the other room's painting.Foote, Nancy
"The Apotheosis of a Crummy Space,"
''Artforum'', October 1976, p. 28–32. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
His installation at The Clocktower, ''Double Oblique'' (1977), employed four back-to-back panels in a W-formation, each divided by a diagonal running between opposite corners, which led the eye inward, outward, up or down depending on vantage point and compressed or expanded the space. In 1979, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago invited Yasuda (and four others, including
Robert Ryman Robert Ryman (May 30, 1930February 8, 2019) was an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He was best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lived and worked in New York ...
and
Lucio Pozzi Lucio Pozzi (born 1935 in Milan) is an Italian-born, American artist currently based in Hudson, New York, and Valeggio sul Mincio, Verona, Italy. He studied architecture in Rome before moving to New York City in 1962. Pozzi is a painter whose pa ...
) to create large, individual temporary visual environments directly on the museum's principal exhibition walls.Kramer, Hilton
"Art View,"
''The New York Times'', April 1, 1979. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
Burnham, Jack. "Painting Up Against the Wall," ''New Art Examiner'', May 1979. Yasuda's solo exhibitions of this time often combined installation and individual works. ''Arts Magazine'' described his 1977 Parsons Gallery exhibition as a "tour de force statement" of understated purity on the possibilities of transforming space, light and color. Using natural, artificial and reflected light and subtle color effects, the show featured slim vertical works spanning gallery corners, rectangular paired canvases suspended diagonally out from walls, and straightforward horizontal paintings with divided diagonal or horizontal areas of closely related, barely inflected peach, pink and white. In shows throughout the U.S. in the 1980s—at Albright CollegeGilmarten, David. "Wall Size Works," ''Times'' (Reading, PA), October 13, 1982. and the Thomas Babeor,Callahan, Katryn. "Robert Yasuda," ''Times Advocate'' (San Diego), November 13, 1980.Reilly, Richard. "Compositions of Visual Engineering," ''San Diego Union'', November 16, 1980. Betty Parsons,Bradley, George. "Robert Yasuda Recent Paintings," ''Arts Magazine'', May 1981. Marianne Deson,Artner, Alan. "Robert Yasuda," ''Chicago Tribune'', June 10, 1982.Artner, Alan. "Best Solo Shows, Art 1982," ''Chicago Tribune'', January 2, 1983. Hoshour,Abeyta, Ray. "Robert Yasuda: A Subtle Vision," ''New Mexico Daily Lobo'', November 17, 1981.Shields, Kathleen. "Robert Yasuda - Albuquerque Sight-Line," ''Art Space'', Spring 1982. and Koplin galleries—Yasuda evolved this work to include shield-like, irregularly shaped multi-panel works, and later, irregular framing devices.Robert Yasuda website
Paintings 1986 – 1990
Retrieved January 11, 2021.


Later work

In two exhibitions at Elizabeth Harris Gallery (1993, 1996), Yasuda presented large abstractions combining rectangular wood panels placed side-by-side or stacked, which ''New York Times'' critic Pepe Karmel compared to pairs and quartets of monochrome canvases by
Brice Marden Nicholas Brice Marden Jr. (October 15, 1938 – August 9, 2023) was an American artist generally described as minimalist, although his work has roots in abstract expressionism, color field painting. and lyrical abstraction. He lived and worked i ...
.Karmel, Pepe
"Robert Yasuda,"
''The New York Times'', February 16, 1996, p. C24. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
Critics noted in these paintings a quiet optical effect of inner light, achieved through Yasuda's alternating layers of translucent color and scrim-like, stretched fabric, the tight weave adding a grid-like formality over autumnal and spring-like shades of gray, green, tan, blue and grey. In title, these works often allude to actual locales (e.g., ''Pompeii'', ''Prairie''), but were actually painted partly ''
plein air ''En plein air'' (; French for 'outdoors'), or plein-air painting, is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein air' painting is c ...
'' in the Florida Keys summer and finished in Yasuda's New York studio. ''Cover Magazine'' wrote that despite the work's non-objective minimalism, it convincingly suggested sea air and dappled light, creating "an exotic amalgam of natural and artificial settings, of daylight and Halogen-influenced time." In the 2000s, Yasuda exhibited work at Elizabeth Harris (2002–6) and Sundaram Tagore (2010, 2014) that critics increasingly defined by its luminosity, lyricism, eccentrically shaped supports, and subtle emphasis on states of mind (''Bliss'', 2001; ''Harmony'', 2005) and ephemeral aspects of water, light, air, form and color (e.g., ''Footprint'', 1998; ''Vapor'', 2001; ''Wind'', 2002). During this period, he increasingly hand-crafted his shaped panels with refined idiosyncrasies that played with expectations and thwarted their geometric aspects to otherworldly effect: bowed supports, protruding edges, gentle curves, clefts and contoured or feathered corners that suggested impermanence and motion. In a ''Brooklyn Rail'' review, Michael Brennan writes that this hands-on craftsmanship "is essential to heworks' poetic aura," and echoing others, relates the panels to the aerodynamic shaping of surfboards, part of Yasuda's experience in his native Hawaii. Critics suggest that the disturbances in Yasuda's panel shapes offset his harmonious color treatment, at that time, mottled shades of blue, grey, green, warm pink or gold that Barbara MacAdam wrote "resemble pockets carved out of atmosphere or the surface of the ocean."Abstract Art Online. "Gallery Views/Chelsea: Robert Yasuda at Elizabeth Harris Gallery," March 20, 2002. In the middle of the decade, he increasingly turned to interference paints yielding more intense, silvery tones that shift according to vantage point and light source and were compared to the pearlescence of interior abalone shells or the iridescence of butterflies and exotic fish. He sometimes extended the sense of flickering color or back-illumination by painting the backs of his wall supports to create subtle reflected color and shadowing on walls surrounding the work. In later exhibitions, Yasuda has expanded his range, re-introducing and reworking early motifs and developing new elements. His 2006 and 2010 shows offered narrow corner paintings (e.g., ''Beacon'' 2005; ''Guardian'', 2009) that function like vertical studs or posts and appear as part of the gallery structure; Michael Brennan compared their rigor, atmospherics, and reflected iridescence to the light sculptures of
Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures. Early life and career Daniel Nicholas Flavi ...
.Cohen, David
"Gallery Going,"
''The New York Sun'', July 3, 2002. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
The latter show also featured imposing, near-monochrome panels stacked or abutted to one another, as in ''Ancestor'' (2009), a seven-foot, mint green work consisting of two pillar-like shapes; ''ARTnews'' critic Doug McClemont described such works as confident but unassuming "pearly gateways" that together created a mysterious "cathedral atmosphere." Yasuda also began augmenting his panels with strips of hand-carved black wood balanced above panels that act as architectural or framing elements (e.g., ''Thesis'', 2009; ''Vintage'', 2012; and ''Aurora'', 2013) ''ARTnewss Lilly Wei considered his 2014 show a breakthrough, whose "lush" works offered a more nuanced and fluid visual experience through an expanded palette, richer surface tonalities, and increasingly undulating contours; these included ''Botanikos'' (2013), which mixed rosy hues into translucent, oceanic green panels clefted with turquoise. With installations at the MoMA PS1 40th anniversary exhibition, "Forty" (2016, curated by
Alanna Heiss Alanna Heiss (born May 13, 1943, in Louisville, Kentucky) is the Founder and Director of Clocktower Productions, a non profit arts organization, online radio station, and program partnership with six cultural institutions in three boroughs in N ...
), and the Museo di Palazzo Grimini (2015, collateral to the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
), Yasuda revisited the wall paintings of his early career.''The New Yorker''. "MOMA PS1: Forty," July 11 & 18, 2016, p. 12. The creation of the site-specific MoMA PS1 work, ''Across the River''—a two-part, largely green backlit work that engages its room's lighting, paint surfaces and architecture— was documented in the film, ''Making Sense of It'' (2017), by Mark Ledzian.Ledzian, Mark
''Making Sense of It: Robert Yasuda @ MoMA PS1''
Films. Retrieved January 12, 2021.


Public collections and awards

Yasuda's work belongs to the public collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Library of Congress, New York Public Library,
Bass Museum The Bass Museum of Art is a contemporary art museum located in Miami Beach, Florida. The Bass Museum of Art was founded in 1963 and opened in 1964. History Early years John Bass (1891–1978) and Johanna Redlich (m. February 21, 1921) were Je ...
,
Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art is an art museum in the Oakland (Pittsburgh), Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The museum was originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was formerly located ...
,
McNay Art Museum The McNay Art Museum, founded in 1954 in San Antonio, is the first modern art museum in Texas. The museum was created by Marion Koogler McNay's original bequest of most of her fortune, her important art collection and her 24-room Spanish Coloni ...
, State Foundation for the Arts (Honolulu),
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the supp ...
,
Wadsworth Atheneum The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionism, Impressionist paintings, Hudson Riv ...
, and several higher learning institutions.McNay Art Museum
''Panorama'', Robert Yasuda, 2007
Objects. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Robert Yasuda, ''BD Sunset Break''
Collection. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
He has been recognized with two American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Awards (2016 and 2008) and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1981) and John Hay Whitney Foundation (1962).


References


External links


Robert Yasuda
official website
Robert Yasuda video interview
Blouin Artinfo, 2014
Robert Yasuda on his work for the MoMA PS1 "40" ExhibitionRobert Yasuda artist page
Sundaram Tagore Gallery
Robert Yasuda artist page
David Lusk Gallery {{DEFAULTSORT:Yasuda, Robert 21st-century American artists American abstract artists Artists from New York City Artists from Hawaii Pratt Institute alumni 1940 births Living people