Courtesy of artist and Alison Bradley Projects.
Alison Bradley Projects
526 W. 26th Street, Suite 814
New York, NY 10001
December 13, 2023 - February 24, 2024
Artist reception on January 11, 2024
Alison Bradley Projects is pleased to announce TAMIKO KAWATA, a solo-presentation of groundbreaking sculpture, works on paper, and site-specific installation defining the artist’s trajectory over six decades. On view from December 13th, the exhibition runs until February 24th, with an artist reception on January 11, 2024.
New York-based artist Tamiko Kawata (b. Kobe, 1936) came of age in postwar Japan: a climate in which resistance to predominant gender roles and class hierarchies of the era became core to both her personal and professional mission. She received her BA in Sculpture at the University of Tsukuba / Tokyo University of Education, developing a practice conceptually informed by the avant-garde aesthetic philosophies and movements of the post-war period, including Dadaism, Bauhaus, and Gutai, particularly in their use of unconventional and socially symbolic media. After graduating in 1959, Kawata worked as an artist-designer with Kagami Crystal Glass Works in Tokyo and, as the company’s first woman designer, earned the second highest salary in the nation, and the highest national women’s salary at age 23. In 1961, the artist immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City in 1962, working as the arts and crafts curator of the Japan External Trade Organization.