MAEKAWA II is Axel Vervoordt Gallery’s second publication on the Japanese artist Tsuyoshi Maekawa (1936). While MAEKAWA I focuses on his works from the 1960s, the time he was a member of the Gutai Art Association, this monograph aims to shed light on his post-Gutai activity during the 1970s. The 1970s were a difficult period for the former members of the Gutai group to maintain their identities as artists. The sudden death of the group’s leader Jiro Yoshihara in 1972 seems to have caused them a great deal of anxiety about their future. There is something truly amazing about the way in which Maekawa’s art developed during the seventies. With every exhibition, his efforts grew increasingly profound as he freely manipulated burlap and sewed it into complex waveforms, squares and triangles. Having fallen in love with the texture of burlap fabric, Maekawa had been working during the 1970s with sewn burlap as a material, making abstract relief works, many of them dyed with various shades of colour.

“Maekawa sprays colour on the fabric in places, and its rugged, tactile texture and colours that lack gloss, yet seem imbued with moisture, resonate with the linear forms, producing an outpouring of deep yet cosily familiar emotion, beautifully imbuing this unique material with an inner life to elevate it to the realm of universal human expression.” (Masaru Aguro on page 22)
By hand of historical documentations, photographs and writings, this publication aims to illustrate and explore the richness of the material in the artist’s body of work during the seventies. Published by Axel Vervoordt Gallery in collaboration with AsaMer, an imprint of MER. Paper Kunsthalle, this hardcover book is published in March 2017 in English.