ART REVIEW : Kanemitsu Bicultural Exhibit Accents Black and White

We look to the art of Japan with a mixture of awe, admiration and boredom. Awe for the discipline and skill with which Japanese artists approach their work, admiration for the effortless good taste that seems to inform everything they do, and boredom arising from the negation of the self that permeates Japanese culture.

Discouraged from puffing themselves up into brightly colored loudmouthed peacocks, Japanese artists indulge in none of the shamelessly egotistical theatrics that make the Western art world such an entertaining circus. Consequently, they occupy a strange niche in America, which places a high premium on the persona of the artist.

Bicultural artist Matsumi Kanemitsu, the subject of a mini-retrospective at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center on view to Jan. 15, almost wiggles out of this pigeonhole, but he doesn’t quite pull it off. Born in Utah and raised and educated in Japan, the 66-year-old artist spent the ‘50s and early ‘60s in New York hanging out with Kline, De Kooning and Pollock, so he’s obviously aware that an artist needn’t be a shrinking violet here in the West. Nonetheless, his paintings--most of which are cosmic interpretations of nature--have a self-effacing diffidence that can only be described as dull.

A resident of Los Angeles since 1965, Kanemitsu’s various residences show in his work, which combines traditional Japanese sumi technique, the impassioned gestural brushwork of ‘50s action painting and the vague, entrepreneurship-cum-mysticism associated with the Pacific Rim. The recipe looks reasonably promising on paper, but Kanemitsu has a rather treacly sensibility, and his paintings often come off as the sort of mass-market Zen that appealed to the dharma bums of the Beatnik Era.

Primarily known for his colorful stain paintings, Kanemitsu has returned to a palette of black and white throughout his career, but this is the first exhibition in 30 years to focus exclusively on his non-color work. Featuring pieces from 1958 through 1988, the exhibition includes paintings, lithographs, drawings and collages, all of which show Kanemitsu to be a master of the subtle tonal range that bridges black with white.

Much of Kanemitsu’s work--the large acrylic paintings in particular--read as landscapes one moment, gestural abstraction the next, and there are great spatial dynamics in his surfaces. Juxtaposing transparent washes of paint with impenetrable passages as dense as tar, Kanemitsu invites the eye to rest for a moment on the surface of the painting where it perches comfortably on an opaque form, only to plunge into deep space when one’s gaze shifts slightly to the left, where the painting dissolves into evanescent atmosphere.

Kanemitsu is skilled at approximating the rhythms of nature, and any surfer would be happy to hang his “Pacific Series 26” on the bedroom wall. He captures the surging sensuality of the ocean quite eloquently in this painting, although it, too, is tainted with a decorative flimsiness that afflicts almost all of his work. Two circular canvases put one in mind of perceptual work of Robert Irwin, while an ink drawing titled “Mask” reads as a portrait stylized to the point of complete abstraction.

A few images here--a work on paper titled “Berendo Street Frog,” for instance--have a primitive yeastiness not normally associated with the Asian character, while a collage from 1972, titled, “New Year’s Morning,” has a bracing acidity that makes it the standout piece in the show. A ragged cylindrical shape floats in a pristine white void, threatening to spread and stain the virgin space that surrounds it. It’s an elegant metaphor for Jan. 1, when we all stand on the verge of a clean New Year that is for one brief moment, free of grimy footprints.