An exhibition featuring the painterly, diagrammatic drawings by Japanese architect and artist Shusaku Arakawa has opened at the Gagosian gallery in New York.
Diagrams for the Imagination showcases the paintings Arakawa created while working as an artist in New York City between 1965 and 1984 ? predating his architectural career.
Ealan Wingate, the director of Gagosian New York, spent the last four years gathering the material for the exhibit. Many of the works had been placed in storage in the late 1980s and have rarely been exhibited to the public since.
Diagrams of the Imagination features the drawings Arakawa created while working as artist in New York
"This is the first time in all these years to look at the paintings," Wingate told Dezeen. "It's not that I've been holding onto it and waiting for the moment. It finally happened that the moment could come." Described by Wingate as a "major artist", Arakawa typically used a mixture of paint, ink and graphite to create abstract, graphical diagrams on paper and canvas. The works are often peppered with text, eye-exam charts, arrows and scales.
"These paintings are diagrammatic and he has referred to them as diagrams of the mind," Wingate said.
Ealan Wingate, the director of the Gagosian's New York gallery, spent four years gathering material for the showcase
While the artworks were created before Arakawa's architecture endeavours, which began in the 1990s, some of the paintings nod t...