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Indepth Arts News:
"Foujita. A Japanese Artist"
2003-08-31 until 2003-10-31
Fondazione Prada
Milan, ,
IT Italy
Under the auspices of the municipality of Milan, the Fondazione Prada and
the Teatro alla Scala are organizing an exhibition entitled Foujita. A
Japanese Artist at the Teatro alla Scala, to be held in the new Prada
Epicenter, from 31 August to 31 October. The event is linked to the Teatro alla Scala's visit to Tokyo from 31
August to 17 September 2003, during which two operas by Giuseppe Verdi will
be performed: Macbeth at the Bunka Kaikan Theatre and Otello at the NHK
Theatre, both with the Scala's choir and orchestra conducted by Mo Riccardo
Muti.
Curated by Vittoria Crespi Morbio, the exhibition is intended to pay
tribute to Foujita's work for the theatre, which, although still little
known, is now being rediscovered and studied. For the celebrated production
of Madama Butterfly at the Scala in 1951, the artist realized not only the
costume drawings and set designs, but also all the details of the
decorations; in addition, he chose the colours of the fabrics for the
costumes. So successful was this version of the opera that it was staged on
six occasions from 1952 to 1971.
The exhibition, designed by Pierluigi Cerri, will be housed in the Event
Space on the sixth floor of the Prada Epicenter, which was conceived by
Herzog & de Meuron and inaugurated last June. Constituting a foretaste of
the celebrations planned for 2004 to mark the centenary of the first
performance of Giacomo Puccini's famous opera (Teatro della Scala, 1904),
the exhibition will include about thirty of the original costumes - made
from hand-painted silk and thus extremely refined and delicate - from the
production of Madama Butterfly in 1951.
In 1913 Foujita (Edogawa, Tokyo 1886 - Zurich 1968) moved to Paris, where
he spent much of the rest of his life, earning the epithet 'the most
Parisian of the Japanese painters'. A friend of other famous expatriate
artists in Paris, such as Chaïm Soutine, Marc Chagall and Amedeo
Modigliani, from 1925 he developed his own personal style in which he
blended western elements with features of Japanese art, becoming well-known
for his nudes and compositions combining still-life and figures. His works
are to be found in the collections of many of the world's leading museums,
including the British Museum in London, the Musée National d'Art Moderne de
la Ville de Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
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