The Un-Austere Beauty of Takako Yamaguchi
Takako Yamaguchi, Procession , 2024. Courtesy of the artist; Ortuzar, New York; and as-is.la, Los Angeles Takako Yamaguchi's work was a standout at the 2024 Whitney Biennial and in recent historical surveys of Pattern and Decoration (2019) and Photorealism (2024) at MOCA. Now MOCA Grand Ave. is showing ten of her recent "Seascapes" as an installment of its rebooted Focus series. It's Yamaguchi's first solo museum exhibition in her adopted hometown. A Japanese citizen living in Santa Monica, Yamaguchi began making art in the 1970s, the age of peak minimalism and conceptualism. Her goal was to "sidestep such then-mainstream positions in contemporary art as 'the tough,' 'the ugly,' 'the angry'…" Takako Yamaguchi, Crocheted Top , 2012-2017. Collection of Brad and Cynthia Thiel Yamaguchi works in series, each so different that it could be taken as the work of a distinct artist. Such paintings as Crocheted Top and Untitled (2) ...
