THIS IS THE PLACE FOR DISCOVERIES AND DISCUSSIONS OF THE MOST INVENTIVE ART FORMS – ALL KINDS OF ART THAT IS FAR-OUT, FANTASTIC, FREE-SPIRITED, FUN, FUNKY, PHENOMENAL AND GOOD FOR THE SOUL. (MAMA CALLED IT SUI GENERIS)
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WITH SMOKE FROM CANADA’S WILDFIRES SPREADING ACROSS NORTH AMERICA, RIOTS AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY ERUPTING IN FRANCE, AND THE HOT-HEADED, UNELECTED, RADICALLY CONSERVATIVE JUSTICES OF THE CORRUPT U.S. SUPREME COURT ROLLING BACK AMERICANS’ BASIC RIGHTS, IT ALREADY LOOKS AS THOUGH A LONG, HOT SUMMER IS IN STORE. MAY A GENTLE SUMMER RAIN HELP TURN DOWN THE HEAT!
IN THIS ISSUE, DON'T MISS THESE FEATURES
Editor’s Letter
What the heck is brutjournal?
by Edward M. Gómez
by Edward M. Gómez
On the road
The percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani recalls the development of his innovative sound, his touring performer’s life, and the hand-crafting of his distinctive Kōbō Bows, which are made for percussion.
by Sarah Fensom
by Sarah Fensom
New York
On this month’s HOME PAGE, don’t miss our photo-filled report about the discovery of the work of the self-taught artist Shirley Cohen, a home-maker who died in 2019 after producing a strange oeuvre that absorbed modernism’s styles with dramatic twists.
by Edward M. Gómez
by Edward M. Gómez
Enduring abstraction
Minoru Yoshida (1935–2010) was a member of Japan’s post-WWII, avant-garde Gutai artists’ group. A recent New York exhibition introduced his little-known, three-dimensional paintings.
VANISHING MOVIE PALACES: GOING, GOING, GONE
The Texas-based photographer and cultural historian David Ensminger has been traveling through the American South documenting yet another vanishing icon of popular culture and the urban scene: movie theaters. A photo portfolio that will make only-streamers scratch their heads in wonder.
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SHIRLEY COHEN’S ART: COLOR, HOPE, AND IDEALISM
The self-taught artist Shirley Cohen, who died in 2019 at the age of 97, created abstract and semi-abstract paintings, murals, and experimental works on glass. Informed by the progressivism of the FDR era, her art conveys a spirit of humanism, joy, and aspiration.
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“CHRYSALIDE”: CELEBRATING THE LIBERATING POWER OF SELF-TRANSFORMATION AND BIG, BOLD CHANGE
A recent exhibition at the Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève in Geneva, Switzerland, examined the multifaceted subject of transformation from points of view at once artistic and spiritual. Its accompanying catalogue — to be published soon — expands upon this central theme. Coming soon.
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HEADS UP: AN ARTIST’S EARLY, ENIGMATIC PORTRAITS
Many years ago, the London-based artist Cathy Ward found herself using the laundry room of an abandoned housing-project building as a studio, where, inspired by and in defiance of the gloom, she produced a series of boldly colored, small portraits. An artist’s recollection of a long-ago creative moment...
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CAI GUO-QIANG IN TOKYO: LOOKING BACK AT IT ALL
Earlier in his career, the Chinese-born artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who is known for using fire and gunpowder to create spectacular artworks and events, lived and worked in Japan. Now, a big, career-spanning retrospective has opened at the National Art Center, Tokyo — and it’s hot. Our photo-filled report, coming soon.
MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN: IN HUNGARY, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE ROMANI ARTIST JANÓ BARI
Between them, brutjournal contributor Daniel Wojcik and his colleague, the Hungarian scholar István Povedák, are specialists in folklore, indigenous art and customs, cultural anthropology, and traditional and modern mythologies. Here, based on research they’ve been doing in Hungary, they share their report about a most colorful art-maker.
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