Masami Teraoka: Venus and Pope

Catharine Clark Gallery
Solo Exhibition: Masami Teraoka: Venus and Pope
Publication: Ascending Chaos: The Art of Masami Teraoka 1966 – 2006
Video Project Room: Claudia Hart: Machina
February 1 – March 31, 2007

San Francisco, CA: Catharine Clark Gallery presents Venus and Pope, a solo exhibition of new oil paintings by Masami Teraoka. Debuting to the public concurrently with the exhibition is Ascending Chaos: The Art of Masami Teraoka 1966 – 2006, a forty year career retrospective publication. Published by Chronicle Books, the book features 175 color plates, a complete catalogue of Teraoka’s graphic works from 1977 to 2006, an introduction by Catharine Clark, and essays by Alison Bing, Eleanor Heartney, and Kathryn A. Hoffman. Advanced purchase of the book, signed by Masami Teraoka are available from Catharine Clark Gallery for $ 60. Masami Teraoka will be present for the opening reception. Featured in the Video Project Room is Machina, a single channel animated video by New York based artist Claudia Hart. A reception for both artists is Thursday, February 1, 5:30–7:30pm.
Masami Teraoka is widely known for early works that combine the aesthetics of traditional Japanese Edo period woodblock prints, or ukiyo-e, with products and cultural references informed by Western society. Some of his most popular early works feature popular iconography of Western corporate culture such as McDonald’s hamburgers, ice cream cones from Baskin Robbins (31 Flavors Invading Japan) and Trojan Gold Coin Condoms in combination with the aesthetics and compositional devices used by Edo era master artists such as Hokusai and Kunisada. His newest paintings expand upon Teraoka’s prescient preoccupation with globalism and hypocrisy, and his more recent concerns about American life post 9-11, and the Catholic church sex abuse scandal, through stylistic appropriation of early European Renaissance painting. Not only does he adopt the compositions and palette of Renaissance painting, but he also uses golf-leaf triptych frames to house the multi-panel paintings.
The work of Masami Teraoka has been critically reviewed and exhibited internationally. He has had solo exhibitions the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, New York), the Asian Art Museum (San Francisco, California), and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (Washington D. C.), among others. Most recently, his work was included in the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia. His work is featured in the permanent collection of more than 50 international institutions, including Tate Modern (London, United Kingdom), the Museum of Modern Art (New York, New York), de Young/Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (San Francisco, California), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, New York). He has been represented by Catharine Clark Gallery since 1997.
Video Project Room: Machina, a single channel video by Claudia Hart, incorporates the effects of interactive graphics and required nearly a year of labor intensive production. This is Hart’s first solo presentation at Catharine Clark Gallery. She lives and works in New York.