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Sam Francis at LACMA


Sam Francis and Japan: Emptiness Overflowing | LACMA

Sam Francis, Towards Disappearance, 1957 - 58 Los Angeles County Museum of Art


Sam Francis and Japan: Emptiness Overflowing at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the first exhibition to explore the practice of American artist Sam Francis in relation to historic and contemporary Japanese art and aesthetics. Throughout his career, Frances spent extended periods of time in Japan collaborating with Japanese artists. This exhibition is the first to place Francis’s work side-by-side with Japanese art allowing visitors to see the shared pictorial and philosophical particularly the Japanese concept of “ma,” the dynamic between form and non-form. Works by contemporary Japanese artists whom Francis knew from his extensive time in Japan will also be on view. The exhibition is organized in a series of five galleries, each with its own focus. The first compares works by /Francis with historic Japanese paintings to highlight their visual similarities. The second and third reflect Francis interest in contemporary as well as historic Japanese art. A fourth gallery explores the connection between Francis’s work and East Asian calligraphy. The final gallery presents Francis’s series of Edge paintings and prints, in which his use of space finds becomes a more radical expression. A large painting dominates this gallery in which space seems to be the very subject of the untitled painting in which the main part of the work is white “framed” by varicolored edges, illustrating the Japanese concept on yohaku or “the beauty of empty space.” Sam Francis and Japan: Emptiness Overflowing | LACMA

Sam Francis, Towards Disappearance, 1957 - 58 Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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