Word: rimers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Perhaps it was natural that Japanese artists should return the compliment; anyhow it was inevitable, once the traditional isolation of Japan was broken by the Emperor Meiji's decree, in 1868, that "knowledge shall be sought throughout the world." As J. Thomas Rimer points out in a fascinating catalog essay to this show, the teaching of Western art in Meiji Tokyo began in 1876 mainly as a "scientific" discipline. But before long the bizarre techniques of the mysterious Occident developed their own momentum for Japanese artists, and particularly the Western way of depicting forms by smearing a kind of sticky...
...restaurant, or a porch; it simply but effectively divides up the stage to focus attention Kornetsky's tableaux. Reflecting off the background windows, the lighting works with the set to emphasize the moments of tension. But what really makes the staging work is Kornetsky's blocking, which moves Rimer's many characters between the floating planes to create trompe d'oeil illusions of depth...
...little kindling is laid down for the fires that burst up. Wilson succeeds in giving his audience a jaundiced, disturbing look at the background of village life. But what might have made effective background serves as Rimer's meat and potatoes. In place of characters, the audience gets caricatures: the gossipy old women (Suzanne Vine and Ilana Hardesty) knitting the scenes together: the gushing, pouting hot-pink bobby-soxer (Alexandra Loeb); the broad Mid-western accents of a farmer (Paul Breenhalgh); the fire-and-brimstone preacher and judge (both by Paul Erickson). There are so many roles that the caricatures...