Oscar Oiwa

Time and Place

All artists must contend with art history. Some do it by adopting classical forms; some do it by subverting them. Others grapple with history by rejecting it, which is still a form of engagement.

In this body of work by Oscar Oiwa, we find an altogether unique approach, a conceptual meeting of the past and the present. In a practice that utilizes time travel, role playing, writerly conjecturing, and sheer artistic technique, Oiwa transposes himself into some of the headiest milieus that art history has to offer.

From times and places like Paris in 1910, Milan in 1925, Mexico in 1934, and São Paulo in 1956, Oiwa cleverly reveals his own annotated history of twentieth-century art. What are the most important movements and milestones to Oiwa? They are represented by the places he chooses to go in his fantasies. Osaka in 1959, New York in 1965, Tokyo in 1992… these are the moments that stand out to Oiwa in his subjective chronology.

There’s a virtual pantheon here too, located in the fictive element Oiwa brings to this project. Each work carries a complementary text in which, with irony and wit, we meet characters such as Pablo Picasso, Giacomo Balla, Diego Rivera, and Andy Warhol. Not only is Oiwa lucky enough to trip through time—he also manages to get involved with the prime movers wherever he goes!

Each era and location is expressed by Oiwa in two different forms of media. First there are masterful, large-scale oil paintings that portray the art studio he would have had in each of his chosen times. Through meticulous detail and subtle stylistic variations, Oiwa shows us the ideal workspace eight times over.

Complementing the visions in the paintings are 3D digital renderings of each space, which place an avatar of Oiwa himself in them. These uncanny scenes of temporal dislocation, accompanied by uniquely tailored soundtracks from seven-time Grammy nominee Zé Luis, are like daydreams given life. Each digital studio will be sold as an animated NFT, imparting these imagined pasts a solid element of virtual contemporaneity.

The capstone to this series is Oiwa’s painting and rendering of his current studio space in Long Island City, New York, where he has been working for the past ten years. This completes our journey through history by landing us in the present day. In that part of the city, which has undergone rapid and alarming gentrification, Oiwa plans to hold strong and continue making his work, synthesizing then and now.

Oscar Oiwa was born in São Paulo, Brazil. He received his B.F.A. (1989) from the School of Architecture and Urbanism, São Paulo University. He experienced contemporary art during this time in nearby galleries and became an assistant at the São Paulo Art Biennial. Oiwa held his first solo exhibition while he was still in college and thereafter participated in the 21st São Paulo Art Biennial (1991). He has received several awards including Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2001) and Asian Cultural Council in 2002. Recently (2019) received the Medal of Honor from His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Japan. He currently lives and works in New York City. His works has been shown widely throughout the United States, South America, Asia, and Europe., including solo exhibitions in institutions like: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2007), Japan House São Paulo (2019) , Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (2019), University of Southern California Pacific Asia Museum(2020), Maison de la culture du Japon in Paris (2020), among others. Selected public collections: The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (Tokyo), Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (Tokyo), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), Yokohama Museum of Art (Kanagawa), Toyota Municipal Museum(Aichi), Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art(Hiroshima), Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art(Hyogo), 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa(Ishikawa), Utsunomiya Museum of Art (Tochigi), Phoenix Museum of Art(Arizona), Arizona State University Art Museum (Arizona), University of Southern California Pacific Asia Museum, University of São Paulo Museum of Contemporary Art (São Paulo).