Topologies

Curated By: Mika Yoshitake May 14, 2018 - April 15, 2019

Artists throughout the post–World War II period have been fascinated by the ways in which space can be activated. One key model has been the notion of topology (“logic of place”), which centers on the concept of geometric transformation, in which space and shape can be expanded, contracted, distorted, and twisted while the structure of the object remains constant throughout.

Installation Views

Taking this definition as a launching point, topology appeared in postwar art in the late 1960s. A turn away from the fixed structures of Euclidean geometry and empiricism, topological properties as applied in the art include connection via a breakdown of boundaries, the use of open structures, and cross-pollination of disciplines that question systems of knowledge. Movement and change, rather than a static object itself, constitutes the artwork. Topologies demonstrates how this mathematical field and its implications came into use by visual artists who were expanding systems-based practices in a variety of media around the world.

Two conceptions of topology by artists whose works are on view at The Rachofsky House provide key axes to this exhibition. In Japan, the idea was interpreted through a physics of form foundational to the Mono-ha group’s breakthrough Land art piece Phase—Mother Earth (1968) by artist Nobuo Sekine, which operates on a continuous renewal of perception through a cycle of creation and recreation. In the United States, artist Dan Graham introduced topology in his seminal essay “Subject Matter” (1969), describing perceptual effects in process-based practices in which “the spectator’s visual field . . . shifts in a topology of expansion, contraction, or skew.” Together, these ideas from different parts of the world establish the radical significance of the idea that form may remain continuous despite changes that occur over time.

Gathering more than 100 works created between 1952 and 2016 by 61 artists, Topologies offers both snapshots of particular moments in time and historical lineages that unfold over years. It draws from The Rachofsky Collection’s strong formal and conceptual holdings on international practices that emphasize process and materiality. The show expands on themes including permutation and distortion in space, inversions and other shifts in the body’s phenomenological relationship to space, material transition based on gravity and entropy, the politics of displacement, and reconceiving abject encounters between the synthetic and organic.

Topologies draws works from The Rachofsky Collection, the Dallas Museum of Art, Deedie Rose, and Jennifer and John Eagle.

Mika Yoshitake
Exhibition Curator

Mika Yoshitake is a Los Angeles-based independent curator with expertise in postwar Japanese art. She earned her MA and PhD in Art History from UCLA, which culminated in the AICA-USA award-winning exhibition and catalogue Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha (2012), introducing the late 1960s Japanese art movement, Mono-ha (School of Things) into an international context. Her most recent curatorial projects include Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s and 1990s (2019) at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles and Topologies (2018), at The Warehouse in Dallas, TX. Currently, Yoshitake is guest curator of Yoshitomo Nara, an international retrospective originating at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2020), KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature at New York Botanical Garden (2021), co-curator of a solo retrospective at M+ Hong Kong (2022) and co-curating a major exhibition on climate justice at the Hammer Museum (2024). She was previously Curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (2011–2018), where she organized Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors (2017–19), a six-venue North American tour, among numerous other exhibitions; guest curator for the 2014 International Artist in Residence program at Artpace San Antonio; curatorial liaison for Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity (2011) at the Guggenheim, New York; and project coordinator for the international tour of © MURAKAMI (2007–2009) originating at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Yoshitake has published writings on Carl Andre, Takashi Arai, Adam Helms, Donald Judd, Yayoi Kusama, Kwon Youngwoo, Lee Ufan, Shana Lutker, Takashi Murakami, Kazumi Nakamura, Yoshitomo Nara, Shōzō Shimamoto, Kishio Suga, Miwa Yanagi, among others.

INTERVIEW WITH CURATOR MIKA YOSHITAKE

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

FISSURES AND FOLDS

ACCUMULATION AND DISPERTION

GRAVITY AND GRACE

PROCESS AND TIME

LIFE AND MASS

SPECULATIVE OBJECTS

Toplogies

Topologies demonstrates how the notion of topology (“logic of place”) and its implications came into use by visual artists who were growing systems-based practices in a variety of media around the world. Exhibition curator, Mika Yoshitake’s essay expands on concepts including permutation and distortion in space, inversions and other shifts in the body’s phenomenological relationship... View Publication

Topologies

Artists

Exhibitions

Topologies

Installation Views

INTERVIEW WITH CURATOR MIKA YOSHITAKE

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

FISSURES AND FOLDS

ACCUMULATION AND DISPERTION

GRAVITY AND GRACE

PROCESS AND TIME

LIFE AND MASS

SPECULATIVE OBJECTS

Toplogies

Artists

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