Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1387793
ART NOTES Clockwise from top left: Daniel Johnston's What Makes You Think You're the One?, circa 1978, at Ro2 Art. Tomoo Gokita's My Friend, 2021, at Dallas Contemporary. © Tomoo Gokita, Photo by Kenji Takahashi. S ummer in the city means international debuts, a promising new gallery that looks East, one of Texas' late greats (and most iconoclastic Whitney Biennial entrants), and a centuries- spanning blockbuster that is defined by its timeless serenity. First up, the Kimbell Art Museum has just unveiled "Buddha, Shiva, Lotus, Dragon: The Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection at Asia Society" (through September 5). Among the globe's most celebrated troves of Asian art, the Rockefeller Collection is distinguished by rarity, refined aesthetics, and understated beauty. Encompassing ceramics, bronzes, and metalwork, the collection was assembled between the 1940s and 1970s by the late couple, who bestowed their treasures upon the Asia Society, New York. Of special significance among the nearly 70 masterworks that make their way to Fort Worth are sculptures of the Buddhist and Hindu faith imbued with a sense of spiritual grace. Asia continues on our mind, with a North American museum debut for Tokyo-based painter Tomoo Gokita at the Dallas Contemporary curated by the DC's executive director, Peter Doroshenko (through August 22). Coincidentally, Gokita is friends with Nara, whose exhibition is also on view through August 22. Gokita's hypnotic, hermetic figuration challenges viewers to look closely and bask in these large-scale works' deft abstraction. Doroshenko first encountered the artist's work a decade ago, thanks to an introduction by Mary Boone. On why he's bringing the show to Dallas, Doroshenko says, "Gokita's work is important, and has never been seen in a U.S. museum exhibition. Any dialogue between both exhibitions [Gokita and Nara] would be a great intellectual exercise in what is contemporary painting today." Speaking of cracking open an art-world discourse, a Richardson-raised dealer returns from Asia, where he ran PR and digital strategy at Perrotin's Asian phalanx of galleries; he also served as associate publisher for ArtAsiaPacific. Cue Peter Augustus Owen, who interjects internationalism and new art life into a historic storefront space in Expo Park at 830 Exposition Avenue. On view now is a solo for Japanese painter Joji Nakamura (July 10 - August 28), following Owen's successful grand opening for the portraits of Ryoichi Nakamura, which addressed the internment of Japanese- Americans by the U.S. government during World War II. Also, shop PAO Mart, with its nifty trove of collectibles, artist books, and zines. Wrap the season at Ro2 Art in The Cedars with the late Whitney Biennial-exhibited artist and cult musician Daniel Johnston (through July 31). Johnston is bound for a major reappraisal this September at the Austin Contemporary with his first museum solo. (His life and art was also the subject of an award-winning Sundance Film Festival documentary in 2005.) Jordan Roth in collaboration with the artist's sister Marjory Johnston organized this important survey for Johnston, who was a fave of Kurt Cobain. With his outsider/visionary sensibility, Johnston's retrospective, his first ever and largest exhibit to date, spans 1978 to 2019, encompassing drawings and collages populated with his personal cosmology, one that has been compared to 18th/19th- century mystic William Blake. Catherine D. Anspon Peter Augustus Owen at PAO Projects. PHOTO THOMAS GARZA 22