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MARCH | PAGE 49 | 2015 HOTARTTOPICS FROM A BOXER TO A BLOCKBUSTER — THE NEW JAPANESE WAVE, THE MEADOWS' MASTERPIECE ANNIVERSARY, PLUS MOVES BY POWER GALLERISTS. CATHERINE D. ANSPON DOES THE ROUNDUP. THE NEW POWER PAIR MEADOWS MILESTONE: SOLID GOLD A lthough Dallas has the Crow Collection of Asian Art, Houston is usually perceived as being more international. Until now. This spring breaks down that myth with two game-changing exhibitions of post-war Japanese art arriving with much fanfare. The Dallas Museum of Art is the only venue worldwide for "Between Action and the Unknown: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Sadamasa Motonaga," a blockbuster that remakes the history of modern and contemporary art — with not just a new chapter, but a fresh volume (through July 19). The exhibition stars a pair of painters/performers who were about as avant-garde as you can get: Shiraga (1924 – 2008) and Motonaga (1922 – 2011) were identified with the Gutai Art Association (active 1954 – 1972, based in Western Japan around Osaka), but after the group disbanded, they continued on with radical performative painting. Shiraga is known for attacking his canvases with his feet, while Motonaga tapped into water and smoke for his process, then later got into some sultry hard-edged abstraction. The DMA's Gabriel Ritter — who arrived at the museum in 2012 after living in Tokyo for a Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellowship — co-curated the blockbuster with colleague Koichi Kawasaki, former chief curator of the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan. The exhibition represents an international collaboration between co-organizers, the DMA and the Japan Foundation in Tokyo … Meanwhile, Kirk Hopper Fine Art brings in Japanese-born, NYC-based contemporary duo Noriko and Ushio Shinohara for "Cutie and the Boxer in Dallas" (March 7 – April 11) (Want to get prepped for the show? Watch the Sundance- winning doc Cutie and the Boxer, which details marital trials, artistic tribulations and eventual triumph.) The internationally exhibited pair's star is white hot, with Ushio recently gracing the cover of ArtNews for his boxing action painting and Noriko now being recognized for her lyrical, autobiographical drawings. Clockwise from left: Kazuo Shiraga's Tenshosei Botsuusen, 1960, at Dallas Museum Ushio Shinohara's Green and White on Purple, 2014, at Kirk Hopper Fine Art Noriko Shinohara's It Was a Beautiful Night, 2013, at Kirk Hopper Fine Art Sadamasa Motonaga's Piron Piron, 1975, at Dallas Museum of Art HERE COMES THE JAPANESE AVANT-GARDE THE RACHOFSKY COLLECTION, © HISAO SHIRAGA COURTESY THE ARTIST AND KIRK HOPPER COLLECTION MIE PREFECTURAL ART MUSEUM © ESTATE OF SADAMASA MOTONAGA COURTESY THE ARTIST AND KIRK HOPPER FINE ART Like racehorses in the Derby, two Dallas gallerists have pulled ahead of the pack, decamping from the Dragon Street corridor while keeping to the all- important Design District track. In January, respected dealers Holly Johnson and Cris Worley ramped up their square footage and relocated. Both have opened eponymous new galleries with expansive, skylit interiors, in freshly renovated spaces that previously served the design industry. At 3,800 square feet, Cris Worley Fine Arts more than doubles the size of Worley's previous gallery; the relocated Holly Johnson Gallery is equally vast. Here's the intriguing part: Johnson and Worley — key members of Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas (CADD) and long-standing exhibitors at the Dallas Art Fair — are now neighbors. Their adjoining suites at 1845 Levee Street are close to the Dallas Contemporary and Goss-Michael Foundation action (not to mention the heralded new burger joint Rodeo Goat), with views of the Trinity Levee out their back doors. With this relocation, their importance as power players skyrockets — a natural progression, perhaps, given Johnson's three decades in the biz (10 years with her own gallery) and Worley's decade and a half dealing fine art, on her own since 2010. The pair have amplified their stables and now share grand opening nights (along with other CADD galleries in the Design District). Worley is trying out some new talent; her grand opening group show, "Studio Visit – 1.2," debuted works by guest artists Colette Copeland, Timothy Harding and Patrick Turk. Copeland's wrestling videos tongue-in-cheekily star the artist herself in the trope of the Victorian woman. Fort Worth-based Harding's nifty installation employed his signature, disarmingly clumsy canvases alongside some light- based works. Turk, recruited from Houston, rounded out the new arrivals, exhibiting collages with an indulgent cabinet-of-curiosities mentality. Also part of CWFA's well-curated opening act were the reliable Rusty Scruby (an homage to the land of Delft), geometric ink-on-paper man Robert Lansden and vaporous minimalist Kristen Cliburn. Up now: "Ambassadors: New Works by Charlotte Smith and Anna Elise Johnson" pairs obsessive abstract Dallas painter Smith with recent Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Core Fellow Johnson, whose layered acrylic boxes depict domestic scenarios tilting towards abstraction (through March 28). Johnson went for depth in the first show out of her new gate. She deployed Kim Cadmus Owens (through March 28), fresh from Crystal Bridges' expansive museum survey of the state of American art. Here, Owens unveils epic new paintings with her signature depiction of vernacular spots — the package liquor store Buck & Ruck stars in a couple of canvases — which she elevates to icon status while dissolving the picture plane. The images hover between the present and the past, pixilating before us like a mirage of what once had been, yet somehow free of nostalgia. Owens and other star painters — including senior master Gael Stack of the cerulean-blue canvases, geometric minimalist Otis Jones, the buzzed- about Bret Slater, impastoed Geoff Hippenstiel and former MFAH Core David Aylsworth of the buoyant abstractions — remind us why Johnson's gallery is one of the strongest for painting in Texas. Factor in internationally known music man Terry Allen and Dornith Doherty, whose visionary environmental photography investigates the destruction of the world's seed banks, and you have a big art statement. Holly Johnson Cris Worley STEPHEN DUX A lgur H. Meadows' passion for Iberian art founded one of the great focus museums in America — the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University. In celebration of its golden anniversary, the Meadows has unfurled, like a grand Baroque tapestry, an ambitious series of exhibitions, programs and events over a 16-month period that began last September. The toast to 50 years began with a peek into the graphic genius of Goya, culling such wonders as first-edition sets of the acclaimed printmaker's four major print series, a hallmark of the museum's Goya trove (through March 1). As a counterpoint to the 18th/19th- century painter, the museum has tapped a contemporary talent: Texas- born SMU grad John Alexander, who early on was inspired by the Meadows' Goyas. Alexander's incisive dark commentary "Human/nature. The Ridiculous and Sublime: Recent Works" is on view March 22 – June 28. Through May 3, the Meadows collaborates with Musée du Louvre in Paris, which loans its imposing full-length Goya portrait, Ferdinand Guillemardet, commissioned by its subject, the French ambassador to Spain. Guillemardet's visage — said to be the artist's favorite painting and bequeathed to the Louvre by Goya's son — holds court alongside six other Goyas from the Meadows collection. But the apex will be Founders' Day Weekend (April 16- 18), commemorated by public and private events including the special golden-anniversary exhibition, "The Abelló Collection: A Modern Taste for European Masters," presenting 70 masterworks that span 500 years of Spanish art, El Greco to Picasso and Dalí, as well as British and Continental masters such as Bacon and Braque (April 18 – August 2). To join the museum during this historic time —which coincides with SMU's 100th anniversary — visit meadowsmuseumdallas.org. Goya's Ferdinand Guillemardet, 1798- 1799, at the Meadows Museum MUSÉE DU LOUVRE. DÉPARTEMENT DES PEINTURES, M.I. 697. THE BARNETT COLLECTION. PHOTOGRAPHY WILL CROCKER. John Alexander's Monkey Tree, 2009, at the Meadows Museum