PREVIOUSLY BASED IN TOKYO AND LOS ANGELES SCULPTURE, INSTALLATION AND PERFORMANCE ARTIST BARBARA HASHIMOTO HAS RELOCATED TO CHICAGO as Artist-in-Residence at BauerLatoza Studio, a multidisciplinary design firm. The alliance of Art + Architecture is explored through this residency program, and Hashimoto is charged with incorporating public and community art into the firm's work and with creating collaborative projects involving the firm's staff. BauerLatoza Studio is located in the Randolph Motor Building, a 100-year old former car showroom in Chicago's historic Motor Row District in the South Loop. Hashimoto has been allocated a 2,000-square foot studio in this site to devote time to her private practice.
link to BauerLatoza studio

Hashimoto's Chicago studio in the historic Randolph Motor Buidling

Born in New Jersey and educated at Yale, Hashimoto’s work has been exhibited throughout Japan, The United States, and The Middle East and is in more than 250 public and private collections including The Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American Art, The Museum of Arts and Design (New York), and The National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Though the role of materiality is significant, Hashimoto’s work is researched-based and conceptually driven. She addresses women’s societal roles, cross-cultural identity and "...the structures and strategies of power.” [1] The foundation of her work is based in practice and repetition, this influenced by her formative training in dance and her years as an artist’s apprentice in Japan.

"Blue Introduction" ceramic, book,encaustic, graphite (2005) 18 x 24" (framed)

She is best known for her ceramic work in which she fires clay with books and reworks the resulting pieces with drawing, painting and collage. Her process alternatively destroys and enhances the original intention of the book and furthers the artist’s concerns with censorship, neo-narrative and the objectification of knowledge.

Hashimoto's integrated installation/performance work was first presented in Japan in the early 1990’s. She received a Durfee Foundation Grant to remount these Japan-based works in The U.S. for her exhibition at Fullerton College Art Gallery in 2002.


"Tokyo Bay Project", installation detail, Chiba, Japan, 1991

In collaboration with Carlos Grasso, Hashimoto created the multimedia installation/performance work ”Every Man Was Her Slave” (2002 – present). The installation/performance is part of her Queens/Queans series, which is based on the literary works and research notes of Emile Zola. She reunited with Grasso for “Experience” which premiered at her retrospective exhibition at Xiem Gallery in 2005. This work is based on the writings of John Locke and is part of Hashimoto’s Tabula Rasa series.

"Every Man Was Her Slave", installation/performace, Los Angeles, 2005

Hashimoto has had solo exhibitions at Ruth Bachofner Gallery (Los Angeles), Dubhe Carreno Gallery (Chicago), Dorothy Weiss Gallery (San Francisco), Kohler Art Center (Sheboygan), LA ArtCore (Los Angeles), Gallery Soolip (West Hollywood), and others. She has participated in group exhibitions at The Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Arts and Design, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, Craft and Folk Art Museum (Los Angeles), Paul Kopeikin Gallery (Los Angeles), Center for Arts and Visual Culture at The University of Maryland (Baltimore), Limbus Gallery (Tel Aviv), The New Gallery at Teddy Stadium (Jerusalem), LA Contemporary (Los Angeles), and more. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the following museums in Japan: Mito Modern Art Museum, Tokyo’s Ueno Royal Museum, Hokkaido Modern Art Museum, Fukuoka Museum, Gifu Museum, Shiga Museum, and Nagasaki Museum.

Reviews and articles about Hashimoto’s work have appeared in Art in America, The Los Angeles Times, Sculpture Magazine, Chicago Tribune, World Sculpture News, ArtScene, L.A. Weekly, Bangkok Post, Asahi Shinbun, Jerusalem Post and other publications.

"Shelter" exhibition installation view, Los Angeles (2003)

 

LINK TO BARBARA HASHIMOTO'S RESUME

[1] Chattopadhyay, Collette, “Barbara Hashimoto’s Critique of Power”, Sculpture Magazine, October 2001