Ushio Shinohara

Ushio Shinohara (born 1932, Tokyo), nicknamed “Gyu-chan”, is a Japanese Neo-Dadaist artist. His bright, large work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Centre Georges Pompidou, the Guggenheim Museum SoHo, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seoul., The Tate Modern- World Goes Pop Exhibition.

Shinohara and his wife, Noriko, are the objects of a documentary film by Zachary Heinzerling called Cutie and the Boxer (2013).

Shinohara's parents instilled in him a love for painters such as Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin. His father was a tanka poet who was taught by Wakayama Bokusui. Shinohara’s mother was a Japanese painter who went to school at Woman’s Art University (Joshi Bijutu Daigaku) in Tokyo.

In 1952 Shinohara entered the Tokyo Art University (later renamed to Tokyo University of the Arts), majoring in oil painting.

In 1960 Shinohara participated in a group called "Neo-Dada Organizers". This group of artists showed their works of art in an exhibition in the 1960s called the Yomiuri Independent Exhibition. This exhibition was sponsored by a newspaper and was open to the public and was not judged by anyone. This type of exhibition was a form of an anti-salon and was a stepping stone for Shinohara’s sculptures of found objects which acquired the label of “junk art.” Later, while living in New York, to save money on canvases (which were, and still are expensive) Ushio would wander the alleyways collecting scraps of cardboard which he would bring back to his studio, wash, and then use to create his sculptures (so-called "junk art") composed of other found objects including discarded trash, motorcycle parts, and other mass-produced tokens of modern society.

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