Meredith Rosen Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by Carla Accardi and Tam Ochiai. Carla Accardi and Tam Ochiai examine the parallels between two artists, working in distinct contexts, who embody an examination of textual and formal language through the medium of painting itself. Both practices draw upon formal qualities of appropriation, Conceptual Art, and Minimalism to subvert printed and painted language.

Ochiai’s work contains layers of hidden meanings, often using text or found objects as signifiers which lend themselves to a constellation of meanings. The paintings included in this exhibit are from Ochiai’s ongoing series “Everyone Has Two Places” in which the painting lists the place of birth and death of a person in history significant to the artist.

Ochiai’s process of association is communicated through linking text, color and line within each work. Names, cities, languages, animals, and events often populate Ochiai’s various works in combinations that resonate in unexpected ways. Ochiai's weblike practice encompasses a range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, video, performance, and poetry. In the 1950s Accardi began to introduce pseudo-calligraphic forms into abstract paintings. Without legibility, the language forms confront the viewer by breaking the boundary between text and image.

Accardi’s exploration of materiality and the boundaries of space is a significant contribution to the Italian Post-war avant-garde and a precursor to Arte Povera. She co-founded Gruppo Forma 1 with other artists including Pietro Consagra, Piero Dorazio, Antonio Sanfilippo, and Giulio Turcato. The group sought to reconcile Marxist thought with abstract art, emphasizing the material conditions of art and society. In 1970, she later founded Rivolta Femminile with fellow feminist activists Elvira Banotti and Carla Lonzi.

Deconstructing the charge of linguistic forms in public and personal modes, Carla Accardi and Tam Ochiai offer a shared relationship to language, wherein meaning is dissolved and reconstructed through the vernacular of painting. Recalling the utility of illuminated manuscripts, whose artistic flourishes offered an entry point and visual structure to text, Accardi and Ochiai reveal the transcendent matrix surrounding meaning.

Carla Accardi, born in 1924 in Sicily, lived and worked in Rome until she died in 2014. Accardi’s work has been featured in solo shows worldwide including multiple presentations at the Venice Biennale. Exhibitions include Castello di Rivoli Museo di Arte Contemporanea, Torino (1994); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (2002); and Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Rome, Rome (2004); P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1), New York (2001). Her work has been featured in numerous museum group exhibitions, including “Italian Art in the 20th Century” at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (1989); “The Italian Metamorphosis, 1943-68” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1994-95); “Italics: Italian Art between Tradition and Revolution 1968-2008” at the Palazzo Grassi, Venice and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2008-2009).

Tam Ochiai, born in Yokohama, Kanagawa in 1967, lives and works in New York. Ochiai studied at Wako University, Machida, Tokyo, and completed an M.A. at New York University in 1993. Exhibitions include Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki, Japan (1995); Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan (2002); Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany (2005); Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki, Japan (2006); Watarium Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2010); and Yokohama Triennale 2011: Yokohama Museum of Art; NYK Waterfront Warehouse, Kanagawa, Japan (2011); Maison Hermès Le Forum, Tokyo, Japan (2021); Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota, Japan (2023); Le Consortium, Dijon, France (1999). Ochiai’s works are held in the collections of The National Museum of Art, Osaka, The Japan Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and Deutsche Bank.