Edo Updated

Put the words Japanese and print together, and it’s likely to evoke Hokusai’s memorable blue-and-white waves or Hiroshige’s dreamy landscapes of Mount Fuji. Both masters of the Ukiyo-e woodcut—a form popularized during the Edo Period, which lasted from the early 1600s to the mid-1800s—their work evokes a Japanese aesthetic that still resonates and captivates. Contemporary Prints from Tokyo, a new show at Highpoint Center for Printmaking, may add some modern associations to the form—and the culture.

Ukiyo-e prints are part and parcel of everyday life, used on wrapping paper, in advertisements, and for other commercial purposes. According to Tyler Starr, the show’s curator and one of its contributors, that proliferation of prints persists in Japan, down to the personal seals, or hanko, that everyone owns. “[Tokyo] is a place where beautiful papers made from kozo and gampi [paper] can be seen in all aspects of daily life, from sliding doors to the fortune-telling strips of paper tied to a tree branch at the local Shinto shrines,” Starr says. “Tokyo’s environment fosters sensitivity for the printed image, and this quality imbues the works in the exhibit.”

With more than thirty prints from eight artists, the show is broad in terms of theme and aesthetic. But, says Starr, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a common thread, referencing the pervasive “Japanese quality of understatement.” His point bears out in the prevalence of muted colors and the quiet, deadpan humor, which is seen particularly in the work of Tetsuya Noda and Hisaharu Motoda, two of the more established artists in the show.

The exhibit is a sampler menu, with prints made from a variety of techniques by emerging and renowned Tokyo-based artists. While Ukiyo-e is a dominant technique in the displayed work—and Starr’s polestar as an expat artist trying to connect with his new home—its use suggests another common thread with the past: an element of tradition turned to face the now. Opens Feb. 2. 2638 Lyndale Ave. S., Mpls., 612-871-1326, highpointprintmaking.org

Reach Stephanie Xenos at stephaniexenos@yahoo.com.