A member of the influential postwar calligraphers’ society Bokujinkai, Inoue Yūichi throughout his career sought to bridge the worlds of Japanese callig­raphy and global modern art. This work, a single line of the Japanese characters for the numbers 1 through 7, reflects the hybridity of his approach. Although the thick and even brushstrokes with their jaggedly splashed edges are reminiscent of the calligraphy of Nakahara Nantenbō, the sequential numbers do not correspond to any referent, thereby recalling the illogical and meaningless equations seen in works by John Cage and other conceptual artists.

 

—Bradley Bailey