A La Música: The Musical Abstract Paintings Of Kazuya Sakai, 1964-1979

From 1964 to 1979, the artist Kazuya Sakai (1927-2001) titled more than one hundred of his abstract paintings after works of jazz, rock, and contemporary classical music. Despite this, most historical scholarship on Sakai considered his work stylistically within the context of Mexican geometric abstraction, lacking specific attention to compositions the paintings are titled after. This thesis explores the relationship between Sakai’s paintings and music, and how musical references in Sakai’s work corresponded with an evolution in his style of painting. Sakai described music as a “constant companion” and “greatly important” to him. Since the beginnings of modern abstract painting, music has been a model and source of inspiration for artists. One of the aims of this thesis is to situate Sakai among historical and contemporaneous abstract painters who similarly evoked musical compositions in their works. In addition to being a painter, Sakai was a jazz critic as well as a host and producer of radio programs dedicated to jazz and contemporary classical music. My review of Sakai’s writing and radio commentary reveals he perceived one of the key characteristics of contemporary music to be a dissolution of boundaries between genres and between “serious” and “popular” music. Many of the compositions Sakai referenced incorporated elements of both Eastern and Western musical traditions. Following the examples of the music he admired, Sakai employed a sensorially affective style of abstraction to synthesize a transnational and multidisciplinary range of sources. The final chapter of this thesis covers Ondulaciones, a major series of paintings created in Mexico and Texas, and which Sakai dedicated “a la música” (to music).

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Art History

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Michel, Lillian

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Tejada, Roberto

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Harren, Natilee
• Zalman, Sandra

• Kazuya Sakai
• music
• jazz
• avant-garde
• abstract painting
• geometrismo mexicano
• Color Field
• Post Painterly Abstraction

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10657/17686

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/17686