Kishio Suga

KISHIO SUGA (Morioka, Japan, 1944).
"Following de Edge, 1988.
Polychrome wood.
Signed and dated on the back.
Size: 69,5 x 23 x 13 cm.
The painter and sculptor Kishio Suga is one of the key members of Mono-ha, a group of artists who, during the 1960s and 1970s, explored the encounter between natural and industrial materials, such as stones, steel plates, glass, light bulbs, cotton wool, sponges, papers, woods, wires, ropes, leather and even oils and water, arranging them mostly unaltered. Trained at Tokyo's Tama Art University, his art is markedly influenced by Yoshinshige Saitó - who encouraged Suga and other students to adopt a deconstructive approach to modernism and Euro-American art theory - and by Jiro Takamatsu, whose illusionistic paintings and sculptures were central to the development of the Tokyo art scene at the time. In the second half of 1968, this exploration of raw materials, ephemera and space gained recognition as a broader movement. In 2008, the Kishio Suga Souko Museum opened in Itamuro Onsen Daikokuya, Tochigi Prefecture. This museum houses a large selection of Suga's indoor sculptural works and several outdoor sculpture gardens designed and installed by Suga. He is currently represented in collections such as the Tate Modern in London, the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi, the Yokohama Museum of Art in Kanagawa, the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas, the Glenstone Foundation in Potomac, Maryland, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, the National Museum of Art in Osaka, and the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art in Hiroshima, among many others.