KISHIO SUGA BIOGRAPHY (WORK IN PROGRESS)
Kishio Suga (born 1944) is one of the most influential figures in the history of site-specific installation. Works such as Parallel Strata (1969), a mysterious arrangement of stacked slabs of paraffin wax, and Soft Concrete (1970), four vertical steel plates arranged into a square and shored up with a mound of oil-infused concrete, radically redefined the direction of Japanese art in the 1960s and 1970s. Suga’s unique artworks and his philosophical texts positioned him as a key theorist within a loose group of like-minded artists known as Mono-ha (“School of Things”). The subject of numerous exhibitions at major international museums, Mono-ha echoed the concurrent development of Arte Povera in Italy and Minimalism and Land Art in the United States.
This book will be the first to explore the entirety of Suga’s life and work, from his indoor and outdoor installations to his wall-mounted assemblages, works on paper, photography, performances, and essay writing. Furthermore, it provides an unprecedented examination of Suga’s unique approach to remaking his artworks for new spaces. While his re-creations are always based on an original core concept, they are not intended as exact replicas. Suga adapts their scale and constituent parts to the characteristics of each site, which raises important theoretical and practical questions about the originality, authenticity, conservation, and commoditization of ephemeral artwork.