KISHIO SUGA
Kishio Suga (b. 1944, Morioka, Japan) works across installation, assemblage, works on paper, and performance. After moving to Tokyo in 1964 to study oil painting at Tama Art University, he soon gained recognition for arranging natural and industrial materials in unprecedented installations. His works and early essays positioned him as a central figure and theorist of Mono-ha, a loose group of artists who presented materials in mostly unaltered, ephemeral states. Suga describes his practice as an investigation of mono (things/materials) and the jōkyō (situation) that binds them—an “activation of existence” that considers the interdependence of elements and their surrounding space.
This catalogue documents Kishio Suga's first solo exhibition in the United States, held at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (November 3 – December 22, 2012). The exhibition presented a survey of his installations and assemblages from the 1960s to the 1990s, many of which had not been shown in decades.
Ashley Rawlings’ introductory essay, “Temporary Boundaries, Timeless Situations,” contextualizes the development of Suga's practice in the late 1960s and discusses the innumerable methods Suga employs to construct and deconstruct spatial boundaries.
Hardcover; 95 pages, 57 images in black & white and color
Text in English
Published by Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, 2013
ISBN: 9780966350357
30.48 x 24.6 x 1.5 cm
FEATURED WORKS
Kishio Suga, Diagonal Phase (1969/2012)
Kishio Suga, In the State of Equal Dimension (1973)
Kishio Suga, Gap of the Entrance to the Space (1979/2012)
Kishio Suga, Left-Behind Situation (1972/2012)
Kishio Suga, Phase of Acquisition (1975/2012)
Kishio Suga, Square Pond (1986)
Photos: Joshua White/JWPictures.com; Courtesy BLUM, Los Angeles / Tokyo / New York