Kishio Suga

The process of making something always involves a human act. Then, what I want to know is whether an intention or an idea that you have before you undertake an action is attached to the resulting thing. Do ideas always adhere to things? When we look at it from the end result, it must transcend your method—that is, it must deviate from your intention or idea, to clarify the essential state of mono as they exist. Am I wrong? – Kishio Suga

Kishio Suga is one of Japan’s most celebrated artists, whose diverse and influential practice spans site-specific installation, assemblage, and performance. His career began in 1968 when he started making temporary installations out of natural and industrial materials such as wood, metal, wire, and concrete. By introducing an incongruous yet defined structure of raw material into the gallery space, he sought to reveal the reality of mono (things/materials) and the jōkyō (situation) that holds them together. Suga was identified as a critical theorist within a loose group of like-minded artists that later came to be known as Mono-ha (School of Things). Though short-lived, this movement was a significant turning point in postwar Japanese art history, echoing the concurrent development of Land Art, Arte Povera, and Supports/Surfaces in the United States and Europe, yet rooted in a specifically Japanese intellectual and cultural context.

Kishio Suga (1944, Morioka, Japan) lives and works in Ito, Shizuoka Prefecture.

His work is featured in many institutional collections, including the Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Dia Art Foundation, New York; Glenstone Foundation, Potomac, MD; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi; Long Museum, Shanghai; M+, Hong Kong; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Pinault Collection, Venice; Rachofsky Collection, Dallas; Tate Modern, London; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo; and the Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan.

His recent solo exhibitions have been at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2016); Dia: Chelsea, New York (2016); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2015). He is frequently included in global survey exhibitions. A re-creation of his groundbreaking outdoor installation Law of Situation (1971) was featured in the Gaggiandre shipyard at the 57th Venice Biennale until November 26, 2017, and his work was included in Japanorama. A New vision on art since 1970 at the Centre Pompidou Metz (2018).

Recent group shows include: The Emergence of the Contemporary: Avant-Garde Art in Japan 1950–1970, Imperial Palace, Rio de Janeiro (2016); Karla Black and Kishio Suga: A New Order, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2016); Prima Materia, Punta della Dogana, Venice (2013); Parallel Views: Italian and Japanese Art from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, The Warehouse, Dallas (2013); and Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012).

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