Ocula Report 4th Kochi-Muziris Biennale: Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life 15 Feb 2019 : Natalie King for Ocula 'Poems are like sentences that have taken their clothes off.' Marlene Dumas' poetic and sensual refrain accompanies her figurative watercolours on view in Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life, the fourth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) in the southern state of Kerala, India (12 December 2018–29 March 2019).Dumas' new series...
Ocula Conversation Ellen Altfest The paintings of Ellen Altfest are ethereal in their detail. Fields of minutiae come together as pulsating images; small brushstrokes of oil paint accumulate over a series of months to single out seemingly innocuous subjects, such as a hand resting atop patterned fabric (The Hand, 2011) or a deep green cactus reaching upwards from beneath a bed of...
Ocula Report Colomboscope 2019: Cross Currents and Dissonance 8 Feb 2019 : Nada Raza for Ocula On the rooftop of the former Rio Hotel complex in Colombo, it was hard to ignore the high-rise buildings, still under construction, blocking all but a sliver of what used to be an open view over Slave Island, once an island on Beira Lake that housed slaves in the 19th century, and now a downtown suburb. The hotel was set alight during the...
Kishio Suga is one of the leading artists of the Mono-ha (School of Things) art movement. Recently, experiments of the 1970s that drew links between conceptual thinking and matter have garnered international attention, bringing great acclaims to Mono-ha works, particularly those by Suga, together with works of the Italian art movement, Arte Povera.
By careful arrangement of mono (things) such as stones, wood and other natural and architectural materials, Suga’s work possesses the unique ability to activate and transform the space itself. Through his creative intervention Suga visualizes the inherent power of unprocessed objects, their structure and origins, and their rich idiosyncrasy. Suga’s explorations of what it is to see things and how to perceive existence are fundamental, yet highly fresh now in the exuberance of contemporary visual culture.
Suga recently held two major solo museum exhibitions in Japan at Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo and Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, where he mainly presented historical large-scale installations from the 1970s, when Suga's concepts were highly radical. Works are temporary and never completed, the possibilities of each perceived in a system of remaking at different times, and in different locations. The keen sensibilities of the artist, engaging with the complex, constantly changing environment that surrounds us, in an attempt to divine a universal structure, are reflected in his work.
Yuko Hasegawa, chief curator at Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo describes the reason why Suga is so refreshing in 2015 as follows: 'he so clearly presents the perceptual reality of existence/non-existence and visibility/non-visibility... Suga began using materials and exploring the environment in which these materials existed during the 1960s. Over the decades he has observed and attempted to gain an understanding of weight, texture, and surfaces, as well as the characteristics of different materials, and his ability to perceive and understand his environment has continued to be enhanced and reach new depths.'
Kishio SugaIntersection of Elapsed Factors, 2017 Wood, paint, branch
Related Press Kishio Suga at Blum & Poe Los Angeles Art in America : 24 May 2017 Kishio Suga's exhibition offered a careful choreography of sticks leaning against wood panels, ropes wrapped around rocks, fabric strips twisted around curved metal plates, and concrete blocks sandwiching blades of grass. The interdependency of organic and industrial objects was characteristic of Mono-ha, a movement (whose name means 'school of...
Related Press Precarious Cut-Stone Sculptures Convey a Sense of Delicate Balance The Creators Project : 2 January 2017 Like a post-minimal graveyard, Kishio Suga’s cut stones and wood planks lend an existential air to the exhibition space at Dia:Chelsea. The Japanese artist’s first solo museum show in the United States gives a nod to Suga’s legacy as one of the founding members of Japan’s School of Things (Mono-ha), by featuring, alongside newly commissioned works,...
Related Press Preview: Art Basel Miami Beach 2016 gallery highlights from Asia and Africa Art Radar Journal : 1 December 2016 From 1 to 4 December 2016 galleries from around the world will converge on Art Basel Miami Beach. In Art Basel’s 15th edition in Miami Beach, there are an impressive 269 galleries expected from 29 countries across North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The art fair is proven to be a highlight of the art calendar, with almost all...
Related Press Border crossings: a new show pairs the work of Hanne Darboven and Kishio Suga Wallpaper* : 25 November 2016 Dia Art Foundation strikes a perfect balance in pairing the late German conceptualist Hanne Darboven with Kishio Suga, founder of Mono-ha (School of Things) and Japan’s foremost sculptor in the latter's first solo museum exhibition in the US. Both are closely aligned to cultural and societal movements that defined the 1960s and 70s, a...
