Motohiko Odani Biography

Motohiko Odani is an artist who executes magnificent, mysterious and often grotesque artworks across a myriad of mediums. Known primarily for his sculpture, Odani will utilize other art forms in imaginative ways including photography, video and video projections in order to capture “things that can’t be seen with the human eye, like phenomena and perceptions.”

A recurring theme throughout his oeuvre is exemplified by his Phantom Limb series (2013 and 1997), which is a sequence of large, flawlessly executed photographic laser prints of a young girl in a white dress. Her hands appear to be missing—a reference to the sensation felt by amputees who still “feel” their missing body parts. On closer inspection, her hands are simply coloured red with raspberry stains, thereby reproducing an equivalent sensation in the viewer: to experience something that did not exist. Odani’s work often induces these types of uneasy feelings, while continually enticing the viewer in ways that cannot be described simply a morbid curiosity.

SP4: the specter -What wanders around in every mind (2009) is a frightening near-life size sculpture of a zombie samurai warrior mounted on his horse, complete with their anatomically-correct sinews rippling. The surface is coloured in the manner of traditional Japanese Buddhist sculpture, like those found in Odani’s hometown of Kyoto, but is also a reference to modern pop culture. This sculpture sits somewhere between and beyond the boundaries of life and death, Japan and the West, beauty and the grotesque.

When he began his SP2 New Born series (2007), Motohiko Odani declared that he believed that sculpture was currently dead, and that he wanted to give revive it with new possibilities. “To reclaim and destroy the media of sculpture,” he wrote, “I will restart my activities as a ‘sculptor’ again.” The SP2 New Born series, despite its austerity and simplicity, certainly reveals an incredible level of imagination, and hints at the undiscovered potential of Odani’s technique and approach. Each piece, some displayed in a glass curiosity case, is apparently the skeleton of a mysterious, deformed, and often fantastical creature. Some are remarkably simple, like SP2 New (Viper A), which is appears to be a spine that spirals upwards in beautiful curves into a tight shell-like form. Others are more complex, abstract and threatening, like SP2 New Born (Mouse A), which has several spines intertwining to suggest some nightmarish creature or perhaps a plague of mice. These sculptures evoke scientific specimens by their names and the glass cases—perhaps fossilized extinct creatures—but there is also something ominous and forbearing about them, that both sculpture and life itself is evolving in ways that we cannot imagine. 

Motohiko Odani is even defying one of the properties that defines the medium of sculpture: its weight. His appropriately named Hollow series began in 2009, utilises fibre-reinforced plastic to create sculpture that appears to be weightless while still remaining substantial and grounded in tradition. In lieu of a pedestal, Odani suspends them from the ceiling, and it feels as if he sculpts the atmosphere around the work. For example, Hollow: Reverse Cradle (2009) depicts two female nudes mirror-imaging each other as they hover above the gallery floor. Not only is their hair swirling as if underwater, their entire bodies seem to composed of ether, trailing flames from the surface of skin. Like New Born, this series is also finished in a bone-white colour, which is both classical, and shows off the delicate shapes, lines and curves of Odani’s striking technique. Other works include references to Greek mythology, catholic sculpture, the concept of music, and even just a small near-abstract lock of hair.

Since graduating with an MFA from the Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music, Tokyo in 1997, Motohiko Odani has been exhibiting around the world in both solo and group exhibitions. He has been recognised with many awards, including most recently, the 2012 Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize for New Artist of Fine Art. He has represented Japan overseas at numerous Biennales and traveling exhibitions of contemporary Japanese artists, as well as prominent solo exhibitions. These include shows at the Mori Art Museum (solo in 2010),  Tokyo, Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden and an upcoming 2015 solo show at Friedman Benda, New York.

Public Collections:
TAKAHASHI COLLECTION, Tokyo
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
MUSAC- Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain
Ohara Museum of Art, Okayama
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota
Asia Society Museum, New York
The National Museum of Art, Osaka
SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation, Tokyo
Takamatsu City Museum Of Art Takamatsu
Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Burger COLLECTION, Zurich, Switzerland
IINO KAIUN KAISHA, LTD
Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
Text by Ruben van Mansum