Tokyo

Susumu Koshimizu Snow departs from snow

2010/1/23–2/20

Tokyo Gallery + BTAP presents Susumu Koshimizu Solo Exhibition.

Susumu Koshimizu resigned from his long-term position in Kyoto City University of Arts this year. His retirement commemoration exhibition in January 21st - January 30th, 2010 will be opening with a focus on his past works, while Tokyo Gallery + BTAP's exhibition will be showing his new art pieces from the working table series.
The working table series was first shown in Tokyo + BTAP 2nd Exhibition in 1983. The exhibition showed pieces from his Mono-ha period and sculptural arts, of which later became an important representation of Koshimizu's body of works.

During his Mono-ha period, objects were subject matters which go through symmetrical transformation while embracing doubts on western style representation and searching blindly for the representation for new relations between the body of work and associated objects.There were three requisites to compose an art piece: subject matter, technique and concept; the emphasis placed on these three concepts led to the emergence of a new artistic representation style in the postwar contemporary art scene. This was the start of conceptual art.

Since audiences demanded the image of spoken culture in conceptual art, Koshimizu, whom conceptualized new relationships of objects, must also give speech a role to play in his works. One of Koshimizu responses was the working table series. By creating images through the physical properties of the works, he succeeded in creating the image of the spoken culture in the working table series. Ever since the working table series was released, it became the main representation of Koshimizu's works.

Please join us this New Year season and experience Koshimizu's new works in the name of Snow Departs from Snow.

Susumu Koshimizu

Susumu Koshimizu was born in Uwajima in Ehime Prefecture in 1944. He enrolled in the Department of Sculpture of Tama Art University in 1966 and left school due to student protest in 1971. Koshimizu became a prominent artist in the Mono-ha movement from the 1960s, creating minimal sculptures and installation pieces from basic materials such as iron, wood and paper. He was a faculty of the Department of Sculpture at Kyoto City University of Arts from 1994 to 2010, and currently serves as a president of Takarazuka University. He is now based in Kyoto, Japan. Koshimizu participated in various international art exhibitions including Tokyo Biennale: Man and Matter, Venice Biennale and São Paulo Biennale. He is a recipient of numerous awards in Japan including the prize at 3rd Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition held at Suma Palace Garden, Kobe (1972); Prize for Excellence, 11th Teijiro Nakahara Award (1980); 10th Denchu Hirakushi Prize (1981); 38th Minister of Education’s Art Encouragement Prize for Freshman (1988); 2nd Kyoto Culture Prize (1989); Prize for Merit, Kyoto Prefectural Cultural Award (1999); 2nd Enku Garden Award (2003); Medal with Purple Ribbon (2004).

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