Blouin Artinfo: Susumu Koshimizu’s Latest Explorations in Wood at Blum & Poe Tokyo

April 20, 2016

Samuel Spencer

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Susumu Koshimizu’s Latest Explorations in Wood at Blum & Poe Tokyo
By: Samuel Spencer 

New works from Japanese sculptor Susumu Koshimizu are coming to Blum & Poe in Tokyo this spring, bringing the artist’s iconic minimalism to the gallery for the first time.

“Susumu Koshimizu” features the latest installment in the artist’s decades-long “Working Table” project, a series of wooden tables Koshimizu constructs and then carves out to create repeating three-dimensional geometric patterns.

The tables on display at Blum & Poe represent a continuation of Koshimizu’s exploration of the material properties of different Japanese woods. The contrast between these properties as manifested in processed wood are highlighted in the exhibition, which situates the artworks in front of a window looking out on the Meiji Shrine forest. Visitors to the show will see the process at its beginning and its end — the raw material and the finished product.

This apparent contrast between the natural and the manmade is typical of the Mono-ha movement, the antimodernist Japanese style with which Koshimizu’s work is associated. One of the first Mono-ha sculptors, Koshimizu has spent his career exploring this contrast not only in wood but also in paper, stone, and rock.

The upcoming show coincides with the 40th anniversary of the first international exhibition of the “Working Table” series, at the 1976 Venice Biennale. 

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