Double Vision

Kishio Suga

Born in 1944 in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture. He lives in Shizuoka Prefecture.

Kishio Suga is a key member of the influential Mono-ha (School of Things) movement, which emerged in Japan at the end of the 1960s. The principles of Mono-ha critiqued the very act of creating an artwork. In the traditional understanding, artworks are created by an artist in a studio and are finished and autonomous. But Mono-ha artists see an artwork as a "thing" that is inseparable from its surrounding space. A "thing," according to Suga, is an event that reveals the foundations and nature of existence itself. What is most important is the "situation" in which the thing, place and audience come together and which makes their relationship obvious. "Things" reveal the laws of nature and the boundaries between heterogeneous elements. Kishio Suga's art is almost reality itself, and in his hands the "thing" is commensurate with nature.