Susumu Koshimizu is a Japanese artist known for making sculptures that expose the surface quality of different materials. He is considered a key member of the Mono Ha movement ('School of Things'), which reacted against the embrace of technology and visual trickery in mid-1960s Japanese art. The Mono Ha artists sought to understand ‘the world as it is’ by exploring the essential properties of materials, often combining organic and industrial objects and processes. In From Surface to Surface originally made in 1971 and remade in 1986, Koshimizu investigates the substance of wood by sawing planks into different shapes, exposing their surface qualities through different kinds of repetitive cuts.
Susumu Koshimizu: My Sculptural Expression
Sculptor Susumu Koshimizu explores the essential properties of materials, often combining organic and industrial objects and processes
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Susumu Koshimizu
Artist Susumu Koshimizu discusses his practice in general as well as the art scene in 1970s Japan. He also speaks about his involvement in the 1970s Tokyo Biennale, which he had discussed the previous day at the Contact Points seminar organised by Tate Research Centre: Asia. The interview was conducted by Lena Fritsch at Tate Modern on 22 November 2016 and has been translated into English.
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Artist
Susumu Koshimizu
born 1944
Mono-ha
Mono-ha (School of Things) was a pioneering art movement that emerged in Tokyo in the mid-1960s whose artists, instead of making traditional representational artworks, explored materials and their properties in reaction to what they saw as ruthless development and industrialisation in Japan
Sculpture
Three-dimensional art made by one of four basic processes: carving, modelling, casting, constructing