COSMOS
From March 27th to May 31st, 2024, OGATA Paris welcomes an exceptional selection of works by Japanese artist Susumu Shingu with the support of Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger which currently holds Enchan-Temps : Le Souffle d’Ici – L’Eau de là [The Breath of Here – The Water Beyond]
A monumental mobile sculpture, Cosmos, will be floating in the atrium of OGATA Paris. Drawings and lithographs – some from the artist’s personal collection – will be exhibited on two floors, allowing a deeper understanding of a master whose work covers a period of nearly sixty years.
Susumu Shingu, Cosmos, 2008, Carbon fiber, aluminum, stainless steel, polyester, H. 270 x L. 270 x D. 85 cm, ©️ Jean-Louis Losi. Courtesy Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Paris-Lisbonne
Born in 1937 in Osaka, Susumu Shingu is considered one of the most important and beloved artists in Japan.
Known for his large mobile sculptures activated by wind, water or light, he designs work that combines painting, drawing, sculpture and kinetics.
Susumu Shingu in front of his wind-powered sculpture Satoyama, Wind Museum, Arimafuji Park, Sanda, Japon © Thomas Riedelsheimer, Courtesy Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Paris-Lisbonne
Susumu Shingu was 23 years old when he went to Rome in the early 1960s to pursue his studies in oil painting, initiated a few years earlier at the Tokyo University of the Arts. In Italy, he gets to admire the works of great Italian masters, from Piero della Francesca to Leonardo da Vinci, the latter being known for being the perfect incarnation of art, science and humanism altogether. The resonance of Susumu Shingu’s aspirations with the work of Leonardo da Vinci was recognized in 2019 when he exhibited at the Domaine national de Chambord, whose history is shrouded in legends linked to the Italian master.
Susumu Shingu’s works are, however, resolutely contemporary, as this exhibition reminds us.
Susumu Shingu was taught as a painter. Drawing and color are ways for him to understand, explore and imagine the world. These are spaces of unconditional freedom that he sometimes extracts from the frame to materialize them in three dimensions according to the rules of science and kinetics. The mobile sculptures thus activated and set in motion by natural energies – breath, current, light – then reveal the liveliness and strength of nature.
Arbre d’eau, 1992, Aono Dam Park, Sanda, Japan © Yoshiyuki Ikuhara, Courtesy Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Paris-Lisbonne
Susumu Shingu’s work is sometimes said to be ecological. His interventions remind us of the duty we have to respect and protect our environment. In 2014, the artist created in Sanda, not far from Osaka and Kobe, the Susumu Shingu Wind Museum, a vast natural space of 9,000 m2 in which his sculptures dance with the wind, revealing the presence, usually invisible, of the air that keeps us alive.
Wind Museum, open since June 21, 2014, 12 monumental sculptures, Arimafuji Park, Sanda, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan
His speech, poetic and hopeful, is particularly aimed at future generations. In recent years, Susumu Shingu’s work has become more and more colorful and can be appreciated in particular from a child’s perspective. He sometimes says he trusts them much more than adults.
It is therefore quite natural that a new character, a sort of alter-ego of the artist, has recently appeared in Shingu’s work. Endowed with a mischievous and mischievous spirit, Sandalino is a Martian who discovers the wonders of life on earth. He likes to breathe flowers while lying face down in the grass, swim with dolphins and watch sunsets.
Susumu Shingu, Sandalino, pop-up, 2019, Gallimard Jeunesse
Borrowing its title from the eponymous sculpture floating in the atrium, Cosmos presents the diversity of Shingu’s work, exploring his thinking and his creative process. From drawing to mobile sculpture, from a flat surface to a three-dimensional space, from paper to book, it will allow us to understand the order that governs the poetic universe of Susumu Shingu.
Inauguration on March 27th, 2024 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
In collaboration with Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger
Currently exhibition; Enchan-Temps : Le Souffle d’Ici – L’Eau de là [The Breath of Here – The Water Beyond]
Until July 13th
https://jeannebucherjaeger.com/exhibition/enchan-temps-le-souffle-dici-leau-de-la-the-breath-of-here-the-water-beyond/
Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger
5, rue de Saintonge 75003 Paris
+33 (0)1 42 72 60 42
info@jeannebucherjaeger.com
www.jeannebucherjaeger.com