September, 2011
I have once described the marble sculptures of Kan Yasuda as, in a word, extremely meditative tranquility.
I did not elaborate what meditative sculptures actually meant. I wanted to say that certain sort of art works always referred to relation between humans and nature. Because it is same humans who create sculptures and meditate, they can always meditate through works which confront nature.
"Touching the Time". Is it possible to "touch" the time?
The title of the exhibition of sculptures by Kan Yasuda is extremely poetic. Immaterial. Evocative.
The essentiality and the joyful life are the most significant characteristics of San Francesco. I believe that we are able to trace these in the works of the Japanese sculptor Kan Yasuda. These characteristics are deep foundations in the whole metier of Yasuda's art: signs, lines and bursting force.
The works of Kan Yasuda, a Japanese sculptor, will be exhibited in the square of Assisi. This wonderful project is significant in several ways.
The marble sculptures of Kan Yasuda can be summarized as contemplative and serene. Where does this come from and what effect does it have?
"Minimalism" and "Animism": these two words are all that are needed to define Kan Yasuda's art, two words that - apart from being the key to an aesthetic criticism - are philosophical as well as religious concepts.
On a crisp November morning in 1987, being driven by Jette Mulendorf, we were on our way to visit the stone yard of Giorgio Angeli, what lit up that cold November morning was my first glimpse of a large white marble carving by Kan Yasuda. The scale and quiet authority of this work dominated the yard and the sculpture as Isamu Noguchi had previously observed, appeared to be hewn from ice.
In the past, the questions the public asked when looking at certain unconventional works of art were, But is this art or isn't it?» or «What does this mean ?».
There was this enormous sculpture towering into arctic clear cold air.
