Kan Yasuda: Sculptures to Lure the Gods

Contemporary sculpture has broken free
from the assumptions of Western Modernism,
which for a long time kept so-called “Modern Sculpture” in its thrall,
and completely opened up the possibilities inherent in sculptural forms.
Transcending the conventionality and localism of Western-inspired modernism,
it can be said to have escaped the confines of the individual
and to be reaching instead toward the universal.

Kan Yasuda, who resides in Italy,
is an artist whose works exemplify contemporary sculpture.
Yasuda’s universality comes into effect because of the exchange
of feeling–the rapport– his works achieve in their natural settings.
With his solid shapes,
he summons up the energy inherent in Nature (Nature’s “divine spirit”),
which, once evoked, charges the pieces with its power.
When this happens, sculpture transcends itself,
escapes the bounds of the physical,
and becomes something different, something other:
a symbol of the “meta”-physical.

Tenmoku, Tensei and Chijin (1985),
a series of pieces set in the grounds of Karuizawa’s Saison Museum of Art,
provide some of the best examples of the thinking behind Yasuda’s work.
These three pieces are arranged in sequence over
a gently sloping grass-covered hillside.
If one stands on a level with Tensei and looks up at Tenmoku,
far away in the distance behind it one sees
Mount Asama’s peak rising up into the sky.
The center of the mountain peak is very slightly to the left of the axis formed
by Tenmoku and Tensei.
Chijin, a piece in bronze placed in a much lower position,
completely off-axis,
seems to wait in a subservient position.

What one notices here is that Tenmoku and
Tensei (whose names begin with the Chinese character for “Heaven”)
link Mount Asama and Chijin in a Thus,
the deity of the sacred Mount Asama is lured down to the ground,
to manifest itself, by Tenmoku and Tenjin,
and travels along the track formed by them to Chijin,
(whose names translates as “Human on Earth”).
Having replaced the ke, or mundane quality,
of Chijin with hare, or a festive, sacred quality,
the divine spirit goes back along the axis formed by the two pieces
Tensei and Tenmoku, and ascends, returning to the mountain top.
Tenmoku and Tensei, sculpted from roughly-hewn white marble,
can thus be considered yorishiro, or “markers” (usually made of unfinished wood),
whose role is to entice down the mountain deity;
and the whole design as enabling the god to travel back
and forth between heaven and earth.

TENSEI, TENMOKU　Sezon Museum of Contemporary Art

CHIJIN　Sezon Museum of Contemporary Art

Ishinki-Bo (1978), set in a corner of a rolling golf course,
is another piece, quite different in character from the Saison Museum of Art group.
At first sight, it almost seems to suggest something Zen-like in its movement.
But the slippery illogicality we see in Zen art does not figure here.
Rather, this piece represents an unapologetic attempt by intellect to pierce consciousness and the deeper unconscious with a squewer,
and then thrust them both up and out into the light of day.
It is a joke, a challenge posed by a playful artist wishing to contrast all
of contemporary existence with the possibility of meaninglessness.

Myomu (1990), one of several pieces placed on the streets in Milan,
seems to draw its life force from the dramatically sheer drop of the cathedral behind it.
Kaisei (1984), placed by Lake Toya in HokkaidÖ, too,
seems to suck the pulse of Nature deep into its own womb.
All of Kan Yasuda’s works are designed
in whatever environment they are placed to produce
the palpable existence of the infinite (both in terms of Time and Space) in a single instant.
Sometimes the effect of his pieces is hallucinatory,
oceanic: one feels as if a message is truly being transmitted from a god.

Sumio Kuwabara
Art Historian