Koji Ishikawa
Japan
Untitled / Forma viva 1989
steel / 420 x 390 x250 cm / Janeče
The organic shapes made of steel strips are rounded suggestively in an extremely evocative, fantastic composition with structured components, which reach eloquently, one by one, towards recognisable forms from the animal world. The sharp, fractured ‘antennas’ alternate with the softness of twitching tentacles, which reach dynamically into the negative space of the sculpture from the spiral corpus. The vitalist impulse that pervades the genuine ‘living form’ contrasts actively with the hard and sharp nature of iron and steel.
Kôji Ishikawa was born on 2 May, 1949, in the town of Tsuwano, in the Shimane Prefecture, Japan. He finished his art studies at the University of Fukuoka in 1972, where he also completed his specialisation in design. He was interested in ecology. In 1974, he became an assistant at the Design Institute in Kyushu and he started sculpting using various materials. He held his first solo exhibition in 1986. He has participated in important group exhibitions of contemporary Japanese and Korean art. He is the recipient of several awards, including the 1983 prize awarded at the third Henry Moore Grand Award exhibition at the Utsukushi-ga- hara open air museum. He works as Professor in the Department of Art and Information Design at the Kyushu University in Japan.
