Full description The work of the Japanese sculptor Toshimasa Kikuchi (born in 1979) is somehow bewilderingly obvious. Trained in the restoration of Buddhist statues, mastering to perfection the techniques of classical Japanese statuary, he carves pure forms in wood – geometric, hydrodynamic or figurative. His scientific repertory is timeless (mathematics, engineering, natural history), but his preferred materials and techniques are firmly grounded in tradition (Japanese hinoki cypress, urushi lacquer, kinpaku gold leaf). The installation he presents for his Carte Blanche at the musée Guimet in Paris, brings together a series of slender sculptures in lacquered wood of mathematical objects, in the tradition of the celebrated photographs that Man Ray took of them. These abstract forms, hanging from the ceiling like mobiles or laid on the floor like devotional objects, take shape through a virtuosity and craftsmanship seldom found in contemporary art. They are perfect stalactites, timeless concretions that are striking in their plastic beauty, while simultaneously opening up views of a dimension unattainable in sculpture: that of ideal forms. The meeting of Art and Science that lies at the heart of Kikuchi’s sculptures was inspired by his research work at the University Museum, University of Tokyo, where he continues to curate exhibitions and restore ancient works of art. The book Toshimasa Kikuchi – Mathematical Objets is published by the galerie Mingei Japanese Arts – Paris to accompany this Carte Blanche given to the Japanese artist. It is lavishly illustrated by the great Japanese photographer Tadayuki Minamoto, who has been able to capture the magnificence of the mathematical abstraction of the works of Kikuchi; by photographs and paintings by Man Ray; and with fascinating mathematical objects from the Institut Henri Poincaré, photographed by the French photographer Bertrand Michau. Toshimasa Kikuchi – Mathematical Objets is essential reading for lovers of surrealism and of the early years of twentieth-century abstraction as well as for all who are intrigued by the close relationship between art and mathematics. For further information about the artist, see Toshimasa Kikuchi’s website.

top