Ephemera things are eternal.
Of all the symbols of eternity and security, that which appears most frequently is the Home. The Home is the individual version of the World, in other words, the universal home of all men. This use of symbols embraces all cultures and there is no religion which hasn't adopted it. In Jung's terms, we might say that we found ourselves before an archetype, something that doesn't change with time, which isn't affected by changes in taste. From Hindus to Christians, the problem involves possession, construction, finding shelter, a place to call one's own: an elementary yet eternal need. “Going home” is synonymous with happiness and safety, and "mum and dad's house" or "The House of God" are always ready to welcome prodigal sons who've left the nest in search of knowledge. Knowledge opens the way to thousands of roads, all of which are equally probable, but in choosing means finding the way back. This is not easy. Our existence is fragile; we live temporary situations as long-term arrangements. Man easily makes mistakes, often blinded by a fictitious, false and persuasive "reality", like the sirens of Ulysses.
Isao Sugiyama faces all of these themes with exemplary clarity. His Japanese culture leads him to combine the complexity of thought with simplicity of shape which is surprising. The symbol of the Home is always there, in its holy form, that of "sanctuary", the home of the saints. This is strength, basic construction, but within this there is a non-apparent, but substantial fragility. It's almost as though the artist is hiding a crisis or a doubt inside his elaborate sculptures. Something similar happens inside the great cathedrals of the western world, at least according to the theory of the alchemist Fulcanelli. A magical point that when touched brings down the immense stones, windows and spires that challenged eternity.
The artist perfectly combines extremes which are unlikely to be compatible: heat, cold, marble and wood, the transitory and the lasting, full and empty. The extremely fascinating side of his work lies in the sense of creating a link between opposing elements. Between inside and outside, for example, and the home is perfect for this, as it protects from things which are outside and, at the same time, creates a relationship between Man and nature. And this intuition is fundamental. Sugiyama considers the home as a diaphragm, in other words the work and fatigue of building something from nothing, of constructing and creating a human space subtracted with difficulty from the infinite outside space. And this synthesis is the work, work which is necessary to build but which is also necessary to create his sculptures which are always on the limit of the miraculous.
His choice is spiritual. The act of building brings one nearer to God and to those saints who provide a link between visible and invisible. Sugiyama knows that man cannot give more than a certain amount, he knows about the immense work of man that God interrupted: the Tower of Babel. Man has to build his own house but he mustn't approach the Spirit through an act of arrogance. Man is ephemera, as we see in the sculptures of the Japanese artist, but he searches for eternity because this is the only way in which he can move forward, building himself a future, trying to impose his face over that of the Creator.
The same Masonic, and therefore lay tradition, has left this message. There is more spirituality in building a house than in all the prophecies of Isaiah or Celestino. Sugiyama cleanses the soul of the man who architects his life, his family and his cosmos. The life of man is suspended on a narrow, dangerous bridge. But it is here that we have to live. And it is here that our time makes sense.
The same knowledge and constructive patience becomes part of the work. His spiritual message crosses the barriers of time and work, this fragment of eternity that the artist transforms into the work. Every sculpture, every fine interlock, every subtle passage between materials, every particular joint, requires hours of fatigue and attention. Because the sense lies in instilling into every work a sense of something which is not banal, far removed from every mechanical procedure which would blacken it. The value of the “Great Work” has to be communicated in an alchemic sense. East and West touch in the delicate balance of knowledge. The work, the construction, the small yet immense architecture brings sense to the winding processes of knowledge. The meticulous attention to detail is not a stylistic affectation, but a poetic choice. The great work, the great care are all part of what the artist wishes to communicate, part of the meaning of the work. Even the time-work variable reconsiders the relationship between the artist with art and stands back from the poetics of things which are ready made, and is now approaching it centenary celebration. There is a return to considering the work as something philosophical, not a simple means of attracting money, but also authentic knowledge and a need for communication between the artist and the public. For this reason the spiritual symbol of the home, its solidity and even its temporary nature, confirm that “Ephemera things are eternal”. The words of Jorge Louis Borges come to mind - “We have to build on sand as though it were rock”. This is man's fatigue, building and combining different materials, searching for the impossible and finding it, perhaps in a sculpture, in the art of Isao Sugiyama.
Valerio Dehò
Valerio Dehò has studied Aesthetics with Prof. Luciano Anceschi and Semiotics with Umberto Eco in Bologna.
He graduated in Language Philosophy 1979. He now teaches Art Education and Pedagogy at the Ravenna Academy of Fine Art.
He worked on the “Novecento” Project for the Borough of Reggio Emila from 1997 to 2000. He is currently employed as curator at the Kunsthaus in Merano (BZ).
He directs the “Click Art Museum”, an on-line project linked up to databases on art i Europe.
Since 1980 he has handled 106 contemporary art exhibitions in Italy and abroad and published 21 editorial monographs.
He works for the art magazine “Juliet” and has written for the main Italian art magazines.
Ephemera things are eternal.
Of all the symbols of eternity and security, that which appears most frequently is the Home. The Home is the individual version of the World, in other words, the universal home of all men. This use of symbols embraces all cultures and there is no religion which hasn't adopted it. In Jung's terms, we might say that we found ourselves before an archetype, something that doesn't change with time, which isn't affected by changes in taste. From Hindus to Christians, the problem involves possession, construction, finding shelter, a place to call one's own: an elementary yet eternal need. “Going home” is synonymous with happiness and safety, and "mum and dad's house" or "The House of God" are always ready to welcome prodigal sons who've left the nest in search of knowledge. Knowledge opens the way to thousands of roads, all of which are equally probable, but in choosing means finding the way back. This is not easy. Our existence is fragile; we live temporary situations as long-term arrangements. Man easily makes mistakes, often blinded by a fictitious, false and persuasive "reality", like the sirens of Ulysses.
Isao Sugiyama faces all of these themes with exemplary clarity. His Japanese culture leads him to combine the complexity of thought with simplicity of shape which is surprising. The symbol of the Home is always there, in its holy form, that of "sanctuary", the home of the saints. This is strength, basic construction, but within this there is a non-apparent, but substantial fragility. It's almost as though the artist is hiding a crisis or a doubt inside his elaborate sculptures. Something similar happens inside the great cathedrals of the western world, at least according to the theory of the alchemist Fulcanelli. A magical point that when touched brings down the immense stones, windows and spires that challenged eternity.
The artist perfectly combines extremes which are unlikely to be compatible: heat, cold, marble and wood, the transitory and the lasting, full and empty. The extremely fascinating side of his work lies in the sense of creating a link between opposing elements. Between inside and outside, for example, and the home is perfect for this, as it protects from things which are outside and, at the same time, creates a relationship between Man and nature. And this intuition is fundamental. Sugiyama considers the home as a diaphragm, in other words the work and fatigue of building something from nothing, of constructing and creating a human space subtracted with difficulty from the infinite outside space. And this synthesis is the work, work which is necessary to build but which is also necessary to create his sculptures which are always on the limit of the miraculous.
His choice is spiritual. The act of building brings one nearer to God and to those saints who provide a link between visible and invisible. Sugiyama knows that man cannot give more than a certain amount, he knows about the immense work of man that God interrupted: the Tower of Babel. Man has to build his own house but he mustn't approach the Spirit through an act of arrogance. Man is ephemera, as we see in the sculptures of the Japanese artist, but he searches for eternity because this is the only way in which he can move forward, building himself a future, trying to impose his face over that of the Creator.
The same Masonic, and therefore lay tradition, has left this message. There is more spirituality in building a house than in all the prophecies of Isaiah or Celestino. Sugiyama cleanses the soul of the man who architects his life, his family and his cosmos. The life of man is suspended on a narrow, dangerous bridge. But it is here that we have to live. And it is here that our time makes sense.
The same knowledge and constructive patience becomes part of the work. His spiritual message crosses the barriers of time and work, this fragment of eternity that the artist transforms into the work. Every sculpture, every fine interlock, every subtle passage between materials, every particular joint, requires hours of fatigue and attention. Because the sense lies in instilling into every work a sense of something which is not banal, far removed from every mechanical procedure which would blacken it. The value of the “Great Work” has to be communicated in an alchemic sense. East and West touch in the delicate balance of knowledge. The work, the construction, the small yet immense architecture brings sense to the winding processes of knowledge. The meticulous attention to detail is not a stylistic affectation, but a poetic choice. The great work, the great care are all part of what the artist wishes to communicate, part of the meaning of the work. Even the time-work variable reconsiders the relationship between the artist with art and stands back from the poetics of things which are ready made, and is now approaching it centenary celebration. There is a return to considering the work as something philosophical, not a simple means of attracting money, but also authentic knowledge and a need for communication between the artist and the public. For this reason the spiritual symbol of the home, its solidity and even its temporary nature, confirm that “Ephemera things are eternal”. The words of Jorge Louis Borges come to mind - “We have to build on sand as though it were rock”. This is man's fatigue, building and combining different materials, searching for the impossible and finding it, perhaps in a sculpture, in the art of Isao Sugiyama.
Valerio Dehò
Valerio Dehò has studied Aesthetics with Prof. Luciano Anceschi and Semiotics with Umberto Eco in Bologna.
He graduated in Language Philosophy 1979. He now teaches Art Education and Pedagogy at the Ravenna Academy of Fine Art.
He worked on the “Novecento” Project for the Borough of Reggio Emila from 1997 to 2000. He is currently employed as curator at the Kunsthaus in Merano (BZ).
He directs the “Click Art Museum”, an on-line project linked up to databases on art i Europe.
Since 1980 he has handled 106 contemporary art exhibitions in Italy and abroad and published 21 editorial monographs.
He works for the art magazine “Juliet” and has written for the main Italian art magazines.
The idea of the matter - Sculptures by Sugiyama Isao
The great pathway has no doors,
Thousands of roads lead off it.
When you cross that door without a door,
You walk freely between the sky and the earth.
Mumon
1983, the year in which Sugiyama came to Italy on his first trip to the West, which should have taken him to the United States, was both a great discovery and an absolute "disaster".
Sugiyama had just finished years of study in Japan, during which he had achieved an in-depth level of knowledge of sculpting techniques, and dedicated his talent to figurative works with an academic imprint. The sudden heavy confrontation with originals from the past - from the marbles of ancient Greece onwards - aroused a sense of inadequacy and uselessness in the artist which brought him to consider the possibility of changing his job. The subsequent meeting with contemporary art allowed him greater creative freedom, away from the restrictions of the past, helping him to regain hope and to reconsider the very meaning of the word "art", which, from that moment on, was no longer an abstract entity stipulated by a maestro, but a deeply personal and vibrant element in resonance with the "soul" of the creator.
The artist dedicated the years that followed to a study of himself, to gaining the maximum from a cultural heritage which wasn't limited to his artistic studies, but dated back to his childhood in fifties Japan, in economic poverty but with a richness of tradition and values which still exists in Japan today. In Europe the artist found a reason to free himself from many strictly formal and constrictive rules which had distanced him from some of his passions and innate abilities. Sugiyama's childhood passion for modelling and manual craft, were put to use in his work as an adult, developing and emerging in a new more refined game, executed with the same self-congratulatory carefree air.
The fact that he settled in Carrara, where he attended the Academy in the Eighties, made marble the star of his sculptures. Sugiyama likes to use the materials he finds locally; the various types of marble lend themselves to various uses and formal alternatives.
Needing to cope with the Italian situation on an everyday basis the artist discovered that he was full of oriental sensitivity. Images of the scintoist cult, the oldest in Japan, made inroads into his memory and were expressed in sculpture. Sugiyama says that it is a very similar religion: there are about 8.000.000 Gods which are worshipped and they correspond to natural elements like the sun, trees, the wind… in a direct relationship with nature which is not competitive but trustful, which the artist fails to find in the West. His love and respect for natural elements are expressed in the way he handles materials: marble and wood - those used most frequently - are united so that they d not become a completely human work, but retain their original form and texture.
For this reason the Carrara marble "potatoes" - large tubers of stone with a dark, uneven surface and a candid inner - are perfect. The artist loves to use them as they are, or cut up to reveal an unexpected whiteness which contrasts with the external rustiness. Often the stone is cut so that the base remains one with the elements that form the holy architectures, the so-called sanctuaries that have been Sugiyama's topic of research for about ten years.
The key to link nature and culture, childhood games and professional sculpting, materials and ideas, past and present, lies in the theme of the sanctuaries - two hundred sculptures that the artist has conceived and patiently built day by day.
The ten typologies that the artist individuates within the general theme refer mainly to the structure and the combination of elements: in some the mass is full and imposing, in other the surface is covered with hollows; there are decorative details here and there, such as "drops of sunshine" (simple carved or relief motifs) discreetly disseminated. The marked contrast between masses left in their original state and the highly polished, white surfaces, sometimes so fine that they become transparent, is amazing. These however are contrasts which exist in nature, which are able to emerge thanks to human intervention.
When, as in “Sanctuary 135” (1997) a perfectly geometrical, two-tone temple rises precariously from three “potatoes” of rough marble, the artist draws purity from the stone's natural resources, impersonated by the divinity to whom the temple is dedicated.
To ensure that the god fills his sanctuary, the scintoist priest cleans it perfectly. The space must be empty and immaculate. The faithful may not enter, remaining outside to pray; white fabric hides the threshold so that only glimpses of the interior can be seen. Thanks to the fine surfaces of marble, in Sugiyama's sanctuaries' stone curtains are sometimes embellished with perforations down the side, adding a feeling of lightness to the transparency allowing air - or the soul - to flow through.
The long staircases that often - as in the sculpted complex “A holy place” (1993) - lead to the door (mon) of the temple, are a route to purification; when they are interrupted by a chasm, an empty space that seems to block the way, it is the soul - the imagination - that overcomes natural limits as it frees itself.
Wood is the material that most frequently accompanies marble in this dialogue between soul and matter. In works like “Sanctuary 154” (1998) the pine wood trusses of the temple are bound directly to the marble using a Japanese interlocking technique which suggests continuity and is the result of great technical expertise. The geometrical precision of the small beams contrasts with the irregular, asymmetrical surfaces of the base, according to a typically oriental aesthetic need; the whiteness of the pine, which hints at purity, replaces the more precious white wood native to Japan.
Sugiyama freely expresses his passion for the internal bone structure of things, like when, as a child, he was more interested in the nude framework of the models than the finished article. The immense patience and great concentration needed in many technically complex situations enable him to get away from everyday problems and float away into a universe all of his own, suspended between imagination and materiality.
The sanctuaries of Sugiyama, constructions which combine polished geometry and rough natural surfaces, calculation and casualness, mathematical proportions and free asymmetrical shapes, are like miniature worlds that reproduce deep truths on a small scale. In the unequal relationship between man and nature, the artist modestly bows down before the infinite flow of the universe.
Time, which corrodes and crumbles wood, just like marble, in its cyclic progress, acts deeply upon things, reminding man that his work is just a drop of water in the sea of life.
Monica Dematté
Monica Dematté, born in 1962 in Trento, Italy, graduated in visual arts at DAMS. PhD. In Indian and Far-Eastern Art History at Genua University.
She studied Chinese at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, and Chinese History of art at the Academy of Fine Arts of Guangzhou.
She worked as a curator at the Singapore Art Museum (Singapore), specializing in Chinese Modern Art.
She holds a lecturer position at Venice, Ca’ Foscari, as well as at Bologna University.
Independent writer and curator, her essays have been published on art magazines both in Italy and in China.
