ISAMU NOGUCHI (1985)

For Kan Yasuda 

There was this enormous sculpture towering into arctic clear cold air. The sculpture itself was of this same nature, as though hewn out of ice. I could tell from even a photograph. Who was this sculptor who could conceive a piece of such belonging? It was not the horizon that defined it but a belonging to people, a mutuality suggested by the form.

My coming to know Yasuda Kan had always this question in the background. Was he really the man I thought he must be? Then along came another monument in the north; a group of smokestacks ending on top with birdlike cones that seemed to guard the bleak land against intruders. Can there be any doubt about those cones thumbing their noses every which way a decoy for missiles? What better protection could an artist offer than laughter? Art is what counts of course. That which gives the quality to this humor. I like to think that the motivation doesn't matter, so long as it gets the artist going. But art is a response after all and this must be counted among its worth. For art itself to be the motive is another matter.

To produce a masterpiece must be the biggest mistake. I myself once thought I had done so with a sculpture I called Kouros after the archaic Greek. I made mine of pink marble 3 meters high. It was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1946. 

At that time I had lunch with a wise man who said, "You must know you cannot make anything more than you are". He said, "Never make art that pleases you". I knew he meant my Kouros. "Only make what you dislike, but cannot help but do". I was at a loss to know where my aspiration as an artist might turn. Who was I to not aspire, nor ever become? Yasuda was fortunate in being able to bypass art and produce so fine a work, although he will no doubt insist this was his sole intention. Again I would say he is fortunate in knowing when to insist on the process of art to protect his integrity.

When I was last in Italy at Giorgio Angeli's workshop in Querceta where both Kan and I work, I saw a recent sculpture of his which I thought came from a similar area of search which transcends art. I felt that perhaps he did not know what to make of it. Is there such a thing as better? I never asked but I wonder whether he really liked it to fulfill Duchamp's dictum. Yasuda's work like that of many artists runs on two tracks. One may be named art's art and the other, the other. My remarks are directed to the other. Art's art is the artist's difficult conscience. It is his past development to which he owes all that he has become. It reveals his inner self, or so he thinks. But that of course is his most serious problem. How to develop in depth betrayals true message. It is the artist's obligation to change into his ever widening perception. Kan has expressed it with his forked squares where he denies himself and all his skills. I know intimately of what I write.

RENZO PIANO (2015)

Kan Yasuda is an extraordinary sculptor, and he is also a stone quarry worker: it really does, going to look for the right stone inside the mountain.

And his sculpture comes from there, even before they are carved and exist.

This is common to all the great sculptors who made Apuan Alps in Toscany, Italy as their natural home.

I like his sculptures, they are often like giant pebbles dragged through the streets by the current of an unlikely flood.

Smoothed by time and by the flowing water.

Sometimes the bronze takes the place of the stone but it retains all the strength and smoothness.

And in fact, it takes a lot of time for Kan, in doing his work.

The rough-planed, the smoothing, the gloss, the caresses until the right light is released; as they, of course, have many sculptors.

And with this work patience is always accompanied by the expectation of the extraction of a marble sculpture.

Welcome Kan Yasuda in New York City, in Manhattan, this beautiful city based on the rock foundation, where age is captured in the world. 

Shape of Dreams

– Shoko Aono 2025

When I was ten years old, I encountered “Tensei” and “Tenmoku” in the garden of the Karuizawa Saison Museum of Art, in Japan. The two opposing white marble square statues stood tall and dignified like a gate. Their stone surfaces bore the uneven marks of chisels, marks that retain a warmth true only to that which is handmade. Passing through that gate, I felt as though I had been transported to a new world. Just as the evening sun streamed through the gaps of the statues, their white outlines seemed to vanish, dissolving into the sky. It was an ineffable moment of profound realization: I saw that humans exist between heaven and earth.

Thirty-four years have passed since then. To now have the opportunity to hold this exhibition of Maestro Kan Yasuda at Ippodo Gallery NY feels like a dream.

Kan's work resembles dreams. Upon waking, an overwhelming emotion lingers, yet the story itself is hard to recall. Your heart is moved, yet you cannot describe the contours of what moved you. You have touched the unconscious world—one that cannot be grasped despite your greatest efforts, one that you try hard not to forget. Similarly, Kan’s work is not something to be seen, but something to be touched. It is not something to be thought about, but something to be felt. As he puts it, “[his] job is to give sculpture—a visible form, a form that can be touched—to things that cannot be seen or touched.”