Kan Yasuda: Forms of the Unconscious

This June (2025), I was able to visit the installation site for Kan’s sculpture exhibition, Oltre la Forma, in Pietrasanta, Italy. One by one, under the deep blue Tuscan sky in a small Piazza that has been inhabited by discerning locals since medieval times, Kan set down his massive stone sculptures. Amidst a blend of tension and intuition, and with the help of his dear friend and master stonemason, Giorgio Angeli, the sculptures fell into place in perfect, unspoken coordination. The moment the sculptures were set, children swarmed around them, eager to climb and lay down on them, press their cheeks against them, or stroke them with their hands. In an instant, they were embraced by people. Like the first heartbeat in an embryo that has undergone repeated cell division, Kan's works signal life by imbuing space with a soul and carving out time.

Every conceivable motion of Kan’s confrontation of these monolithic stones can be seen in their form, they capture artistry pushed to its absolute limit. With every sculpture that I touched in Pietrasanta, a wave of profound emotion slowly washed over my mind and body. If the inner self had a form, this must be it. Or, perhaps, it is the shape of the universe itself. I remembered the people dear to me. I will experience many deaths and partings, both now and in the future. Yet, as long as Kan's work exists, I feel a profound peace, a sense that I need not fear death. It feels as though a soul dwells within this stone. Kan, who believes he can only create for about 70 to 80 years at most, continues to work on this pure white marble, a miracle of the universe that has crystallized over thousands of years, by swinging his chisel and tirelessly polishing the surface with his own two hands. Why doesn't he delegate? Why must he touch every millimeter of the work himself to bring it into being? The reason is this: to connect the past, present, and future. Kan's work teaches us that the past is not time that has gone by and concluded, but, rather, time that continues into the present. His sculptures, even when seen only in fragments, are something that can be perceived as “incredible across the ages.” They will expand far into the future and endure for millennia. Because that which cannot be shaped—the unconscious and the past—has found a form in Kan’s work,  its vibration is eternal. Giorgio's words perfectly sum it up: “Kan's work is made of love.”

A foremost contemporary sculptor, Yasudabegan working with Carrara marble in the early 1970s following his studies at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts in Japan and Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. For over fifty years, Yasuda has collaborated with stonemason Giorgio Angeli in Pietrasanta, Italy, and maintains a studio in Hokkaido, Japan. The most notable works of his early period are a series of monumental marble and bronze sculptures that memorialize the memory of souls lost to natural disasters, connecting the past, present, and future. In 1992, Yasuda created the Art Piazza Bibai in his hometown, which was awarded the prestigious architectural Togo Murano prize in 2002. His grand sculptures have exhibited widely in Europe—often on much-traversed paths where the human touch becomes an integral element—in the United Kingdom (1995), Florence (2000), Tokyo (2001), Assisi (2005), Rome (2007), and Pietrasanta (2005, 2025), among others.

Kan Yasuda has been recognized in both Japan and Italy for his exceptional work; he earned the International Award for Sculpture (1994), Order of the Star of the Italian Solidarity (2006), Lifetime Achievement Award of Hokkaido (2015), the Architectural Institute of Japan Culture Award (2020), and more. We commemorate the artist’s first award in the Americas by recounting Isamu Noguchi’s For Kan Yasuda written in 1985, “When I was last in Italy at Giorgio Angeli's workshop, where both Kan and I work, I saw a recent sculpture of his which I thought…transcends art.” The Isamu Noguchi Award (2025) is a culmination of Yasuda’s six decade-long career and honors the history of the two sculptors’ inspiring journeys.