Collections of Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2022
Yoshio Kitayama 1948 -
Yoshio Kitayama 1948 -
Born in 1948 in Shiga. Resides in Kyoto.
Kitayama has received attention for his organic, large-scale sculpture made of Japanese paper, bamboo, leather, cloth, etc. He suffered a serious illness when he was ten years old and started to work in the dyeing industry after graduating from junior high school. However, he relapsed into illness again at the age of eighteen which led him to pursue an artistic career focusing on "life and death", a compelling and personal theme. He started creating works with bamboo and Japanese paper in the 1970s and was selected to represent Japan for the 40th Venice Biennale in 1982.
"To the Dead, to the Living" Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2000, photo: ANZAÏ
The now-closed Tsuchikura Branch Elementary School in the Kiyotsukyo Ravine was the site of an installation of objects of bamboo and paper. Many small chairs, with feathers attached, were hung from the gymnasium ceiling. The school building as a whole was covered with drawings, newspaper clippings and memos on the subject of death, students’ photographs, paintings, and graduation ceremony speeches; it is full of memories. A pair of wings sprouts from the outer walls.
"Might not be able to draw" (detail) 2015-2016
"Pole " (detail) 2016-2017
Echigo-Tsumari Art Field
Other artists in the “Collections”
