KOKUFU Osamu

see more artworks by this artist >>


"Parabolic Garden"
2010, ARTCOURT Gallery (photograph: Nobutada Omote)

Osamu Kokufu has produced large-scale sculpture that incorporate plants and entire ecosystems into vehicular motifs. To detach plants from the earth’s surface. This sort of act has become noticeable as an awareness common throughout the works Osamu Kokufu has been undertaking in recent years. Taking manmade objects such as bicycles, propellers, boat sails, parabolic antennas, and other familiar items of our modern urban lives, and joining them with plants from the natural world, at times Kokufu’s works seem, with their architectural-scale manifestations of “worlds that belong to no one”, to be completely unbounded by the standard values and sensibilities of our everyday world, like “moving gardens that wander over the earth”. Layering critical inquiry and imagination with regard to diverse energies of the past, present and future, Kokufu maintains an awareness of diverse contradictions and hardships while continually creating devices that address the basic conditions of life. He does this to gain an external view of the workings of humanity, whose habitat is limited to an extremely narrow zone on the earth’s surface, and to pose questions with regard to the energy needed to support human activity within that zone. Moreover, this work is itself the borderline between the illusions and the realities of haphazardly projected, diverse images of people living in chaotic societies, and further, a ritual of rapport for knowing oneself through interacting with plants.


Biography

1970 
Born in Kyoto Prefecture

1994     
Completed the Graduate course in sculpture at Kyoto City University of Art

1993~
Participated in Solar Power Lab, art project with a solar car

1999     
Participated in the HAAS Project-Harnessing the Sun: A journey Across America by Solar Car

 

Solo Exhibition

2010
Osamu Kokufu : Parabolic Garden, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka
Osamu Kokufu : Surreal instruments
, ART SPACE NIJI, Kyoto

2009
ACG eyes 3 : Osamu Kokufu -ROBO Whale-, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka

2008
Osamu Kokufu/ KOKUFUMOBIL, ART SPACE NIJI, Kyoto
(‘94,‘06)
Osamu Kokufu: move to moving, Matsumoto City Museum of Art, Nagano

2007       
Premonition–KOKUFUMOBIL-Kokufu Osamu, Space B, Osaka Seikei University Faculty of Art and Design, Kyoto

2005
KOKUFUMOBIL, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka

2001  
KOKUFUMOBIL: Virtual Past→Future, The site of Maebashi Fire Defense
Agency building

 

Group Exhibition

2011
TRA : EDGE OF BECOMING, Palazzo Fortuny, Venezia
(- 27 Nov., '11)

Motoko Art Train, Motomachi Koka-shita(under the elevated railroad), Kobe, Hyogo

2010
ROKKO MEETS ART, Rokko Garden Terrace, Hyogo

Chiriki: Art imagination in KOBE, Hyogo('06,'08)

2009
First Passage, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka
KOBE Biennale 2009 Invited artists Exhibition:
LINK - Flexible Deviation, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art

Eco & Art, Gunma Museum of Art, Tatebayashi

2008
RIC Art Capsule, Rokko Island, Kobe ('07-'03)
ARTS×TECHNOLOGY, Machi juu Art in Kitakyushu 2008,
Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka
Osaka Art Kaleidoscope 2008
, Osaka City, Osaka

2007
The Vehicles of the future, ROBOTHINK, Robot Museum in Nagoya, Aichi
the other side of KYOTO ART MAP 2007, Kyoto Art Center
Selected Artists in Kyoto -2007 New Wave-
, The Museum of Kyoto

2006
Toride Art Project 2006, Ibaraki

2005
art-life vol.4 - Paradise Time - Shinji Ohmaki × Osamu Kokufu, Spiral, Tokyo

2004 
New Letters from Kyoto 2004, Katsura Campus of Kyoto University
MOVIL”VJ car”,
Kyoto Art Center

2003
Art Court Frontier, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka

2002
W.F.O.A.P., Rokko Island, Kobe ('96,'97,'00)

2001
The 16th National Festival GUNMA 2001

2000 
Art Contact, Nagoya Citizen’s Gallery
Viewpoint of Galleries 2000, Osaka Contemporary Art Center

1999 
Keep moving: Journey of Spirit, Gallery SOKAWA, Kyoto

1998 
Keep moving: Journey of Spirit, Aichi Arts Center, Nagoya
INSECTOPIA,
Nagoya Municipal Administration Museum

1997 
conversion table, Nagoya Municipal Administration Museum
('95,'93)

1996 
Pilot Farm, ART SPACE・NIJI, Kyoto

1994
PREVIEW, Gallery PREVIEW, Kyoto ('93)

1991
tabula rasa, Kyoto City Shijo Gallery




ROBO Whale, 2008-09
"LINK - Flexible Deviation", Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, 2009


Electric Tricycle, 1994-2004
The three wheeler is powered by a 48volt-800watt electric motor.
photograph:Seiji Toyonaga




left] "ACG eyes 3 : Osamu Kokufu -ROBO Whale-"
2009, ARTCOURT Gallery (photograph: Nobutada Omote)
[right]
"KOKUFUMOBIL", 2005, ARTCOURT Gallery
(photograph: Seiji Toyonaga)




see more artworks by this artist >>



AENEAS Wilder

AKIYAMA Yo

BOTAN Yasuyoshi

FUKUMOTO Shihoko

FUKUMOTO Fuku

FUJIMOTO Yukio

KAMEI Yoichiro

KAWASHIMA Keiju

KURANUKI Toru

KURITA Koichi


KOKUFU Osamu

KOBAYASHI Rikuichiro

MIZUTA Hiroshi

MURAKAMI Saburo

NISHIDA Jun

NISHINO Kozo

NOMURA Hitoshi

OTA Saburo

SHIOYASU Tomoko

UEMATSU Keiji

USAMI Keiji (Japanese only)

UCHIUMI Satoshi

UCHIDA Haruyuki (Japanese only)

YANAGISAWA Akira

YAMANO Chisatoi

YANOBE Kenji

YORIGAMI Kuri

WATANABE Nobuko



Yagi Art Management, Inc
ARTCOURT Gallery

Gallery Hours
Tuesday - Friday:
11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
(Office closes at 6:00 p.m.)
Saturday: 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Closed on Sundays, Mondays,
and major holidays.

E-mail
info@artcourtgallery.com

Telephone
(+81) 6-6354-5444

Facsimile
(+81) 6-6354-5449

Address
Tenmabashi 1-8-5, Kita-ku
Osaka 530-0042 Japan



??