Hirokazu kosaka biography of christopher
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Exhibition: Hirokazu Kosaka’s interpretation of 12th century scroll
When his fellow classmates in Wakayama, Japan, were engulfed in reading the popular manga of the day, growing up as a teenager in post-war Japan, Hirokazu Kosaka found his imagination transfixed by a scroll he saw at the Kozanji Temple in Kyoto. The scroll, considered to be the world’s oldest manga created in the 12th century, was the Chojyu-Jinbutsu-Giga (Animal Person Caricature) painted by Toba Sojo.
Versatile artist Hirokazu Kosaka with his interpretation of Scroll of Frolicking Animals located in the Garden Level at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo, Downtown Los Angeles. (Courtesy of the JACCC)
Fifty years later Kosaka, now artistic director of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) in Los Angeles, finds this famous scroll so clear and imbedded in his memory that Kosaka can recreate the comical scenes of monkeys and frogs without seeing a ph
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The Pomona College Museum of Art is pleased to present the first solo exhibition examining the early performative artwork of Hirokazu Kosaka. In , Kosaka left Kyoto, Japan to study painting at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. Deeply influenced by his knowledge of Buddhist spirituality, Zen archery, Noh and Kabuki theater, the ground-breaking experimental art of Japan’s Gutai Group, and his exposure to contemporary art in Southern California, Kosaka began experimenting with body art and performance. Merging his youthful experiences in Japan with the emphasis in body art on physical endurance; in Conceptual art on process; in Minimal art on repetition; and in Gutai on concrete forms, Kosaka created performative artworks that attempted to creatively reconcile avant-garde artistic innovations with spiritual practices such as meditation, pilgrimage, and Zen archery. The title, “On the Verandah,” refers to Kosaka’s conception of in-between spaces such as those betw
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Hirokazu Kosaka
Master Artist in Residence, Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles
Born in Wakayama, Japan in , Hirokazu Kosaka now lives and works in Los Angeles, where he serves as Visual Arts Director at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. As a lärling at the Chouinard Art Institute, where he graduated with a BFA in painting in , Kosaka began to explore the art of performance, looking toward artists such as Wolfgang Stoerchle, Allen Ruppersberg, William Leavitt and Chris Burden for inspiration. As a young artist, Kosaka also began to incorporate Eastern traditions in his art, drawing from his appreciation of the centuries-old traditions of Noh drama and Kabuki theater, his knowlege of the ground-breaking experimental art of Japan’s Gutai Group in the mids, as well as his own experience with Buddhist chanting and Zen archery.
In , Kosaka returned to Japan where he completed a three-month long performance piece called “Soleares” and later