Tomoshige Kusuno

Tomoshige Kusuno (Yubari, Japan 1935)

Tomoshige Kusuno is a draftsman, painter, visual artist, teacher, and engraver. He studied at the University of Art and joined the Avant-garde Art Center in Tokyo, Japan, in the 1950s. He immigrated to Brazil in 1960, settling in São Paulo. The following year, he participated in the 10th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art. In 1962, he won awards at the Paraná Salon in Curitiba and the Seibi Group of Visual Artists Salon in São Paulo—at the latter, he won the grand prize in 1970, at the 14th edition. Still in the 1960s, he became involved with artists linked to the new figuration trends and participated in the exhibitions Opinião 65, at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (MAM/RJ), and Propostas 65, at the Armando Álvares Penteado Foundation (FAAP).

At the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC/USP), he exhibited on several occasions, winning awards at the Jovem Arte Contemporânea exhibition in 1967 and 1972. He taught drawing at FAAP and in the rural Yuba community in Mirandópolis, São Paulo. From the 1990s onward, he participated in several group exhibitions, including the 1994 Brazil 20th Century Biennial and the Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, in 1996, at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP).

Critical Commentary

When he moved to São Paulo in 1960, Tomoshige Kusuno became involved with neofigurative movements, whose production aimed to critically comment on aspects of Brazilian reality. Because of this connection, he participated in the exhibitions Opinião 65, at the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art (MAM/RJ), and Propostas 65, at the Armando Álvares Penteado Foundation (FAAP). He worked with the language of mass media, taking comic books and news reports as references, in accordance with the proposals of the new figuration, while simultaneously developing abstract paintings. When creating his works, Kusuno employed various painting techniques, as well as drawing and collaged objects directly onto canvas.

In addition to these works, he also designed objects. However, according to art historian Walter Zanini, they are in reality "essentially an expression of painting and drawing"¹—this would be the case with Minúsculo e Maiúsculo, 1965, which resembles an open box placed upside down, with the lid flaps open. On the wood from which the work is made, Kusuno draws figures, geometric shapes, and letters, overlapping or juxtaposing these elements, which fill the entire surface of the object.

Urban themes, such as the crowd and the city, are recurrent in his work, present in various phases beyond the neofigurative. In the 1970s, Kusuno began developing works in which animal figures were treated realistically, or merely suggested, never defining faces. When human, they were inserted into timeless, unusual spaces, as in *Amanhecer*, ca. 1970, and *Noído*, 1977.

In the early 1980s, works bordering on abstraction emerged—*Eclipse*, 1983, and *Fôlego*, 1986—while others suggested the same timeless and unusual atmosphere of works from the previous decade. From then on, the artist returned definitively to the figure, but this time with vigorous, gestural brushstrokes of vibrant colors that resulted in a less objective rendering than the previous one, crafted with precise lines and brushstrokes.

Note
¹ ZANINI, Walter. General History of Art in Brazil. São Paulo: Djalma Guimarães Foundation/Walther Moreira Salles Institute, 1983. 2nd volume.

Critiques

"(...) Throughout the 1960s—acclimated to the urban environment of his upbringing in São Paulo and consciously seeking to integrate his ancestry with the opposite pole of the new living conditions—he initially embraced iconography and the system of new figuration, in drawings and collages obsessively recording the elements of our everyday lives—comic books, wars, newspaper anesthesia, videos uselessly gushing information, and the idle accumulation of nothing. Later, his constructive propensity intensified, at the same time that the explicit figuration was being replaced by symbolic syntheses or distant analogies of landscapes; around 1966, he began to produce a series of works projecting two-dimensional painting into space, as if the canvas had been stuffed and filled from the inside out, through the addition of mold-structures to the surface of the support, covered with the same canvas upon which the painting, already by then a purely formal research, and chromatic, fell back. In this direction, in 1970, he produced some object-paintings in space, completely abandoning the conventional format of the canvas and incorporating the resource of kinetic possibilities, allowing the viewer to directly participate in the manipulation of the movement contained in the work. In his most recent drawings, the mixture of surrealist, hyperrealist, and conceptual climates predominates, returning to the subtleties of critical figuration, with more or less explicit references to Brazilian landscapes and circumstances (space and time).
Roberto Pontual
PONTUAL, Roberto. Art/ Brazil/ today: 50 years later. São Paulo: Collectio, 1973.

"Returning to painting as painting, that is, to color, after 20 years, is what Tomoshige now proposes in his endless confrontations with himself. (...) For eleven years he made the scratch of the hard pencil on the canvas - and this friction - a singular procedure of plastic construction. This passed, as did, long ago, the times of avant-gardeism in Japan (when it was called neo-Dada) and, now in Brazil, the times of reliefs in cracked plaster, the incorporation of objects, the large three-dimensional works, the serigraphs, all cycles revealing a research always participating in the dynamics of contemporary art, but with strong resistance to consensus, which ended up isolating him from classificatory links. (...) He is the same artist whom we fundamentally rediscover in transit through different stages and open to new directions, as now, in the gestures of his rough and exalted acrylic colors that fix facts of memory, impressions of reading, of TV screens and other observations of everyday reality, in fact manifestations that arouse his interest as a primary idea of ​​movement. Freed from the constraints of meticulous graphic design, he explodes into a counterproposal of the previous attitude, in macrogestures, bringing to his paintings a power of fine and sagacious reflection on what they represent and the very way of representing, which respects the possible accidents of work. All this impulsiveness is anticipated by a concentration characteristic of his philosophical mind and only reaches its final stage as dominated spontaneity.
Walter Zanini
KUSUNO, Tomoshige. Tomoshige Kusuno. São Paulo: Montesanti Galleria, 1988.

Solo Exhibitions

1955 - Tokyo, Japan - Solo Exhibition at the Sanshodo Gallery
1958 - Tokyo, Japan - Solo Exhibition at the Faquetsudo Gallery
1959 - Tokyo, Japan - Solo Exhibition at the Bunque Gallery - Shunju
1963 - São Paulo, SP - Solo Exhibition at the São Luís Gallery
1964 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Solo Exhibition at the Goeldi Gallery
1965 - Montreal, Canada - Solo Exhibition at the Libre Gallery
1966 - Ottawa, Canada - Solo Exhibition at the Robertson Gallery
1966 - Washington, DC - Solo Exhibition at the Brazilian American Culture Gallery
1966 - Tokyo, Japan - Solo Exhibition at the Nihombashi Gallery
1966 - Sapporo, Japan - Solo Exhibition at the Gallery Tokeidai
1970 - Tokyo (Japan) - Solo show, at the Cadeau Gallery
1974 - São Paulo SP - Solo show, at the Múltipla Gallery
1979 - São Paulo SP - Solo show, at the Itaugaleria
1986 - São Paulo SP - Tomoshige Kusuno Half a Century, at the Paulo Klabin Gallery
1988 - São Paulo SP - Solo show, at the Montesanti Gallery
1991 - São Paulo SP - Solo show, at the Kramer Art Gallery

Group Exhibitions

1950 - Tokyo (Japan) - World Student Exhibition - UNESCO
1950 - Tokyo (Japan) - Exhibition at the National Museum of Tokyo
1955 - Tokyo (Japan) - Movimento de Arte e da Vanguarda Group
1955 - Tokyo (Japan) - Exhibition at the Municipal Art Museum - Souzou Prize
1960 - São Paulo SP - 6th Salon of the Seibi Group of Visual Artists, at the São Paulo Society of Japanese Culture/SPCJ
1961 - São Paulo SP - 10th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1962 - São Paulo SP - Nipo-Brazilian Painters, at MAC/USP
1962 - Salvador BA - Nipo-Brazilian Painters, at MAM/BA
1962 - Curitiba PR - Paraná Salon, at the Paraná Public Library - Acquisition Prize
1962 - São Paulo SP - Salon of the Seibi Group of Visual Artists - Silver Medal
1963 - São Paulo SP - 12th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - Honorable Mention
1963 - São Paulo SP - 1st Exhibition of Young National Drawing, at FAAP
1963 - Belo Horizonte MG - Municipal Salon of Fine Arts - First Prize in Drawing
1963 - São Paulo SP - 7th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 13th National Salon of Modern Art
1964 - Belo Horizonte MG - 1st Exhibition of Young National Drawing, at MAP
1965 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Exhibition of Young Contemporary Art, at MAC/USP
1965 - São Paulo SP - 1st Esso Salon of Young Artists, at MAC/USP
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Esso Salon of Young Artists, at MAM/RJ
1965 - São Paulo SP - Propostas 65, at MAB-FAAP
1965 - São Paulo SP - 8th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Opinião 65, at MAM/RJ
1965 - São Paulo SP - Proposta 65, at FAAP
1965 - Caracas (Venezuela) - American Painters and Paintings in the 1960s, at the Museum of Fine Arts of Caracas
1965 - Cornell (USA) - American Painters and Paintings in the 1960s, at the Andrew D. White Museum, Cornell University
1965 - Dallas (USA) - American Painters and Paintings in the 1960s, at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts
1966 - São Paulo SP - Half a Century of New Art, at MAC/USP
1966 - New York (USA) - The Emergent Decade, at the Guggenheim Museum
1966 - São Paulo SP - Nipo-Brazilian Artists, at MAC/USP
1967 - São Paulo SP - 1st Young Contemporary Art, at MAC/USP - Small Merit
1967 - Campinas SP - 3rd Contemporary Art Salon of Campinas, at MACC - Small Gold Medal and Silver Medal for Painting
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation
1967 - Belo Horizonte MG - Municipal Salon of Fine Arts - Grand Prize of the City Hall
1967 - São Paulo SP - Salon of the Seibi Group of Visual Artists - Special Recognition
1967 - Brasília DF - 4th Modern Art Salon of the Federal District, at Teatro Nacional Cláudio Santoro
1967 - Curitiba PR - 24th Paraná Fine Arts Salon, at the Paraná Public Library - 1st Prize in Drawing
1968 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Young Contemporary Art, at MAC/USP - Special Recognition
1968 - São Paulo SP - 12th Salon of the Seibi Group of Visual Artists - Acquisition Prize
1968 - Campo Grande MS - 28 Artists from the MAC/USP Collection, at Diário da Serra
1968 - Florianópolis SC - 1st National Exhibition of Visual Arts, at MASC
1968 - Campinas SP - 4th Contemporary Art Salon of Campinas, at MACC - Acquisition Prize
1969 - Porto Alegre RS - 2nd Young Contemporary Art, at MARGS
1969 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 18th National Salon of Modern Art
1969 - Fortaleza CE - 28 Artists from the MAC/USP Collection, at Centro de Artes Visuais Raimundo Cela
1969 - São Paulo SP - General Panorama of Contemporary Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1970 - São Paulo SP - 4th Young Contemporary Art, at MAC/USP
1970 - São Paulo SP - 14th Salon of the Seibi Group of Visual Artists - Grand Prize
1970 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th JB Art Summary
1970 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Panorama of Contemporary Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1970 - São Paulo SP - 4th Young Contemporary Art, at MAC/USP - Acquisition Prize
1971 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Japan Art Festival, at MAM/RJ
1971 - Antwerp (Belgium) - Antwerp Biennial
1972 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Multiplied Art, at Multipla de Arte
1972 - São Paulo SP - 6th Young Contemporary Art, at MAC/USP
1973 - São Paulo SP - Art/Brazil/Today: 50 Years Later, at Galeria da Collectio
1974 - Campinas SP - 9th Contemporary Art Salon of Campinas, at MACC
1974 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 50 Years of Modern Art in Brazil, at MAM/RJ
1974 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Contemporary Brazilian Printmakers, at Galerie Ziegler
1974 - Spain - Contemporary Brazilian Printmakers, at the Museum of Fine Arts of Spain
1975 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Communication According to Visual Artists
1976 - São Paulo SP - 8th Panorama of Contemporary Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1977 - São Paulo SP - 14th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation
1977 - São Paulo SP - 9th Panorama of Contemporary Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1978 - São Paulo SP - 3 Generations of Nipo-Brazilian Artists, at Galeria Arte Global
1978 - São Paulo SP - The Object in Art: Brazil 1960s, at MAB-FAAP
1979 - São Paulo SP - Mira Schendel, Tomoshige Kusuno, Marcelo Villares: Drawings and Paintings, at Nova Acrópole
1979 - São Paulo SP - 11th Panorama of Contemporary Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1979 - Curitiba PR - 2nd Annual Print Exhibition Cidade de Curitiba, at Centro de Criatividade
1980 - São Paulo SP - Masters of Lyrical Abstraction in Brazil, at Galerie Eugenie Villien
1981 - São Paulo SP - Arte Pesquisa, at MAC/USP
1983 - São Paulo SP - Reinterpretation Project, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1983 - São Paulo SP - 17th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation
1984 - São Paulo SP - Xerox Art Brazil, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1984 - Ourinhos SP - Tribute to Printmaking in Brazil, at Itaugaleria
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Opinião 65, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1985 - Penápolis SP - 6th Northwest Salon of Visual Arts, at FEPE - Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis
1985 - São Paulo SP - Japanese Artists in the MAC Collection, at MAC/USP
1985 - São Paulo SP - Highlights of Contemporary Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1985 - São Paulo SP - 18th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation
1985 - São Paulo SP - New Media/Multimedia Art: Brazil 70/80, at MAB-FAAP
1986 - São Paulo SP - URBS in the Eyes of Eight Artists, at Galeria Montesanti Roesler
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Christian Dior Contemporary Art Exhibition: Painting, at Paço Imperial
1986 - São Paulo SP - 17th Panorama of Contemporary Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1987 - São Paulo SP - 20th Contemporary Art Exhibition, at Chapel Art Show
1988 - São Paulo SP - Juréia, at Sadalla Galeria de Arte
1988 - São Paulo SP - Life and Art of the Japanese in Brazil, at MASP
1988 - Brasília DF - Japan Heritage: Aspects of Nipo-Brazilian Visual Arts
1988 - Manaus AM - Japan Heritage: Aspects of Nipo-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1988 - Belém PA - Japan Heritage: Aspects of Nipo-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Fundação Rômulo Maiorana
1988 - Recife PE - Japan Heritage: Aspects of Nipo-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Instituto de Cultura
1988 - São Paulo SP - 63/66 Figure and Object, at Galeria Millan
1988 - São Paulo SP - Japan Heritage: Aspects of Nipo-Brazilian Visual Arts, at MAB-FAAP
1988 - Curitiba PR - Japan Heritage: Aspects of Nipo-Brazilian Visual Arts, at MAC/PR
1988 - Porto Alegre RS - Japan Heritage: Aspects of Nipo-Brazilian Visual Arts, at MARGS
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Japan Heritage: Aspects of Nipo-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Museu Nacional de Belas Artes
1991 - São Paulo SP - Graphic Record: Original Lithographs, at Kramer Galeria de Arte
1991 - São Paulo SP - What Drives You Now, 60s Generation?: Young Contemporary Art of the 60s Revisited, at MAC/USP
1992 - Santo André SP - Lithography: Methods and Concepts, at Paço Municipal
1992 - São Paulo SP - The Seduction of Volumes: The MAC’s Three-Dimensional Works, at MAC/USP
1993 - João Pessoa PB - Woodcut: From Cordel to Gallery, at Fundação Espaço Cultural da Paraíba
1993 - São Paulo SP - Luso-Nipo-Brazilian Exhibition, at MAB-FAAP
1994 - São Paulo SP - Woodcut: From Cordel to Gallery, at Companhia do Metropolitano de São Paulo
1994 - São Paulo SP - Claudio Tozzi, Ivald Granato, Cleber Machado, Maurício Nogueira Lima, Rubens Gerchman, Siron Franco, and Tomoshige Kusuno, at A Hebraica
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século XX
1995 - São Paulo SP - Brazil-Japan Art, at Fundação Mokiti Okada M.O.A.
1995 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Brazilian Art Project, at Renato Magalhães Gouvêa Art Office
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Opinião 65: 30 Years, at CCBB/RJ
1995 - São Paulo SP - Contato Project, at Galeria Sesc Paulista
1995 - Niigata (Japan) - Contemporary Nipo-Brazilian Painters Exhibition, at The Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art
1995 - Tokushima (Japan) - Contemporary Nipo-Brazilian Painters Exhibition, at Tokushima Cultural Center
1995 - São Paulo SP - 1st United Artists, at Casa das Rosas
1996 - Gifu (Japan) - Contemporary Nipo-Brazilian Painters Exhibition, at The Museum of Fine Art Gifu
1996 - Tokyo (Japan) - Contemporary Nipo-Brazilian Painters Exhibition, at Azabu Art Museum
1996 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Nipo-Brazilian Painters Exhibition, at MASP
1996 - Belo Horizonte MG - Itinerant Impressions, at Palácio das Artes
1996 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art: 50 Years of History in the MAC/USP Collection: 1920-1970, at MAC/USP
1996 - São Paulo SP - Six Timeless Artists, at Múltipla Galeria de Arte
1996 - São Paulo SP - 2nd United Artists: Utopia, at Casa das Rosas
1997 - Jacareí SP - Contemporary Nipo-Brazilian Painters Exhibition, at Oficina de Artes Santa Helena
1999 - São Paulo SP - Daily Life/Art: Consumption - Metamorphosis of Consumption, at Itaú Cultural
1999 - São Paulo SP - United Artists: Journeys of Identities, at Casa das Rosas
1999 - São Paulo SP - Lithography: Fidelity and Memory, at Espaço de Artes Unicid
2001 - São Paulo SP - Nipo-Brazilian Art: Moments, at Galeria Euroart Castelli
2001 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Culture 1, at Casa das Rosas
2002 - São Paulo SP - 8 Contemporary Brazilian Artists, at Casa das Rosas
2002 - São Paulo SP - Imaginary Mexico: The Brazilian Artist’s Perspective, at Casa das Rosas
2002 - São Paulo SP - Open Opera: Celebration, at Casa das Rosas
2003 - São Paulo SP - Israel and Palestine: Two States for Two Peoples, at Sesc Pompéia
2003 - São Paulo SP - Tomie Ohtake in the Spiritual Fabric of Brazilian Art, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Tomie Ohtake in the Spiritual Fabric of Brazilian Art, at MNBA
2005 - São Paulo SP - Ship of Fools, at MAC/USP