Tetsumi Kudo

Hauser & Wirth is currently presenting a Tetsumi Kudo exhibition. The Japanese artist is a leading figure of his generation. In half a century of active artistic practice, Kudo has exposed in all of the most historic occasions of our times. In 1957, he submitted a piece to the Salon des Independants in Paris before being part of the Venice Biennale in 1976 and of the São Paulo edition one year later. As a leader of slow, reflective and ethical values Kudo is cited by many contemporary artists as a mentor.

the show is an embodiment of Tetsumi Kudo scrimmage against the growing state of industrialism. Far before the actual eco statements, Kudo aligned his career and art along the topics of pollution, values and traditions. As reflected in his comment from 1971, „No matter how, it is important to think about the relationship of polluted nature to the proliferation of electronics…the decomposition of humanity (humanism) and the old and traditional hierarchy of values“ Kudo was without a doubt ahead of his time. The pieces on show at Hauser & Wirth have been created between in the seventies and reflect a meditation and observation of the pollution and waste that he uses as the base to create the pieces. With ‚Your Portrait‘ Kudo ironically represented the Western way of life by the disuse of futile commodities. And his little dying gardens projected the future of the civilization. Kudos´works is ergo  avant-garde and predominant ones of our era.