Bunpei Kado: NEST

Is there any artists creating more explicit artworks than Bunpei Kado? What he does is combining everyday materials rather than creating. Motifs of his works are houses, cranes, a souvenir from Osaka Castle, a found wooden sculpture of bear, chairs and tanks, which are nothing but themselves. However, once the artist works on them, those materials become apart from everyday life. Though combination of everyday materials reminds us Lautreamont’s saying “beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting-table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella”, Kado does not seem to aim such “beauty” of Surrealists. It is clear that so many artists has been creating works by combination of different everyday materials today, and in most case, those end in variant transformation of specters such as those appear on paintings by Bosch or the picture scroll of pandemonium. These motifs can also frequently be seen on popular culture including animations and comics. The result of their method may be to create a stranger from the world. The impression of Kado’s works, on the other hand, is completely different from this genealogy; it appears humorous and fresh. Looking the works of germination series, for example, buds stretch out from everything likes of a wooden bear sculpture, chairs, drawers, and brushes. As for works of bonsai, a steel tower supporting transmission lines stands on a pot distorted like a pine tree.
So, what is the difference between “the stranger” and Kado’s works? Though Surrealists and artists expressing variants remind us beauty and fear of image as combined aggregate, the combination in the works of Kado seems rather montage. In other words, it is the process to bring out different meanings from each combination. For instance, the combination of Osaka Castle and a tank is not just a weird tank but attracts us by its humorous form in the first place. The artist does not try to share particular significance of “Osaka Castle”, “souvenir”, “tank”, or “plastic model” with viewers. It does not express the weirdness of collective image but remains us a room to imagine another perception and meaning. Kado is such a unique artist.
Toshio Kondo, Art Front Gallery

image of part of the exhibition