Susumu Shingu

Shingū was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1937. He matriculated at the University of Fine Arts in Tokyo in 1956, with a concentration in oil painting. A bursary from the Italian government followed, allowing him to travel to Italy where his intention was to study figurative painting.{{Cite web|url=https://pen-online.com/arts/susumu-shingu-an-ode-to-nature/|title=Susumu Shingu: An Ode to Nature|website=Pen Magazine International|language=en|access-date=22 April 2020}} He attended the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma from 1960 to 1962. By his own account, Shingū's interest in sculpture developed as his interest in abstraction was expanding. He hung a painting outside to record it photographically: the wind interfered. He became fascinated by the potential for three-dimensional movement. "The work that followed relied on natural forces to make it move or make sound, and he began using more sophisticated materials for outdoor works,"{{Cite web|url=https://slash-paris.com/artistes/susumu-shingu/portfolio|title=Susumu Shingu — Portfolio|website=Slash Paris|language=en|access-date=23 April 2020}} as traditional art materials were either too heavy to supply graceful natural movement or too quickly degraded under outdoor conditions.

He was quoted as saying "My works are ways of translating the messages of nature into visible movements".

While he was still in Italy, a chance meeting with Kageki Minami, the president of Osaka Shipbuilding Company, led to Shingū's return to Japan, where Minami allowed him a studio in his shipyard and access to the talents of company engineers. With this support, Shingū produced Path of the Wind, a 20-meter-tall sculpture that was his first large-scale commissioned piece.{{Cite web|url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2014/10/02/arts/susumu-shingu-knows-way-wind-blows/|title=Susumu Shingu knows which way the wind blows|last=Yamada|first=Mio|date=2 October 2014|website=The Japan Times|language=en-US|access-date=22 April 2020}} It was installed in Senrikita Park in 1977.{{Cite web |title=Works ｜ Susumu Shingu |url=https://susumushingu.com/en/works.shtml |access-date=2024-01-22 |website=Susumu Shingu - Sculptor of the wind}} He began to produce work incorporating elements from his study of the Japanese folk arts: wind chimes and traditional carp banners.{{Cite web|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1988/06/11/832388.html?zoom=13.66|title=TimesMachine: Sculptures That Frolic in the Wind - NYTimes.com|website=timesmachine.nytimes.com|access-date=22 April 2020}}

Expo '70, a World's Fair in Tokyo, was a major event on the arts scene in Japan. Shingū was one of eight Japanese sculptors chosen to represent the nation. The organizers commissioned a large piece from Shingu for the central plaza.{{Cite book|last=Shingu|first=Susumu|title=Shingu: Message From Nature|publisher=Abbeville Press|year=1997|isbn=0789203804}}

From 1971 to 1972, he spent a year at Harvard University as a Visiting Artist at Harvard's Carpenter Center for the Visual and Environmental Studies.{{Cite web|url=https://artradarjournal.com/2018/11/25/ad-infinitum-japanese-artist-susumu-shingus-spaceship-at-mudam-luxembourg/|title=Ad (In)Finitum: Japanese artist Susumu Shingu’s "Spaceship" at MUDAM Luxembourg {{!}} Art Radar|last=Radar|first=Art|language=en-GB|access-date=22 April 2020}} In 1983, he built Gift of the Wind, a permanent wind installation outside the Porter subway station in Cambridge, as part of the city's Arts on the Line program.

In 2012, a 3,000-sq.-meter open-air sculpture garden was established in Sanda, Japan, named the Susumu Shingū Wind Museum. Starting in 2019, he began designing and architecting a utopian village next to the museum, named Atelier Earth. This would become his largest work.{{Cite web |title=Kinetic Sculptor: Susumu Shingu |url=https://www.ippodogallery.com/blog/103-kinetic-sculptor-susumu-shingu/ |access-date=2024-01-22 |website=Ippodo Gallery |language=en}}

He has also collaborated in theatre projects (including Noh performances{{Cite web |last=Benoit |first=Guillaume |date=2018 |title=Susumu Shingu — Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger — Critique |url=https://slash-paris.com/critiques/susumu-shingu-galerie-jeanne-bucher-jaeger |access-date=23 April 2020 |website=slash-paris.com |language=en}}) and published over twenty books.{{Cite web |title=Bibliography ｜ Susumu Shingu |url=https://susumushingu.com/en/bibliography.shtml |access-date=2024-01-22 |website=Susumu Shingu - Sculptor of the wind}}

Shingū's works have been exhibited internationally, and have won awards including the Outdoor Sculpture Prize of Nagano and the Japan Grand Prix of Art. Two widely travelled exhibits were Windcircus (1987), shown in Bremen; Barcelona; Florence; Lahti, Finland; New York City; Boston; Chicago; Los Angeles; and Nagano, and Wind Caravan (2019–20) in Japan and New Zealand.

File:Duetto d'Acqua, Montecatini Terme.jpg|Fontana Duetto d’Acqua, Montecatini Terme, Italy

Shingu has published or contributed to edited works of his art in over ten volumes, including Wind and Water, Windcircus, Dialogue with Nature, and Wind Caravan, and a biographic trilogy, Inside My Thinking. He has also published a range of children's books which have been translated into multiple languages, including Strawberries, Traveling Butterfly, and With the Sun.{{Cite web |title=Shingu, Susumu |url=https://jeannebucherjaeger.com/artist/shingu-susumu/ |access-date=2024-01-22 |website=Jeanne Bucher Jaeger |language=en-US}}

{{Reflist}}

• [http://windmuseum.jp/ Susumu Shingu Wind Museum]
• [https://atelier.earth/ Atelier Earth]

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Category:1937 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century Japanese sculptors

Category:21st-century Japanese artists

Category:Artists from Osaka