N
ature abhors a vacuum" said Aristotle, meaning that
nature requires every space to be filled with something, even
if, as Julie Ackerman Link writes, "that something is colorless,
odorless air." Japanese sculptor Shō Kishino's exhibition
of twenty-four figures—all of which were sold even before
the exhibition began--at the Ippodo Gallery in New York is
dedicated to exploring this apparent emptiness, the void
we seem to be left with as we strip away the superfluous,
whether that something extra is a cut of wood, a possession
or a vice.
"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free,"
said Michelangelo. Kishino denominates his task—and the
tradition he works in--in a similar way: "Japanese sculpture…
HYLAND
