Suchan Kinoshita (Tokyo, 1960) studied in Germany and the Netherlands. She has lived and worked in Brussels since 2012. For more than thirty-five years, the artist has created projects and exhibitions that challenge our expectations and disrupt our perceptions.
Kinoshita's work encompasses an impressive variety of media and techniques: sculptures, installations, videos, sound creations, performances and more. Her work also includes elements of theatre and experimental music, two fields in which the artist has long been active. Time and the role of the spectator are also two important aspects of her work. Kinoshita does not focus on specific themes, but rather invites the viewer to ‘read between the lines.’ She sees her work as a space that engages with the works themselves and with the ‘spectator’.
This ‘staging’ is also tangible in Renovation, where Kinoshita has transformed or reactivated various elements already present in the exhibition space: “Taking over the Antechambers of the Centre for Fine Arts was an inspiring challenge. First of all, I reopened spaces that were previously sealed off, I brought back natural light - where some of the windows had been blacked out - and I made the historic entrance on the Rue Royale accessible again.”
Alberta Sessa, the exhibition's curatorial coordinator, explains that “antechamber generally refers to spaces of introduction, or spaces in which to wait before entering the main rooms of a house. They are also linked to the ‘genkan’, the intermediary space that gives access to the Japanese home, and which is a recurring theme and focus of attention in the artist’s work.
She adds: ‘Many of the works in the Renovation exhibition have emerged over the course of a long period of transformation in which the space has become a temporary workshop for deconstruction, inventory, and creation.
Suchan Kinoshita wanted to reuse some of the scenographic elements from the previous exhibition at Bozar. For several weeks, she dismantled panels, salvaged wood, ripped out nails, peeled off coverings and even collected dust. These recovered materials were used to make some of her new creations, which she calls “Platzhalter”: intermediate objects that bridge the gap between an initial function and a new one.
Emily Joyce Evans, Associate Researcher at the Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin), explains: “Upon entering Kinoshita's exhibitions, the viewer is frequently first confronted by the artist's choice of materials. Fibre, wood, plastics or other artificial elements [...] can suggest an unfinished state, perpetual construction or postponed decisions.”
These unconventional materials challenge our perception of Kinoshita's work, which refuses categorisation and embraces ambiguity.
Joyce Evans adds: “Kinoshita employs materials and objects in a way that poses questions, rather than answering them Her choices are often deceptively plain, as objects are employed in a manner that makes them neither sculpture nor prop.”
The exhibition at Bozar also features a series of drawings inspired by the manga of Hokusai shown in the only room deprived of daylight, where a new doorway leading to an area at the rear has been opened back up. Other works on paper, subject to the constant variation of natural light, unfurl and unfold across old shelving —now freshly integrated into a brand new structure—or find their place on the walls or in the adjacent room, where the meteorological dimension of the weather merges with the philosophical dimension of Time.
Alberta Sessa adds: “Whether depicted in graphite, pencil, or gouache on the kind of paper normally intended for wrapping food, or recomposed from the boards, these ‘inventory works’ and the remaining traces of the building end up revealing themselves simultaneously, allowing visitors the opportunity to make them their own. As the works have grown over the course of several weeks, their presence has become a concrete and sensorial archive of the space.”
Within the context of the exhibition:
Showcase exhibition at Brussels Central Station
BelgianArtPrize invited Suchan Kinoshita to select young talents for a pop-up exhibition at Brussels-Central Station. Kai Bomke and Jan Prahm Miró, students at the Kunstakademie Münster and Kinoshita's assistants during the installation of her Renovation exhibition at Bozar, were invited to present their own works in the showcase.
>> from 23/04 to 29/06, at Brussels-Central Station, at the bottom of the central staircase.
Nocturne
Bozar organises a Bozar all over the P(a)lace 'nocturne' on Thursday 24 April (6pm to midnight), with access to the Renovation exhibition, performances, music, films and more.
>> Info on bozar.be
About the BelgianArtPrize 2025
The non-profit organisation BelgianArtPrize announced - in April 2024 - the laureate of the BelgianArtPrize 2025. Suchan Kinoshita was selected by the jury and is invited to create and present new work at Bozar - Centre for Fine Arts Brussels from 24 April to 29 June 2025.
The BelgianArtPrize is the best known award for contemporary art in Belgium. Its aim is to support Belgian artists or international artists residing in Belgium and strengthen their national and international recognition. Thanks to the award, the laureate will also gain exposure to a wider audience.
Every two years, an artist is given the opportunity to realise a new artistic project and exhibit it at Bozar. The laureate receives the Gillion-Crowet prize of €20,000 in addition to a production budget provided by the Proximus Art Collection.
The organisation recently overhauled its operations and now guarantees diversity in the list of nominators, who compile the longlist, and in the final jury, which selects one laureate from the longlist. Since the prize’s inception, the jury has traditionally been made up of a cross-section of people working for major art institutions, independent curators, artists and collectors. The organisation aims to respect the diversity of artistic expression that is so characteristic of the Belgian art world.
Jury Statement
"Suchan Kinoshita is a uniquely accomplished artist who has, over many decades, achieved a highly comprehensive and complete oeuvre.
The jury's deep appreciation for her visual language extends to the fact that she is an active and committed pedagogue, teaching and mentoring the next generations of artists. Her sensitivity to time and space, and her enduring curiosity for life, create works and projects that are often process based, and in which the viewer becomes aware of the moment. That she interweaves a profound conceptualism with relatable lived experience, generosity and humour has generated the highest possible regard from BAP25."
Suchan Kinoshita
Biographie
Suchan Kinoshita (Tokyo, 1960) lives and works in Brussels. She studied rhythmics and later contemporary music theatre at the music academy in Cologne from 1981 onwards. In 1983, as a member of Theater am Marienplatz Krefeld, she worked as a performer, stage and light designer, and script writer of her own pieces. This period was followed by a two-year residency at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (1988-1990). She was selected for the PS1 residency in New York in 1993/1994. In 1992, she won the Prix de Rome in Amsterdam in the category “art and public space” and in 2015 she received one of the Greenberger Awards in New York. In 2021, she started the publishing house Allerleirauh and published Da Capo on the occasion of the cancelled 50th anniversary of Art Basel. Since 2006, she teaches at the Kunstakademie Münster.
Kinoshita’s works deal with combinations of several disciplines. Throughout her oeuvre, one can find elements from theatre and experimental music, two fields in which she was active for some time. Duration (time) and a conscious approach regarding the position of the viewer are two important aspects in her work. No themes, rather an interest in reading between the lines would describe her engagement. Kinoshita considers her work as a space where different works interact with each other but also with the viewer. How these different roles are taken by different players within a specific spatial condition is something she continues exploring. Lately she also engages in making cat sculptures (der siebte Franz) and ragpaintings (Lumpenmalerei).
Her work was shown in several international exhibitions such as the 4th Biennale of Istanbul (1994); Manifesta I (1996); Sydney Biennale (1998); Carnegie International/Pittsburg (1999/2000); eerste huwelijk/tweede huwelijk, M HKA ( 2002); 2007 Skulptur Projekte Münster; In 10 Minuten, Ludwig Museum, Cologne (2010); Operating Theatre, Institut de Carton, Brussels ( 2016); das A und O vom wohnen, LLS Paleis, Antwerp (2018); PLATZhalter taking PLACE surPLACE, Playground in STUK, Leuven (2019); proposition d’en face, contribution for the collection of KANAL-Centre Pompidou Brussels (2019); Gap Walk Gym, as part of Risquons Tout, WIELS, Brussels (2020); Architectonische Psychodramen, Kunstverein Münster (2022); Hängen Herum, Etablissement d’en face, Brussels, (2023).
75 years of BelgianArtPrize
In 2025, the BelgianArtPrize will be 75 years old. A piece of Belgian art history and important intangible heritage that should be celebrated. In the coming weeks and months, the BelgianArtPrize will visualise, activate and promote this history to a wide audience through a number of activities and projects, like 52 postcards; some twenty film clips of nominees and laureates; timelines displayed at Bozar and Art Brussels; an exhibition at Art Brussels and a pop-up exhibition at Brussels Central Station.