Hirokazu
Kosaka
Performance Artist and Japanese ArcherTorrance, CA
2016 USA Fellow
This award is generously supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
_
Born in Japan in 1948, he is an ordained Shingon Buddhist priest, a master of the art of Japanese archery, as well as the Artistic Director of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC). After graduating from the Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles in 1970, he continued to study in the fields of Esoteric Buddhist art. He has been actively advocating Japanese culture and art at JACCC since 1984.
Most recently in 2012, Kosaka was commission by the J. Paul Getty Center to kickoff the Pacific Standard Time Performance (PST) and Public Art Festival by transforming the Center’s Arrival Plaza into a sculptural and performative installation with searchlights, dancers, and hundreds of spools of colorful thread – representing the Kalpa, Sanskrit for “a long period of time.” On September 2013, a survey and retrospective 1969-1974 performance work titled, “Project series 46: Hirokazu Kosaka on the verandah” was exhibited at the Pomona College Art Museum.
Portrait photo by Kevin Reeve.
Amerika maru, 1998. Photo courtesy of the artist
Kotohajime, 2012. Photo courtesy of Wakana Kimura
Kalpa, 2012. Photo courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Center