Never is too late[i]

 

In the same way that I delayed for almost one year to write this text, the people of Nagasaki took too many year to recognize the singular value of an artist and to open a space to display and show his works and, in this way, to perpetuate his name among many other Japanese that dedicated their life to different expressions of art. 

His name is Kaoru Kubota[ii].

For me, in spite of all that I study about Japanese tradition and Japanese art, from the very beginning I was convinced that Kaoru was one of the most important Japanese artists at the end of the XX century and the beginning of the third millennium.

He is singular: without being tied to the traditions of the Orient and/or of the Occident, he keep what is the most important value to Japanese way of thinking: economy of elements. He used it in a very personal manner. No one can easily identify Kaoru as a Japanese artist. Visually, nothing clearly Japanese is reflected in his unusual miniatures of strange creatures and masks. He created things unique and he behaved as someone that was not in harmony with his time. He was evasive, strange, introspective and lived an isolated life. But he was a man of his time. Time in which Japan rebuilt itself.

As many other artists around the world, he became recognize by his countryman only after many year of his departure for eternity. But never is too late.

I am happy that I made no mistake in giving from the very beginning my approve to his effort to show the power of his mind through the small figures of his “ton-chin-kan”[iii] and not through monumental sculptures.

I am also happy that now he has a place dedicated to his works and that many people of forthcoming generations will have a chance to know who he was and what he did.

Nagasakiis more rich since the day of the opening of the space dedicated to Kaoru.

Life is a mystery and so few of us know how to perpetuate it. Kaoru did.