Japanese artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV produces Amazing Recycled Bamboo Installations

Japanese artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV produces Amazing Recycled Bamboo Installations.

The Sakai-based artist who created this installation, Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, comes from a long line of bamboo craftsmen. Previously known as Tanabe Shōchiku, he took up the family name earlier this year. He earned a degree in sculpture from the Tokyo University of the Arts and trained in bamboo crafts at an occupational school in Beppu. One of the most talented and versatile bamboo artists of his generation, he has carried on the Tanabe family tradition in the wake of the death of his father, Tanabe Chikuunsai III (1940–2014), while also exploring the possibilities of large-scale sculpture and installations made of tiger bamboo, such as this one.

In 2017 the artist constructed a site-specific piece titled The Gate at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The work used tiger bamboo that had been used ten times, including in a piece shown at the Museé Guimet in Paris.

Formally he earned a degree in sculpture from Tokyo University of the Arts, and trained in bamboo crafts at a school in Beppu on the island of Kyushu, Japan. Chikuunsai has a sculpture currently on view at the historic estate Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire (thnx Helen!).