Double Square 双方藝廊

Florian Claar (b. 1968) was born in Germany and studied sculpture and stage design at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart. He currently resides in Japan and Germany. Claar launched a career in new media, installation art and film art after he went to Tokyo in 1994, and was awarded the 1st Prize of the Kajima Sculpture Competition (1998) and the 1st Prize of the Benesse Sculpture Competition.

With a transdisciplinary practice engaging art, stage design and film, Florian Claar’s work impresses his audience with its dramatic tension as it foregrounds and makes prominent the space, landscape and architecture in its narrative, blending technological refinement and an application of fluid aesthetics. Upon seeing Claar’s work, the audience will not find a recognizable, fixed shape but rather the state of a form among its countless possible changes, with openings that allow people to peek into the work and structural frames and bolts that are kept on purpose. The indefinite relation between the work’s interiority and exteriority contradicts traditional understanding of sculpture. Aluminum and stainless steel are materials often used by the artist. When unyielding steel and metal encounter Claar’s flowing, soft rhythmic rendering, the result is an intense visual conflict and contrast. The artist draws his inspiration from sci-fi fictions, which he amalgamates with imageries reflecting the zeitgeist and urban landscape, imbuing his work with futuristic qualities as well as a sense of solitude.

Since 1998 onward, he taught at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Japan, and was Assistant Professor of Sculpture and Media Art at the California State University Long Beach in California, USA, and later, Assistant Professor at the Department of Sculpture Department at Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan. He has created public art commissions for numerous art institutions and organizations, among which are Midtown-Project Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan; 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; Changwon Museum of Modern Art, Changwon, Korea; IFS International Finance Center, Chengdu, China; National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts-Weiwuying, Kaohsiung and Taichung International Airport, Taichung, Taiwan. Some of his major solo and group exhibitions in recent years include Waldmärchenat at Nizayama Forest Art Museum, Toyama, Japan (2018); The Micro-cosmos of Florian Claar at Aomori Museum of Art, Aomori, Japan (2007); and Yokohama Triennial (2001).