Le temps by Aki Kuroda
First Night I by Aki Kuroda
CONTI/NUIT/É Ⅳ by Aki Kuroda
Untitled by Aki Kuroda

Aki Kuroda

1944–present · Japanese

Aki Kuroda was born in Kyoto in 1944[1], the son of an economics professor at Doshisha University, and grew up in a household open to European culture from an early age. He moved to Paris, where he has been based for most of his adult life, and developed a painting practice centred on silhouetted figures traversing labyrinthine passages, rendered in dense, calligraphic line strokes that owe something to both Abstract Expressionism and Japanese[1] brushwork.

Key facts

Born
1944, Japanese[1]
Wikipedia
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Biography

Since 1992 he has developed COSMOGARDEN, an ongoing installation and participatory project functioning as a cosmic garden: visitors move through large-scale environments that extend the spatial logic of his canvases into three dimensions. The project has run for over three decades across European and Japanese[1] venues. In 1993 he designed the sets for Angelin Preljocaj's ballet Parade at the Paris Opera and the Avignon Festival; in 1994 he participated in the Sao Paulo Biennale.

Kuroda's collaborations with architects have been among the more unusual of any painter working between Paris and Tokyo. He produced relief paintings in dialogue with buildings designed by Tadao Ando and Richard Rogers, two architects whose philosophies of space could hardly be more different, yet in both cases his dense surface pattern found a productive tension with the structural clarity of the host. His murals at the Leonardo da Vinci University Centre and the Japanese[1] Cultural House in Paris remain visible works. He has exhibited across Europe, Japan and the Americas over a career of more than forty years.

Timeline

  1. 1944Born in Kyoto, Japan.
  2. 1992Developed COSMOGARDEN, an ongoing installation and participatory project.
  3. 1993Designed sets for Angelin Preljocaj's ballet Parade.
  4. 1994Participated in the Sao Paulo Biennale.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What is Aki Kuroda known for?
    Aki Kuroda is known for his painting practice, which centres on silhouetted figures traversing labyrinthine passages. These are rendered in dense, calligraphic line strokes that owe something to both Abstract Expressionism and Japanese[1] brushwork; he is also known for his COSMOGARDEN project.
  • Who was Aki Kuroda?
    Aki Kuroda was born in Kyoto in 1944[1] and is a painter who has been based in Paris for most of his adult life. He is the son of an economics professor at Doshisha University and grew up in a household open to European culture from an early age.
  • What was Aki Kuroda's art style?
    Aki Kuroda developed a painting practice centred on silhouetted figures traversing labyrinthine passages, rendered in dense, calligraphic line strokes that owe something to both Abstract Expressionism and Japanese[1] brushwork. He also produced relief paintings in dialogue with buildings designed by Tadao Ando and Richard Rogers.
  • When was Aki Kuroda born?
    Aki Kuroda was born in 1944[1].

Sources

Editorial draws on the following primary and tertiary references for Aki Kuroda.

  1. [1] wikipedia Wikipedia: Aki Kuroda Used for: biography, birth dates, death dates, identifiers, movement attribution, nationality.
  2. [2] book guggenheim-destin00arak Used for: biography.
  3. [3] book guggenheim-guggenheimintern1964allo Used for: biography.
  4. [4] book guggenheim-refigur00kren Used for: biography.

Editorial overseen by Solis Prints. Sources verified 2026-05-24. Click a source for details, or hover over [N] in the page above to preview.

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