Shigeo Fukuda –
Master of Optical Art
When I was teaching at the Mathias International Design
Institute of Chongqing Jiatong University this year I showed
the students an anti-war poster in which the author
illustrated the beak of a bird as a pair of scissors cutting
through the barrel of a gun. There are many works using the
concept of destroying weapons and promoting peace but I
recommended my students to pursue ideas reflecting the idea of
construction following destruction, for instance two barrels
bent together to form a heart shape. The noted Japanese
designer, Shigeo Fukuda, created a poster in 1975 in which he
portrayed a warhead pointed against a muzzle with which
he won the Grand Award of the Poland Poster Design
Competition.
I have been a
fan of Shigeo Fukuda ever since I began studying design. As
long as thirty years ago, he had formed his unique style,
consisting mainly of simple lines and images rich in humour.
Shigeo Fukuda takes visual contradictions and abnormal
combinations of objects and images to reflect the concept of
surrealism. He is also a master of optical arts, or what he
has called “games of visual art”. He has played such games on
several famous paintings: in the 1970s, he used darkroom
technology to create fifty “smiles” based on the portrait of
“Mona Lisa”. For a poster exhibition in 1984 he created
another portrait of “Mona Lisa” consisting of the national
flags of various countries. For his exhibition, “Shigeo
Fukuda’s Works – 3-Dimensional Art”, he transformed a painting
of the Last Supper into a publicity poster.
Shigeo Fukuda
himself is humorous and easygoing, and he projects this spirit
into his work. His optical art works are marked by their
light-hearted approach, yet they are also thought provoking
and innovative. His mind is like a spring that can generate
many ideas from one single theme and he often combines many
unusual unrelated images together to create a unique effect. A
common motif in his work is the earth with five meridians and
five parallels which he has combined in a variety of ways to
convey a message of love for the earth and amongst mankind.
Younger
designers have often asked me why masters prefer to stick to a
single style. My answer is that the style of design is not the
fruit of a single skill, but rather the result of a method
that has matured after prolonged experience in creating art. I
still remember the first time I met Shigeo Fukuda at the Tokyo
Pan-Pacific International Design Forum in the early 1980s
where another designer asked him why he frequently applied
just one style. His response was that since he could use such
a style to express his idea in the best way, why should he
change? In other words, the style was not as important as the
ability to express the key idea.
His use of
optical installations is a strong feature of his work, and
this was particularly noticeable at his solo design exhibition
in Nara, Japan, some ten years ago: the exhibition hall was
constructed out of geometric figures making up the shape of
the sphinx, with a number of “flying” pigeons hung in front to
create the impression of a portrait of Shigeo Fukuda. The
exhibition also included a transformation of Van Gogh’s
“Sunflowers” into some abstract objects on the ground, with
the painting only becoming visible when standing right in
front of it.
Last year, the
“Kan Tai Keung Fund National Students Design Competition” was
held in Wuxi’s Jiangnan University and Shigeo Fukuda was
invited to be the judge. We worked together with some master
designers from Germany and the United States in selecting some
of the best works by the student contestants and at the award
ceremony Shigeo Fukuda made an impressive speech praising the
young designers. Recently, Shigeo Fukuda was in China again
for a solo exhibition and a week of lectures in Chongqing. His
efforts to raise design standards in China have been much
appreciated by all those working in the field.
Kan Tai Keung
