Makoto Fujiwara was born in 1938 in Gifu. Between 1958 and 1964 he studied at the department of sculpture at the Kyoto City University of Arts. In 1966 he won a scholarship from the French government to study at the Ecole des Beax Arts in Paris. The following year he continued his studies with the renowned Austrian sculptor Fritz Wotrubi at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Later on he was invited to the D.A.A.D. art program in Berlin and lectured at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin from 1974 to 1988. He regularly participated in numerous sculpture symposia from 1967 onwards. He lived and worked in Hannover (Germany) and Larvik (Norway), where he passed away in 2019.
The sculpture by Makoto Fujiwara shows a great deal of sensitivity for how lyrical the language of stone really is and how it affects the immediate surroundings. The attention to how the stone cube unfolds is, in fact, directed inwards. The narrow crack exposes the cube’s core that is smoothed out and bright, in contrast to its raw and rough exterior. Fujiwara’s work is placed on the edge of the central terrace, where it diverts our attention from the beautiful view and invites us to use our eyes and our hands to explore its enigmatic core.
