The Lolo and Sosaku artistic duo explores the nature of large kinetic sculptures. Their creative experimentations involve various art mediums, such as painting, music, street art and sculpture. Lately, the duo concentrates on sound installations where their sculptural compositions either produce or react to sound in a wide range of remarkable places. Mainly made by steel or wooden materials, their avant-garde creations challenge the common ideas about sculptures by rejecting ordinary forms. Geometrical and polymorphic depictions shape their inventive kinetic visualizations incorporating complex mechanisms that remarkably generate abstract sounds and physical movements.
Words: Yannis Kostarias
Lolo and Sosaku’s kinetic art in combination with the produced sounds seem to be in direct communication and interaction with the location’s architectural settings. Their kinetic sculptures invoke a serene quality that is able to amplify the surrounding space with spirited appeal and fascinating effects. The abstracted sculptures underline non-traditional sculpting techniques, such as audio-visual equipment and skilful engineering design, which provide additionally fertile sources for experimentation.
Lolo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1977 and Sosaku (b. 1976) in Tokyo, Japan. They met each other in Barcelona in 2004 and since then they work together. Lolo and Sosaku’s work has been widely exhibited and performed at several leading institutions, such as the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid (2009), the Museu da Imagem e do Som in São Paulo (2010), the Fundação Casa França Brasil in Rio de Janeiro (2011), the Sónar in Barcelona (2012), the Matadero in Madrid (2013), the Fundació Gaspar in Barcelona (2016), the Festival Bien Urbain in Besançon, France (2016), the Power Station of Art in Shanghai (2016), the Borderline Art Space in Iasi, Romania (2017). More recently, the duo exhibited last November at the Museo de Arte en Vidrio de Alcorcón (MAVA) in Spain, and earlier this year at the O Art Center in Shanghai and the Boiler Room of the Luis Adelantado Gallery in Valencia, Spain.
In their interview with Art Verge, Lolo and Sosaku share their innovative approach on kinetic art and other art-related issues, while providing some very interesting insights about their daily life. Check it out!
Art Verge: Can you tell us about the process of making your work?
Lolo & Sosaku: Shapes come in different ways:
Like a part of a system to move parts of the sculpture to generate sounds.
Like a shape find in a dream.
Like a powerful shape, wen we can’t scape from this form.
Like a shape constantly changing in a constant, becoming a multiple shape.
The nature is our main inspiration, the growing and the erosion.
Above all the cosmos, matter density and the gravitational waves…
All is out there.
The cooperation between humans is very important, it is the base … although there were and there will be brilliant minds we always believe that working as a team gives better results, that has no discussion. Although we understand that in art and in the world in general humans have something very powerful called ego, it is something to take into account when working as a team, it is always wild and you can never control it at all .. you have to be attentive and have tried to use the clearest possible conscience to accept a different solution to a possible problem or idea.
AV: How would you define your work in few words (ideally in 3 words)?
L&S: Live, Machine, Voice.
AV: Can you name any artists you, lately or generally, take inspiration from?
L&S: Ancient Greek sculptors, also Egyptians. From Dada and Bahuhaus school , to Jean Tinguely, Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet.
AV: Which are three main challenges for a dimensional sound sculpture, like Cristal, Dancer or Motors, you had to deal with?
L&S: The movement is a constant in our work.. The shape and the sound. Is the movement how makes it.
Our sculptures were born from the search for sound, as if it were an instrument, over the years, these structures evolved and transformed together with sound, due to this it is impossible for us to see them as something separate. Initially we built small microphones to amplify the sound they generated. With the passage of time and as the size grew, the sculptures took on their own voice and we understood that the use of microphones was no longer necessary. One of. Our last works called Cruz, emitted a powerful sound that could be heard more than 50 meters from the gallery. This evolution of form together with sound It has reached a very special conjunction and power, we understand that when analyzing our works the constant is the movement. It is to him that we reveal all the results, both in form and sound.
AV: Wood and aluminium seem to be two major materials for your handmade sculptures/installations. Is there any other special material you haven’t used yet and you would like to try on?
L&S: We are constantly experimenting with new materials. Recently we made a series of sculptures in ceramic, organic forms inspired by nests hives of insects or birds. Glass and metal attract us a lot.
AV: How do you know when the body of your work is finished?
L&S: Our works are never finished, we always see them in total transformation, although we finish our work, the sculptures continue to transform themselves
AV: What about the place where you work? What’s your studio space like, and do you always work together?
L&S: It’s been a very short time since we’ve rented a very large studio to work.
We had never had such a large space, so each one of us began to work in a corner of space, and little by little we started doing and creating together.
We do not have a special way of working, we let everything flow naturally. A form, movement or sound are key to start a new job.
We are channels of transformation, energy / idea.
We work a lot and then we rest a lot.
AV: Which exhibition did you visit last?
L&S: AGÓN the competition in ancient Greece at CaixaForum Barcelona.
AV: What do you hope audiences will take from your work?
L&S: With happiness and drama. With time to think.
AV: What does your mum think about your art?
L&S: They like it, they feel hers.
AV: Are you a morning person or a night owl?
L&S: Lolo morning Sosaku night.
AV: Is the glass half empty or half full?
L&S: Always in constant balance, a calm, circular sea, without wind.
AV: Which are your plans for the near future?
L&S: We finished a project that has taken us many months of work in Mental Stones, art lab in the Delta del Ebro, it is a kinetic sculpture of 2.5 meters in diameter, built of aluminium and metal.
Its final format is a video that will be presented at the Max Estrella Gallery in Madrid.
We are currently preparing our next exhibition entitled Blue, in which we will present unpublished works in ceramics, glass and also our new drawings.
It will be at the end of the month of April in the gallery Luis Adelantado de Valencia.
In May, we will travel to China to make a residency in Shanghai, in which we will do graphic work in formats and Chinese vertical papers.