For many people, the idea of commissioning a life-sized replica of one’s ex-lover remains a distasteful suggestion. Heartbroken in 1918, the Expressionist pioneer Oskar Kokoschka paid a costume designer to fabricate a doll in the likeness of his former girlfriend - the composer Alma Mahler.
Among his requests to the designer was a proviso that the mannequin come complete with teeth and a tongue… The dubious erotic urges that motivated the project eventually gave rise to those of artistic inspiration and the painter depicted the furry dummy in close to 100 paintings, drawings and photographs before eventually beheading it as part of a drunken ‘performance’ in his garden, years later.
Beguiled by this esoteric episode from art history, Soshiro Matsubara (b. 1980, Hokkaido; Japan) has repeatedly returned to the narrative of thwarted passion, obsession and object transference that underpins the Oskar & Alma story.
Adopting their romance and transforming it into an archetype of eccentric intimacy, the artist has abstracted from Kokoschka and Mahler a varied cast of forlorn characters who appear throughout his sculptures, paintings, drawings, installations and texts.
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Soshiro Matsubara, Kiss XXII, 2020 courtesy of the artist and Croy Nielsen, Vienna
Photo by Kunst-dokumentation.com
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Soshiro Matsubara, A Little Kiss, 2022, courtesy of the artist and Union Pacific
Photography by Reinis Lismanis
![](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro13.jpg?w=1536&h=1505&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666869796&s=435fb605db6e646192dea1b717c810d7 1536w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro13.jpg?w=1280&h=1254&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666869796&s=b1c6f1ce65f3b0cf37f46e5ef963281e 1280w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro13.jpg?w=1024&h=1003&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666869796&s=67b65db9ec3ef9d549170ea9c924a00c 1024w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro13.jpg?w=768&h=752&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666869796&s=00b0f29e5c2a4c79a98cbd62f27549ad 768w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro13.jpg?w=512&h=501&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666869796&s=82fab2498e337609b22927e9ad75bb05 512w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro13.jpg?w=256&h=250&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666869796&s=e964f219642927252d83d11e67b6fe54 256w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro13.jpg?w=128&h=125&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666869796&s=3a96e0a8e72b0d8eb1c8d6c7fdc0d621 128w)
Soshiro Matsubara, Love Sick, 2019-2021, courtesy of the artist and Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw
Photo by Kunst-dokumentation.com
How might art objects mirror or even cultivate the experience of romantic love? This might seem like a strange question to ask in relation to a body of work that, in some ways, appears resolutely disconnected.
Matsubara presents disembodied ceramic heads and limbless torsos in the tradition of the classical marble bust, however most of his figurative sculptures have also undergone a process of uncanny enhancement.
Often sporting wigs of bright artificial hair and propped on top of podiums assembled from found objects, these reformulated bodies stare blankly at the viewer from behind glazed and despondent eyes.
Even when these fragmented figures are intertwined – embracing, kissing or positioned in a playfully macabre act of decapitated cunnilingus – a creeping sense of emotional detachment is compounded by the abundance of cool and hard surfaces and the absence of any animate sensuality.
And yet these sculptures also suggest a sense of frozen interiority – an understanding of what it requires to connect with other people and why withdrawing into a world of private fantasy might present an easier or more comfortable alternative.
Alone in their minds, these statues of assembled parts seem caught in acts of remembering and projection, embodying the piecemeal and detail-driven manner in which humans record impressions of intimacy to memory.
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Soshiro Matsubara, The Caresses, 2020, courtesy of the artist and Croy Nielsen, Vienna
Photo by Kunst-dokumentation.com
This subtle but consistent interest in romantic inner life that seems so fundamental to many of Matsubara’s works, speaks directly to the artist’s parallel interest in Symbolist aesthetics.
Painters most closely associated with the movement, like Fernand Khnopff, often focused on problems of inner turmoil, using an ambiguous symbolic language to give representational form to mental images that could otherwise only be observed internally.
So too does Matsubara use an ornate language of symbols, featuring allusions to Greek mythological figures like Medusa and Hypnos (God of sleep) as well as iconic Symbolist masterpieces like Khnopff’s Carress of the Sphinx (1896), to materialise abstract moods relating to obsession and quiet yearning.
But it is not only from Khnopff’s work that Matsubara takes inspiration. Similar to the way in which he responds to and extends the saga that surrounds Kokoschka and Mahler’s passionate love affair, Matsubara also demonstrates a particular interest in Khnopff’s biography and the intensity of his relationship with his sister.
Explicitly his favourite model, Fernand Khnopff would look to Marguerite Khnopff continually throughout his life as he aimed to refine his artistic vision.
“In my opinion, Marguerite was a kind of prototype for Fernand Khnopff's ideal man or ideal woman” writes Matsubara, embodying Khnopff’s yearning for perfection in a way that “evokes the relationship between God and man.”
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Lumière douce, like a never-ending déjà-vu / Fernand Khnopff, 2022, courtesy of the artist and Bel Ami
Photo by Bel Ami
![](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro5.jpg?w=2048&h=1387&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666809842&s=e3dc93fc52111c1e3839bfaf1a5d9c68 2048w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro5.jpg?w=1920&h=1300&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666809842&s=79a6364fcd883ec79d0fb15b40abeaca 1920w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro5.jpg?w=1536&h=1040&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666809842&s=9c24c558d3257376d16e310a8425d79d 1536w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro5.jpg?w=1280&h=867&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666809842&s=414a18b5169f4d8ec2bf8ec0a91b046c 1280w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro5.jpg?w=1024&h=693&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666809842&s=f94e4420e74bc6fd6ba73ac62582c983 1024w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro5.jpg?w=768&h=520&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666809842&s=e2d77b39cf4c756eac13add103b736d3 768w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro5.jpg?w=512&h=346&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666809842&s=812c8bc87aa9dbca42c4c7e64f3303cf 512w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro5.jpg?w=256&h=173&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666809842&s=3f407a7268ef98396fa332e1a916db68 256w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro5.jpg?w=128&h=86&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666809842&s=3b8a8e5eec924c5440f08341ec8535f3 128w)
Soshiro Matsubara, Last Night XLIII, 2022, installation view ‚Another Surrealism‘, Den Frie, Copenhagen, courtesy the artist and Croy Nielsen, Vienna
Photo by Mats Stjernstedt
![](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro6_2022-10-26-191257_cwxx.jpg?w=1536&h=1315&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666811577&s=8f499b847b1b1fb3eb6c2de14279efb3 1536w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro6_2022-10-26-191257_cwxx.jpg?w=1280&h=1096&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666811577&s=5247941699cce5ba3eefc054d89faafb 1280w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro6_2022-10-26-191257_cwxx.jpg?w=1024&h=877&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666811577&s=4f28c2ed5dd06cd2579da5d04d825bb5 1024w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro6_2022-10-26-191257_cwxx.jpg?w=768&h=657&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666811577&s=81eb05ffabc804f45234c9de53c99b24 768w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro6_2022-10-26-191257_cwxx.jpg?w=512&h=438&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666811577&s=34d24011acc352d23267e1f79e3a5fad 512w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro6_2022-10-26-191257_cwxx.jpg?w=256&h=219&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666811577&s=3dc17b561f780498cad1e71cf2a344db 256w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro6_2022-10-26-191257_cwxx.jpg?w=128&h=109&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666811577&s=2353c37d2e9840469aedec66c112634a 128w)
Soshiro Matsubara Pure Silent II, 2022, courtesy of the artist and Union Pacific
Photo by Reinis Lismanis
Absorbing elements of Fernand Khnopff’s subject position and recontextualising them as part of his own aesthetic identity, Matsubara has adopted Marguerite’s visage as a recurring motif, often using it as a centrepiece in his iconic series of fallopian candelabra.
Here, Marguerite appears as a disquieting icon of watchful passivity and imaginary virtue - impressive in her statuesque majesty but also sombre and eery in her casting as an emblem of fetishism and fantasy.
Whilst Art History has conventionally sought to establish a framework for artistic production that divorces art objects from the personal lives of their creators, Matsubara foregrounds the strangely compelling biographies of other, principally canonical, artists as part of his own practice.
By lending his own creative agency to the lived experience of those who are no longer alive, Matsubara revitalises the stylised artistic expressions that such experience gave rise to; the inactive and all-to-familiar aesthetics we understand according to various schools of “ism” are thus brought back into the volatile world of ‘personal lives’ and unpredictable human behaviour.
Endowing artefacts that seem isolated from the social realm with inner life, Matsubara creates the potential for new meaning as he also risks the potential for more dissonant and sinister readings.
![](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro11-a.jpg?w=1280&h=1024&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666870248&s=8a2e5143cafcfe11ce1f25520f81b53d 1280w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro11-a.jpg?w=1024&h=819&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666870248&s=06326802518554b09f667607cc63fa05 1024w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro11-a.jpg?w=768&h=614&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666870248&s=a4ca9d3e27dccc74652067791d2b89ed 768w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro11-a.jpg?w=512&h=409&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666870248&s=55a8071463de559dd2a8e740a8edbabd 512w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro11-a.jpg?w=256&h=204&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666870248&s=1faec3abdb1662c456b6cd9d0d005f9c 256w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Soshiro11-a.jpg?w=128&h=102&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1666870248&s=ddbcbf384e40fb99efbdcde9d62cfaea 128w)
Soshiro Matsubara, Last Night XXII (L'Ange des splendeurs), 2021, courtesy of the artist and Croy Nielsen, Vienna / private collection Berlin/Hamburg
Photo by Kunst-dokumentation.com
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Soshiro Matsubara often makes use of overly romanticized moments in art history, as means to examine the potential of art as a romantic pursuit or obsession.
Several pieces draw on the turbulent love affair between Oskar Kokoschka and Alma Mahler in the 1900s: upon being abandoned by Mahler, Kokoschka heartbrokenly had a doll fashioned in her image.
Filled with ambiguity and eeriness, Matsubara’s ceramics, paintings, and installations become emblems of the forces of attraction – from mad obsession to sensuous unions with the beloved. In 2017 he founded the antique shop 'Haus der Matsubara'.
Portrait by Marie Haefner