Cannibal in the Car 自動車の中の人喰

When molten iron cools down and becomes solid, the possible variations in size, shape, and surface texture it can take is infinite. Wakabayashi, who considers his own works to be frozen moments from continuous change and cycling of nature, has worked with iron, one of the primary materials from nature, and drawn many expressions out of it.
This work, titled "Cannibal in the Car", is made by a technique Wakabayashi favored in the mid 1960s. First, pieces of iron were welded together, and the resulting mass was shaved down with a grinder to create a form. The artist says the work came to have this shape and this title because, around the time, he often thought about human existence and the difference of his own status inside and outside the car, which made his position as a whole person unstable. The supporting part of the work has been modified three times for the exhibitions of 1966, 1973, and 1983 respectively. Wakabayashi is an artist who does not hesitate to alter his older works to reflect his newer understandings. For his unflagging creative effort to express his current standpoint through the medium of iron, he is recognized as one of the leading figure in postwar Japanese sculpture.