Wall around Hamlet Ⅲ 聚落を囲む壁 Ⅲ

YASUDA Haruhiko (1930-2018) was born in the Wakayama Prefecture as the son of painter and sculptor Yasuda Ryumon. Yasuda moved to Paris in 1958, after studying sculpture at the Tokyo Fine Arts School (current Tokyo University of the Arts). Having received the tutorship of Ossip Zadkine at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, Yasuda later reflected upon this time and mentioned of also being influenced by figures including the likes of Henry Moore and Marino Marini. After becoming an independent sculptor, and participating in various exhibitions while basing his practice in Rome, Yasuda eventually returned to Japan in 1968. Thereafter her became a member of faculty at Musashino Art University, mentoring and teaching younger generations of artists while continuing to actively produce works until his final years in the university’s laboratory that he had used as his studio. all around Hamlet III consists of a series of nested, solid iron frames of different sizes that appear as if protecting something that is inside it. The red rust covering the surface of the work is a symbolic representation of how the work experiences the same passage of time as the stones and soil in its surroundings through both being subjected to the climate and natural conditions of the place in which it is installed, eventually becoming integrated as one with the earth. As is the case with many of Yasuda’s works, this work is not accompanied by a pedestal on which to be presented on, but is instead installed directly on the ground. This is based on the artist's own firm policy that figurative expression is in essence inclusive of the space where the work is present. Yasuda’s work, while employing inorganic materials like iron, also presents an organic element in its endeavor to connect and coalesce with the earth. The various cities and lives of people he had encountered during his travels in Europe can be seen scattered throughout his oeuvre in abstracted and purified forms.