Koji Enokura

Koji Enokura
Courtesy of the Estate of Koji Enokura
Born	(1942-11-28)November 28, 1942  Japan・Setagaya, Tokyo
Died	October 20, 1995(1995-10-20)
Nationality	Japanese
Education	Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music
Known for	Contemporary Art
Notable work	Wall (1971)
Movement	Mono-ha

Kōji Enokura (榎倉康二, Enokura Kōji^?, 1942 – 1995) was a Japanese painter and installation artist.

He was one of the key members of Mono-ha, a group of artists who became prominent in the late 1960s and 1970s. The Mono-ha artists explored the encounter between natural and industrial materials, such as stone, steel plates, glass, light bulbs, cotton, sponge, paper, wood, wire, rope, leather, oil, and water, arranging them in mostly unaltered, ephemeral states. The works focus as much on the interdependency of these various elements and the surrounding space as on the materials themselves.

Kōji Enokura was born in Tokyo. In 1966, he graduated from the painting department at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Enokura received an MFA in painting at the same university in 1968, and taught there from 1975 until his death in 1995.

From the beginning of the 1970s, Enokura stained paper, cloth, felt, and leather with oil and grease. He also discolored the floors and walls of galleries and outdoor spaces. These installations are no longer extant but are documented in photographs. In 1970, Enokura exhibited in Tokyo Biennale ’70 – Between Man and Matter, with Jiro Takamatsu and Susumu Koshimizu. World-renowned artists such as Richard Serra, Jannis Kounellis, Luciano Fabro, Christo and Bruce Nauman also exhibited. There he presented Place (1970), stacks of rough straw paper piled in different heights and soaked with oil.

One of his most notable works is Untitled (1970), a triangular structure of slashed leather placed on the floor in the corner, which highlights the relationship of the adjacent walls as much as the texture of its own surface. In a similar vein, for the Paris Youth Biennale in 1971, he constructed Wall, a three-meter-tall and five-meter-wide concrete partition between two trees in the Parc Floral. This work—for which he was awarded a scholarship that allowed him to live in Paris from 1973 to 1974—has been an enduring icon of his practice.