The Japanese artist Koichi Sugihara has died in Barcelona. He was 71 years old, talented for jazz and photogenic for film and advertising.
He exhibited in outstanding museums and institutions such as the Center Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Modern in London, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo or the National Art Museum of Catalonia and in dozens of countries, and received, among others, the National Arts Award Plastics of Catalonia (2008), the Europeo de Arte Contemporáneo (2017), the Fine Arts Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2021) or the Prize for Creativity and Artistic Ingenuity of the Joan Miró Foundation ( 2023).
He does not leave a family, but he does leave a large circle of unconditional fans and an apartment in Ciutat Vella full of works. With which it is not known exactly what is going to happen.
Sugihara was a great engraver and also cultivated oil painting and collage, although the precariousness of the sector led him in recent times to seek income from advertisements and films and even to sell the machinery with which he created his engravings.
He had also exhibited in the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía, in the Olympic and Sports Museum J.A. Samaranch of Barcelona and in the Vila Casas Foundation. An award granted by this institution brought him definitively to Barcelona.
He participated in exhibitions in -among other countries- the United States, Germany, China, France, Holland, Korea, Cuba, Israel, Italy, Morocco, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Great Britain, Ukraine and of course Japan.
“Koichi, who has had to sell everything to pay his bills, is the perfect metaphor for what galleries in Barcelona have been experiencing in recent years, mostly ruinous businesses that endure out of stoicism or by mortgaging assets,” laments a gallerist who worked with the deceased.
Sugihara, who has lived in Barcelona since 1987, has no close family or descendants and did not leave a will, although no one has entered his apartment since his death, on March 26, at the Hospital del Mar. Over the last year, he was attacked silently due to cancer, of which he barely gave any news or complaints.
Sugihara's legacy is now in limbo. His circle of friends has been organized under the umbrella of the Koichi Sugihara Association, which is in the creation phase. His urgent objective is the preservation of his work, apparently extensive, that has been left on the floor.
The circle fears that the rental home could be emptied before a committee of experts can evaluate the artistic complex and decide on a destination.
The association has contacted the real estate company that manages it, the Japanese consulate and the General Directorate of Heritage of the Generalitat, and has asked neighbors and nearby businesses to alert them of any movement in the house - 114 square meters, 98 of them useful - that Sugihara rented for the last 37 years. It is near Barcelona City Hall. A set of keys is in custody of the hospital where she died. “We will only deliver them under a court order,” explains a source from this institution.
The roots of the artist are key for the legacy to remain in the city. The Japanese legation in Barcelona has begun an investigation - which will be laborious and probably several months - to find living relatives of Sugihara. Those up to four degrees, that is, cousins, would have the right to inheritance.
“The Japanese consulate in Barcelona is taking steps within the scope of its jurisdiction and as an extension of the government of Japan, to locate Koichi's relatives, with a view to resolving the situation,” a source from the legation limited as an explanation. . The search for relatives does not have a predetermined deadline. He apparently has a brother and a niece in Japan, one of his friends explained to La Vanguardia yesterday.
Miriam S.G., one of her closest friends, is “convinced” that Sugihara did not leave a will. If this circumstance is confirmed, the ultimate recipient of the legacy through intestate inheritance would be the government of the place of residence, that is, the Generalitat, according to sources from the Japanese consulate. Therefore, the person who could urge the execution of the sentence would be that presumed beneficiary.
The body indicated in these cases is the Direcció General de Patrimoni, dependent on the Department of Economy. Sources from this area detail that in this type of inheritance the Government cannot act ex officio, but must be at the request of any party related to the case.
That is why Sugihara's group of friends has already contacted the Government. The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya has also been interested in the legacy and is attentive to any movement.
One of the people who is fighting to preserve the collection is the art historian Jorgina Martínez Serra, who has studied the creator: “It is a unique work that fuses traditional Japanese elements with European modernity. His creations are full of symbolism and depth, they explore themes such as identity or memory and reveal deep emotions and reflections. “He used his creativity to transform simple elements into artistic expressions loaded with meaning,” she describes.
“He was a master in various techniques, especially engraving, woodcut or drypoint, among others. Furthermore, he combined these techniques with innovative elements such as photographic collage, texts or stamps, giving them a sensuality and vulnerability that seek to capture the viewer's attention to guide them towards an introspective space,” describes the expert.
Koichi Sugihara was cremated on Thursday, April 11. It was his friend Miriam S.G. who urged that he be released from the morgue, where he had been for 16 days. “I did it for his dignity and under my responsibility,” she explains in a telephone conversation. With hardly any income, the procedures were carried out by charities. The woman will guard the ashes as long as necessary.
Last Sunday, April 14, and in the absence of a funeral or farewell ceremony, around thirty friends gathered at the Parc de la Ciutadella, one of Koichi's refuges in Barcelona, to pay tribute to him. There were speeches, a wreath, a couple of songs and dancing, all under a “love tree” of pink flowers.
Sugihara had as his vital inspiration the Wabi'Sabi thought, which puts the beauty of simple, imperfect and natural things first, and which values the signs that time leaves on things.
“Years ago,” the woman explains, “Koichi was talking about suicide. He did it the Japanese way, in a somewhat kamikaze way, because he didn't sell anything, no one bought a painting from him and he didn't care about death, in that sense he said it. But when he found out that he had a tumor, just as he turned 70, in March 2023, he was filled with the will to live,” she adds.
Antònia Boixadós, who organized an important exhibition for him at the Contrast gallery in 2002, echoes this idea: “She said that when she ran out of money to live, she would do as in Japanese culture, where they stand aside and let themselves die, that he said when I met him.”
“In Catalonia there is no policy for art, and people who could buy art have other priorities: on the weekend they go to the beach or the Cerdanya house. All you have to do is see their houses. They have peeling walls! Fighting this trend is very complicated.” For this reason, in recent times he lived more from cinema and advertising than from the plastic arts; He appears as an actor in recent films and series such as There is something in the forest, Welcome to Eden or Slice of life on Barcelona.
Also a great cook, Sugihara bought vegetables and fish at a market every day. But he lived modestly, and stubbornly for art. “Once,” Miriam remembers, “I bought him a painting so he could repair the heater.”
“His apartment has an anthropological and artistic interest that helps us better understand his thoughts, life and work. We consider that it is necessary to document and inventory it before it is too late. There he left a notebook, for example, where he wrote down all of his works in a scrupulously and orderly manner; it is a first-rate documentary source that we must preserve.
