YUTAKA SONE

 He studied architecture at Tokyo University of the Arts, receiving his BFA in 1988 and his MA in 1992. His architectural training has had a profound effect on his artistic production, which is marked by an almost obsessive attention to detail, the structural-volumetric construction of his pieces and a fascination with the natural world. He was commissioned by the Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing, China, to create Snow Leopard Garden (2014), a major permanent installation composed of approximately one hundred tons of stones and live plants in the shape of a snow leopard. His works can be found in the collections of the Art Institute, Chicago; Kunsthalle Bern; Mori Art Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art, both Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Tate Gallery, London; MoMA and the Whitney Museum of American Art, both New York. He has participated in the 7th Istanbul Biennale (2001); the 50th Venice Biennale of Art (2003), representing Japan, together with Motohiko Odan; the 25th São Paulo Biennale (2003); Whitney Biennale (2004), New York; and Glasstress (2011), Venice. He has had personal and group exhibitions at the Kunsthalle, Bern (2006); the Aspen Art Museum (2006), Colorado; Maison Hermès Le Forum (2010), Tokyo; Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2011); Santa Monica Museum of Art (2013), California; and the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (2006, 2015)