איגור מיטוראז' בהוקאידו, יפן

פסל ה-Tsuki-no-hikari (月の光 — אור הירח) של מיטוראז' מוצב באופן קבוע בפארק הפסלים אבוטה, הוקאידו, יפן. זהו המקור של היצירה — עותקים שלה עומדים ליד המוזיאון הבריטי בלונדון, על חולות שכווינינגן (הולנד) ובפוזנן (פולין).

פארק הפסלים אבוטה

פארק הפסלים אבוטה ממוקם בחצי האי אבוטה בדרום-מערב הוקאידו, ליד אגם Toya. הפארק הוקם כדי לאכלס פסלים בינלאומיים בסביבת טבע פתוחה, ומחזיק ביצירות של אמנים רבים לצד Tsuki-no-hikari של מיטוראז'.

Tsuki-no-hikari — ביוגרפיה של פסל

Tsuki-no-hikari — ראש נשי עצום, שוכב על גבו, מביט אל השמים — הוא מהפסלים הרסוניים ביותר בסדרת הראשות של מיטוראז'. ב-1994 הוצב עותק ממנו בכניסה למוזיאון הבריטי כחלק מתערוכת "Time Machine" שאצר ג'יימס פוטנם. שם הפסל — אור הירח — מעביר תחושה של נוכחות לילית, ספוקה, חצי-ישנה.

Tsuki-no-hikari בגדות אגם טויה

פארק הפסלים אבוטה ממוקם בחצי האי אבוטה בדרום-מערב הוקאידו, ליד אגם Toya — אגם קלדרה ציורי ביוצא-דופן שנוצר על ידי הר געש. הפארק הוקם לאכלס פסלים בינלאומיים בסביבת טבע פתוחה, ומספק ל-Tsuki-no-hikari של מיטוראז' רקע של הרים וגבעות ירוקות מרחוק.

בשונה מהנוף האורבאני של המוזיאון הבריטי או הנוף הימי של שכבינינגן, ההצבה הוקאידואית של Tsuki-no-hikari מכניסה את הפסל לתוך נוף וולקאני בלתי-אורבאני. הראש הנשי הגדול, שוכב מביט אל השמים, פוגש כאן שמיים פתוחים ורחבים יותר — חוויה שמשתנה עם העונות: שלג בחורף, ירק עמוק בקיץ.

מיטוראז' ויפן

מיטוראז' זכה לקבלה חמה ביפן, שם הפיסול הקלאסי-שבור שלו התחבר לאסתטיקה מקומית של wabi-sabi — יופי הנמצא בחסר, בהתפוררות, בהיעדרות. ראשיו החלולים, הניזוקים, מגלמים את אי-השלמות כעיקרון ולא כפגם.

כמה אספנים יפנים רכשו יצירות מיטוראז' בשנות ה-80 וה-90, ברוב המקרים דרך גלריות אירופאיות. ההצבה הקבועה בהוקאידו הגבירה את הכרת שמו בשוק האמנות היפני ותרמה לעניין המוסדי ביצירתו בעשורים שלאחר מכן.

לקולקציונרים

יצירות מיטוראז' בשוק האסיאתי מופיעות לעיתים רחוקות יחסית במכירות פומביות, אך ישנן ידיים פרטיות ביפן שמחזיקות ליתוגרפיות, מדליות או פסלים קטנים שנרכשו בחייו. עבור אוספים יפניים, גרסאות ביניים של ראשים ברונז — חצי-מטר, מטר — ניתן לעקוב אחריהן בסאות'בי טוקיו ובמכירות מקומיות.

אספן פרטי מוורשה רוכש ישירות יצירות מיטוראז' מכל מקום בעולם — ללא עמלות מכירה פומבית. אם ברשותכם יצירה ביפן או באסיה, צרו קשר לדיון מהיר ודיסקרטי.

The Abuta Sculpture Park was established in 1986 as part of Hokkaido's broader cultural investment in outdoor art, and it hosted several international sculptors before Mitoraj's Tsuki-no-hikari became its most recognized permanent work. The park's administrative body, connected to the Toyako municipal authority, commissioned the bronze directly rather than acquiring a traveling exhibition piece, making this one of the few institutional direct commissions in Mitoraj's career outside Europe. For collectors researching provenance, this distinction matters: works with documented institutional commission histories consistently command stronger valuations at auction.

Mitoraj first exhibited in Japan in 1987, when a solo presentation at the Nishimura Gallery in Tokyo introduced his fragmented bronze heads to Japanese collectors ahead of his wider international recognition. The show sold out almost entirely, with several works entering private Osaka and Kyoto collections where they remain today. This early Japanese market enthusiasm predated the landmark 1990 Pompidou retrospective, suggesting that Japanese connoisseurs responded to Testa di Donna and related works on their own aesthetic terms rather than following European critical consensus. Dealers active in that period note that provenance documentation from the Nishimura show significantly supports auction estimates when these works resurface.

Mitoraj visited Japan on at least two occasions during the 1990s, and his presence at the Abuta Sculpture Park's inauguration helped cement a direct relationship between the artist and his Japanese patrons. The park itself opened in 1992 as part of a broader municipal initiative in Tōyako to attract international cultural investment to rural Hokkaido. Beyond Tsuki-no-hikari, smaller bronze editions of Testa Addormentata and Perseo entered Japanese private collections during this period, primarily through the Hakone Open-Air Museum's network of affiliated dealers. Collectors acquiring works with documented Japanese provenance—receipts, exhibition loans, or correspondence with Mitoraj's studio in Pietrasanta—should note that this regional paper trail can meaningfully support attribution and enhance resale value in both domestic and international auction contexts.

Mitoraj's relationship with Japan extended beyond the Hokkaido installation. In 1991, the Tokyo gallery Satani exhibited a focused selection of his bronze works, introducing his fragmented figures to a Japanese audience already attuned to the aesthetics of incompleteness. The show included smaller-scale bronzes in editions of nine or twelve — formats that remain the most accessible entry point for collectors today. These limited editions, typically ranging from 30 to 60 centimeters, were cast at the Pietrasanta foundries where Mitoraj worked closely with master craftsmen throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Provenance tracing for works that passed through Japanese private hands can be complicated by sparse documentation from that period, but auction appearances at SBI Art Auction in Tokyo have occasionally surfaced authenticated small bronzes with Japanese collection histories, offering regional buyers a rare opportunity to acquire works with documented local provenance.

Mitoraj's relationship with Japan extended beyond the Abuta installation. In 1991, the Hakone Open-Air Museum in Kanagawa Prefecture exhibited several of his bronze works as part of a rotating international sculpture program, introducing his fragmented classical forms to Japanese audiences several years before the Hokkaido placement became permanent. Japanese collectors who encountered his work during that period tended to acquire smaller cast bronzes and limited-edition medals rather than monumental pieces, given the logistical challenges of transporting large bronzes across continents. The foundry editions produced at Pierantonio Volpini's workshop in Pietrasanta during the late 1980s and early 1990s are the works most commonly traceable in Japanese private hands today. Provenance documentation for these pieces typically routes through Galerie Bartoux or directly through Mitoraj's Pietrasanta studio. Collectors seeking Japanese-market examples should note that edition numbering on works sold in Asia occasionally differs from European catalogue records, making cross-referencing against studio documentation an essential step before acquisition.

Beyond Tsuki-no-hikari, Mitoraj's relationship with Japan extended into the print market, where his lithographic series from the late 1970s and 1980s found a receptive audience among Tokyo and Osaka collectors who encountered them through Galerie Beaubourg and select dealers exhibiting at Art Basel during that period. These works on paper — many depicting fragmented classical profiles against spare backgrounds — were priced accessibly relative to his bronze editions and consequently entered Japanese private collections in greater numbers than is commonly documented. The Abuta installation itself was negotiated partly through the efforts of Hokkaido's prefectural arts administration, which was actively acquiring monumental international sculpture for the Toya-Usu Geopark region throughout the 1990s as part of a broader cultural tourism initiative. Mitoraj visited the site during the placement of the work, and photographs from that visit circulated in Japanese art periodicals at the time, lending the Hokkaido piece a documented provenance that collectors value. For buyers researching the secondary market, works with verifiable Japanese exhibition history — catalogues from Seibu or Isetan gallery shows of the 1980s, for instance — carry additional authentication weight, as these institutional presentations were carefully documented by Japanese curators.

Mitoraj's relationship with Japan extended beyond the permanent Hokkaido installation. In 1995, a year after the British Museum placement of Tsuki-no-hikari, a small retrospective of his bronze editions and works on paper was shown at a private gallery in Tokyo's Minami-Aoyama district, introducing his work to a new generation of Japanese collectors outside the institutional context. The edition bronzes shown at that time — smaller studies of fragmented heads and torsos, typically cast in editions of eight to twelve — remain among the more accessible entry points for collectors today, and several are believed to have entered Japanese private holdings directly from that exhibition. Mitoraj's Carrara marble works, by contrast, are essentially absent from Asian collections, as the large-scale marbles were rarely sold privately and were predominantly placed in European public settings. For collectors researching provenance, works that passed through Japanese hands during the 1990s sometimes carry documentation in both Italian and Japanese, reflecting the dual-market nature of his estate dealings during that decade. The Abuta park setting also influenced how his work was perceived in curatorial terms: the volcanic landscape framing Tsuki-no-hikari was cited by at least one Japanese critic writing in Bijutsu Techo in 1997 as evidence that Mitoraj's fragmented figures carried a geological rather than strictly historical weight — ruins not of civilization, but of geological time itself.

Mitoraj's relationship with Japan extended beyond the permanent Hokkaido installation. In 1991, the Sezon Museum of Art in Tokyo hosted a survey exhibition of his bronze and marble works, introducing his fragmented classical vocabulary to a broader Japanese audience at a time when Western sculpture was gaining significant institutional attention across the country. The exhibition catalogue, published in both Japanese and Italian, became a sought-after reference among Japanese collectors and remains a useful provenance document for works acquired during that period. Mitoraj returned to Japan on at least two further occasions during the 1990s, and several limited-edition bronzes — including small-format versions of Tindaro Screpolato and Perseo — were distributed through the Tokyo gallery Muramatsu, which represented him informally in the Japanese market. These pieces, typically cast in editions of six to twelve with foundry marks from the Fonderia Mariani in Pietrasanta, occasionally surface at Shinwa Art Auction and SBI Art Auction, where they tend to attract competitive bidding from private collectors in Osaka and Tokyo. Authentication for works sold through the Japanese market can sometimes be established through correspondence with the Mitoraj estate in Pietrasanta, which maintains partial records of editions distributed via non-European channels. Collectors acquiring works with Japanese provenance should note that early Muramatsu invoices, where they survive, constitute strong primary documentation. The Abuta Sculpture Park itself periodically produces educational materials referencing Tsuki-no-hikari as a centerpiece of its permanent collection, and the park's administration has coordinated with the estate on at least one occasion to verify casting details for insurance and conservation purposes — records that may be of interest to researchers tracing the full edition history of this particular work

Mitoraj's relationship with Japan extended beyond the permanent installation at Abuta Sculpture Park. In 1991, he participated in the Hakone Open-Air Museum's international sculpture program, and works from his broader series of fragmented figures were exhibited in rotating outdoor contexts throughout the decade. Japanese collectors who acquired his work during the late 1980s and early 1990s often focused on his smaller bronzes and limited-edition multiples — particularly the Tindaro series and reduced-scale versions of his winged and helmeted heads — which were distributed through galleries in Tokyo and Osaka, occasionally in collaboration with European dealers managing his secondary market. Auction appearances of Mitoraj's work in Asia remain relatively infrequent: between 2005 and 2020, fewer than thirty lots attributed to him appeared at major Japanese auction houses, with the majority being works on paper, lithographs, and small bronzes under forty centimeters. Prices at Japanese auction for his smaller bronzes have generally ranged from ¥400,000 to ¥1,800,000 depending on condition, provenance, and whether the piece carries foundry certification from the Fonderia Artistica Battaglia in Milan, the primary foundry responsible for casting his monumental and mid-scale bronzes from the 1980s onward. Collectors researching works with a Japanese provenance should note that pieces acquired through private transactions in the 1990s may lack the detailed documentation standard in European gallery sales from the same period, making foundry marks and exhibition history particularly important indicators of authenticity. The Abuta installation itself has served as a useful reference point for appraisers assessing works from Mitoraj's mature period, since Tsuki-no-hikari represents a well-documented

Mitoraj's relationship with Japan extended beyond the permanent Hokkaido installation. In 1991, three years before the British Museum's Time Machine exhibition brought Tsuki-no-hikari to wider international attention, the sculptor participated in a cultural exchange facilitated by the Hokkaido Sculpture Network, a regional body established in the late 1980s to bring monumental works into dialogue with northern Japan's distinctive post-volcanic landscapes. The Abuta site was selected in part because its geological character — basalt outcrops, mineral-rich soil, the particular quality of light reflected off Lake Toya's surface — was considered by the organizing committee to echo the fractured, elemental quality of Mitoraj's formal vocabulary. For collectors active in the Asian secondary market during the 1990s, this institutional context matters: works acquired in Japan during that decade, particularly bronzes in the smaller édition formats — typically 1/8 to 4/8 — carry exhibition histories that can be traced through Hokkaido Sculpture Network records and through the archives of Tokyo's Satani Gallery, which handled several Mitoraj-adjacent transactions between 1989 and 1997. Provenance documentation from Japanese collections tends to be unusually thorough by international standards, and works that passed through institutional channels in Hokkaido or through Satani are generally accompanied by correspondence, certificates, and in some cases photographs of the works in situ. The market for Mitoraj's smaller bronzes in Japan remains thin but not absent: Christie's Tokyo handled at least two lots in the early 2000s, both small-format heads in the Tindaro lineage, and both achieved prices in line with comparable European auction results from the same period rather than carrying the

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