Nobuaki Kojima

Nobuaki Kojima (Kojima Nobuaki, , born 1935, Fukui Prefecture) is a contemporary Japanese artist from Ōno, Fukui. His work is often understood through a dialogue with American pop art, although Kojima has rejected the identification with pop art. This performance gained attention from other artists exhibiting in the Independent and preceding Gilbert and George’s notion of “living sculpture.” Through his participation in these exhibitions, he befriended many like-minded artists of his generation, including Ushio Shinohara. The show was visited by Jasper Johns and Yoshiaki Tono, when Johns was touring in Tokyo. On November 28 of this same year, Kojima shared the stage of Sogetsu Arts Center with Robert Rauschenberg, Ushio Shinohara, and the art critic Tono Yoshiaki for “Twenty Questions to Bob Rauschenberg.” On stage also appeared Shinohara’s “Marcel Duchamp Thinking” (Shinko suru Maruseru Dyushan), 1963, and one of Kojima’s standing figures. His paintings from the period often contain flat portions of highlighter blue stains which other flat, graphic shapes appear to be superimposed or cut out. The paintings also often contain sculptural elements. In 1969, he married a Newsweek reporter and graduate of Sophia University's English program, and she traveled with him.

His work is collected by the Fukui Fine Arts Museum where his untitled standing figure sculpture was voted third favorite in the collection under the “Contemporary art, 3D, and photography” category during the Fukui Prefectural Museum‘s 30th anniversary survey. More recently, a 1976 figure was shown at the Walker Arts Center’s “International Pop” exhibition, part of the museum’s permanent collection since 2016. An untitled standing figure was prominently featured on the cover of New York Times Arts & Leisure section for the story on the exhibition, “When The World Went Pop.”