Suspicious of the pervasive role of Western culture in his homeland, Katsushige Nakahashi resolved to become a "Japanese artist."
"Fine art was introduced to Japan during the Meiji Era," he explains, "and I especially saw sculpture, which I majored in, as an imported art. An uncomfortable feeling arose in me, so I decided to explore the culture of my own country, gradually advancing my view from contemporary to historical. At the same time, I developed a style of making and presenting art based on the Japanese aesthetic."
After half a lifetime of experimentation, what Nakahashi has ended up doing with his current and most important body of work, "Zero Project," is recreating World War II-era Japanese fighter planes, and then ceremoniously burning them.