Photos: Carlos A. Schwartz – Efraín Pintos

Tensei Tenmoku (Door without a door)

Tensei Tenmoku (Door without a door) is composed of two elements of Italian marble with the same dimensions, with the exception that the piece entitled Tenmoku, in addition, and according to the project’s sketches, has a bar of 60 mm. Ø to reinforce its structure. The marble can have various surface treatments to obtain different textures, such as smoothness, softness, roughness, etc. Its hardness makes it tolerate the blows of the chisel without producing false cracks.

Yasuda as an artist, but also as a person with a profound knowledge of this material, tries to find the large blocks in the quarry, in order to extract from that moment with care, sensitivity and spirit everything the material itself conceals. It is the marble that tests the sculptor’s ability. A direct line is established between the material (metamorphic limestone) and the finished work, the work of the artist himself has only served to illuminate what the marble concealed, so that he becomes part of that nature not as an intermediary in the transformation, but as a collaborator in what nature itself hides. In general, in his works in white and highly polished marble, he manages to create shadows and all kinds of nuances, where morbidity envelops the work in a light halo of mystical wellbeing. However, in this work, being white in colour, it has a rough surface with a fine and uniform grain, which maintains its presence firmly on the earth. It should be added that the work, according to photomontages from 1995, was originally intended to be placed on the Rambla General Franco (in the section known as Las Tinajas) but was later located at Garachico’s dock, where it took on architectural dimensions.

Retrieved from COA of Tenerife, La Gomera and El Hierro – Culture – Street Sculptures (I and II edition): https://www.coactfe.org/esculturas-en-calle-primera-edicion/kan-yasuda-tensei-tenmoku-puerta-sin-puerta