Bronze Foundries

“My interest is in the creative spark,” says Jun Kaneko. “That’s the idea, the energy, and each idea has the perfect match of material to work with. It can’t always be clay or paint. I’m open to finding the medium to fit the idea.”  The spark that lead Jun Kaneko into bronze was a desire to efficiently create forms in multiples, which would be more conducive to interactions between objective and pictorial space. Thus, in 2002, at the encouragement of his friend and mentor Peter Voulkos, Kaneko employed the Artworks Foundry in Berkeley, California, to create the first pair of Heads to be cast in bronze. 

Voulkos himself used the foundry to cast his iconic “stack” sculptures in bronze. Founded in 1976, the Artworks Foundry is a leading fabricator for the production of bronze sculptures, reliefs, and monuments. Ever attuned to the nuances of his materials, for his first pair of bronze Heads Kaneko embraced the metal’s innate reactivity with oxygen, moisture, heat, and chemicals to create a range of colors and patterns on the surface of the sculptures. Kaneko has utilized the Artworks Foundry many times since 2002, and among the works produced at Artworks are his iconic “tab” Heads, which composer Andy Akiho turned into music. Akiho’s Kaneko-inspired compositions, which utilize a tab Head as both a string and percussion instrument, were nominated for three Grammy Awards in 2024. 

From 2009 to 2011 Kaneko also collaborated with the Walla Walla Foundry in Washington state, which was established in 1980 and is dedicated exclusively to the fabrication of contemporary art. Renowned for their cutting edge technology and the exceptional quality of their production, Walla Wall Foundry has collaborated with many leaders of contemporary art, such as Yayoi Kasuma, Kiki Smith, Bob Arneson, Marilyn Minter, Jim Dine, Maya Lin, and Terry Allen.

Kaneko’s bronze Heads are represented in private, corporate, and public art collections around the world. His most recent bronze Head, fabricated in 2022 at Artworks Foundry, was installed in 2023 at the Gene Leahy Mall, not far from Kaneko’s studio, in Omaha, Nebraska.