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Participating Artists:
- Japan - Yo Akiyama, Takako Araki, Shun Ishiyama, Kosho Ito, Jun Kaneko, Junkichi Kumakura, Ryoji Koie, Tadayasu Sasayama, Satoshi Sato, Hideto Satonaka, Osamu Suzuki, Kazuo Takiguchi, Asuka Tsuboi, Kunikatsu Domon, Kinpei Nakamura, Kohei Nakamura, Hideyuki Hayashi, Yasuo Hayashi, Shiro Hayami, Sueharu Fukami, Satoru Hoshino, Yuriko Matsuda, Kimiyo Mishima, Zenji Miyashita, Rikichi Miyanaga, Ryosaku Miwa, Hiroaki Morino, Mutsuo Yanagihara, Hikara Yamada, Masamichi Yoshikawa.
- Australia - Paul Davis, Andrea Hylands, Gary Bish, David Watt.
his
exhibition from the Japan Foundation�s collection provided a comprehensive
representation of 30 eminent Japanese contemporary ceramists. Also included
in this exhibition were the works of several well known Australian contemporary
ceramists. to procure a �cultural entanglement� as described in the opening
speech by Mr. Kagefumi Ueno, Consul-General of Japan.
In Japan "Ceramic Sculpturing" is the term used to describe works that break from the traditional confines of practical ceramics into freer forms combining traditional techniques with sculpting. Its origins can be traced back to the post war era in 1946 when Japan�s exposure to western artistic trends in the postwar era led to the formation of small avant-garde ceramic groups such as the influential Sodeisha group. Established in Kyoto in 1948 the main focus of the Sodeisha was on self-expression in contrast to the preservation of traditional practices.
Black earthenware was a prominent feature of the exhibition. This pre-industrial process is favored by contemporary Japanese ceramists. since it gives a direct and uncompromising expression to the formal sculptural qualities in the works. It doesn't compromise the inherent primal properties of clay as opposed to the more traditional methods of decorating and glazing the works. Yagi Kazuo (1918-79) a founding member of the Sodeisha developed the black-firing method in the early 1960s.
Since the formation of the Sodeisha, Kyoto has been regarded as the center of experimental ceramics in Japan. Included in the exhibition is the work of Yo Akiyama (b. 1953), a third generation artist who teaches at the Kyoto City University of Arts where he mastered the technique of black-firing as a student of Yagi Kazuo in the mid 1970s. His cracked expanses of carbon impregnated clay relate to the geology and metaphysical beauty of the earth.
Ryoji Koei (b. 1938) has since the 1980s been involved in �ceramic happenings� which emphasizes the processes rather than the products. His recent works explore the man made horrors of the modern world - the work in this exhibition White Object, 1989 expresses his concerns with the Chernobyl disaster.
Kinpei Nakamura (b. 1935) parodies Japanese taste in popular culture using kitsch aesthetics combining traditional colors of Kabuki with industrial debris. As a teacher at Tama University of Arts in Tokyo, Naramura has contributed to Tokyo�s emergence as an epicenter of new and challenging ideas in contemporary ceramics.
References:
Robert Faulkner, Japanese Studio Crafts: Tradition and the Avant-garde.
Laurence King Publishing, 1995.
Masayoshi Homma,
Ceramic Sculpturing. Catalogue essay- Japanese Contemporary Clay
Works. The Japan Foundation.