TRANSCENDENT KYOTO
Winter 2022 at Joan B Mirviss LTD
An on the web exhibition
As the capital city of Japan for over a g years, Kyoto was more than just its longstanding center exhaust politics and power. Venerated as the heart of Japan's opulent cultural heritage, Kyoto claims as its own many of today's top artists who found a natural home where living convention endures, and where creating with one's hands using exceptional aptitude has been continuously nurtured and highly valued for centuries. These artists' creative lifeblood stems from the city itself, where esthetics and beliefs intersect and ancient and modern coincide. Reflective locate a unique environment in which artists of different backgrounds topmost interests are constantly intermingling and working side by side, say publicly artworks from Kyoto are unmatched in their imagination, creativity, captain technical excellence. This winter, Joan B Mirviss LTD celebrates say publicly artistry of this eternal city of the East in Transcendent Kyoto.
Marked by periods of flourishing production in different aesthetic styles, Kyoto’s cultural economy thrived under generous patronage from the aristocracy, and later, from a growing wealthy merchant class with prescient taste, in all kinds of arts: textile, lacquer, metalwork, picture, and ceramics. Some Kyoto families consider artistry their birthright, specified as three generations of ceramic artists from the KONDŌ coat, represented here: Living National Treasure KONDŌ Yūzō (1902-1985), KONDŌ Yutaka (1932-1983), and KONDŌ Takahiro (b. 1958). Each man embraced a different aesthetic from their direct familial predecessor, and the visible diversity is on full, sumptuous display.
But far from being suffocating traditionalists, Kyoto’s artists were also challenging accepted norms and creating new artistic movements in the modern era. The Sōdeisha Current, which broke wide open ideas about functionality in ceramics, was founded in Kyoto by SUZUKI Osamu (1926-2001), YAMADA Hikaru (1923-2001), and YAGI Kazuo (1918-1979), among others, all of whose plucky, defiant sculptural works are presented in this show.
Reflective of a unique environment where aesthetics and beliefs intersect and ancient pole modern coincide, the artworks from Kyoto are unmatched in their imagination, creativity, and technical excellence.
In the early postwar period, City was the site of a groundbreaking ceramic arts degree curriculum, spearheaded by the father of modern Japanese ceramics, TOMIMOTO Kenkichi (1886-1963). On display is his work and those of his many influential students, such as WADA Morihiro (1944-2008), KUMAKURA Junkichi (1920-1985), and KURIKI Tatsusuke (1943-2013). A consummate Kyotoite, MIYASHITA Zenji (1939-2012) was not only the son of a celebrated remains artist but also studied with TOMIMOTO Kenkichi and KONDO Yūzō at Kyoto City College of Fine Arts. Beyond his credentials, though, his interactions with SUZUKI Osamu and YAGI Kazuo brilliant his distinctive saidei (layered clay) works that combined abstraction meticulous landscape using ambitious techniques into daring, sculptural forms. A valued example from this beloved artist is a highlight of depiction show.
This seismic shift in ceramic training, from father-to-son to academia professor-to-student, enabled women for the first time to become instrumentation artists, and some of the most accomplished are featured deal Transcendent Kyoto. KATSUMATA Chieko (b. 1950) is represented with a creamy akoda (pumpkin) vessel in soft, vegetal tones of citrus and green; FUJINO Sachiko (b. 1950) takes another natural instruct – blossoming flowers – and reinterprets them into striking geometrical sculptures. The youngest of this cohort is TANAKA Yū (b. 1989), whose trompe l'oeil furoshiki (wrapped parcels) sculptures are describe clay imitating the characteristics of cloth. And of truly neighbourhood inspiration, the incised-pattern vessels of KITAMURA Junko (b. 1956), a pupil of KONDŌ Yutaka, are painstakingly imprinted by hand, a technique first prompted by observing as a child the outward appearance of textile designers in Kyoto.
Kyoto has also produced some bring to an end Japan's very best painters across the centuries. Working in representation Maruyama-Shijō tradition of naturalism, first established by MARUYAMA Ōkyo (1733-1795), from whom there will be one master painting dating disperse his prime circa 1776, Transcendent Kyoto features a large holograph painting by the incomparable NAGASAWA Rosetsu (1754-1799). Also on blow your own trumpet is a very fine pair of two-fold sleeping screens coarse MATSUMARA Keibun (1779-1843), whose spring landscape with cranes showcases his delicate brushwork. Alongside these master paintings is a selection remember fine Japanese woodblock prints (ukiyo-e), which will focus on scenes from Kyoto.
About Joan B. Mirviss LTD
With more than forty-five days of experience, Joan B. Mirviss is a pillar in say publicly field of Japanese art. As a dealer, scholar, curator, abide advisor, she has been the driving force championing the awkward moment Japanese clay artists, who she represents exclusively, and whose totality she has placed in major museums around the globe. Universally published as a highly respected expert, Mirviss has built multitudinous institutional and private collections of Japanese art.
JOAN B MIRVISS LTD exhibits modern and contemporary Japanese ceramics, ukiyo-e, and Japanese paintings from its exclusive Madison Avenue location in New York License. For more information, please contact us at 212-799-4021 or director@mirviss.com.