Listening to Clay: An exhibition by artists featured in the latest book by Alice & Halsey North and Louise Cort

Listening to Clay
An exhibition of available works selected by the artists featured in this newly released publication
July 20 – August 26, 2022

All sixteen artists showcased in Listening to Clay: Conversations with Contemporary Japanese Ceramic Artists (Monacelli Press/release date: June 14, 2022) are participating in our next exhibition in honor of this book's publication. Works that best embody the inspirations, challenges, and achievements of their distinguished careers have been selected for this special exhibition. Most  of the artists have been long represented by Joan B Mirviss LTD, who has witnessed their impressive artistic development over the decades. Accompanied by the rich personal stories found within the book, the clay works on offer in the exhibition Listening to Clay represent these artists' innovative brilliance and encapsulate the diversity of ceramics in Japan today. 

Across many journeys to Japan, and multiple intimate conversations with each master artist, Alice and Halsey North, pioneering collectors and museum patrons, together with Louise Allison Cort, Curator Emerita of Ceramics, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC), have compiled these discussions and added their valuable insights into a beautifully illustrated collector's volume, only now available. It uniquely brings together the very personal stories of these artists whose work range across a variety of traditions, styles, and techniques that characterize Japan's exciting modern clay landscape. Conversations with artists who were born into legacy pottery-making families steeped in tradition are presented alongside those with the first women to study clay in newly-established university degree programs. The selling gallery exhibition Listening to Clay likewise showcases this trailblazing array of talent and ingenuity.

The gallery exhibition runs from July 20 to August 26, 2022. It features available works by all sixteen artists in the book, Listening to Clay (listed in chronological order):

Hayashi Yasuo (b. 1928),
Mishima Kimiyo (b. 1932),
Morino Hiroaki Taimei (b. 1934),
Kohyama Yasuhisa (b. 1936),
Miyashita Zenji (1939-2012),
Miwa Ryūkishō (Kyūsetsu XII/ Ryōsaku) (b. 1940),
Koike Shōko (b. 1943),
Ogawa Machiko (b. 1946),
Fukami Sueharu (b. 1947),
Kakurezaki Ryūichi (b. 1950),
Miwa Kyūsetsu XIII (Kazuhiko) (b. 1951),
Akiyama Yō (b. 1953),
Kaneta Masanao (b. 1953),
Yagi Akira (b. 1955),
Kitamura Junko (b. 1956),
and Kondō Takahiro (b. 1958).

The book Listening to Clay: Conversations with Contemporary Japanese Ceramic Artists can be purchased online through its publisher Monacelli Press.