10 x 10 Past and Present: Japanese Masters of Ceramics

THE WINTER SHOW 2023

10 X 10 PAST AND PRESENT | JAPANESE MASTERS OF CERAMICS
JANUARY 20 – 29, 2023 AT THE PARK AVENUE ARMORY, NEW YORK, NY
JOAN B MIRVISS LTD is at BOOTH E4

The Winter Show is the première art, antiques, and design fair in America, featuring many of the world's top experts in the fine and decorative arts. The Fair was established in the mid-1950s as a benefit for East Side House Settlement and, by the end of that decade, had firmly established itself as the leading event of its kind in the United States. East Side House is a community-based organization serving the Bronx and Northern Manhattan; its programs focus on education and technology as gateways out of poverty and as the keys to economic opportunity. All ticket sales proceeds from the Show provide unrestricted funds for East Side House's life-changing programs.

For more information, visit The Winter Show website at www.thewintershow.org 

To mark The Winter Show's triumphant return to the Park Avenue Armory, Joan B Mirviss LTD is delighted to present 10 x 10 Past and Present: Japanese Masters of Ceramics. The range of technical skills, innovative approaches to clay, and the sheer depth of artistic talent exhibited in the work by Japanese ceramic masters, will be on full display. These featured artists demonstrate a mastery of the medium that confirm Japanese clay art's position as the most varied and exciting anywhere in the world today. 10 x 10 is also a celebration of the gallery's longtime mission to bridge historic and contemporary Japanese fine art and place them in fascinating conversations – a mission it has successfully achieved at The Winter Show for over forty years and counting. For our next Winter Show exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory in January, Joan B Mirviss LTD features not only the astonishing scope and quality of the best of the best of Japanese ceramics, but also highlights its surprising legacies from the past and into the 21st century.

The names of twentieth-century masters instantly evoke some of the very best of not only Japanese ceramics but of the modern ceramics field: Hamada Shōji (1894-1978), well-known in the West for leading the Mingei (folk art) movement, is represented here alongside his longtime friend and Japan Folk Art Association co- founder, Kawai Kanjirō (1890-1966), who by contrast never traveled to the West and refused all titles. This pair alone, seemingly so alike in many ways, demonstrates the diversity within modern Japanese ceramics when their works are viewed side by side. Hamada Shōji was designated a Living National Treasure, a system developed in the postwar era that sought to preserve and ensure the continuity of Japanese craft traditions. Matsui Kōsei (1927-2003), an incomparable master of neriage (marbleized clay) technique, and Shimizu Uichi (1926-2003), acclaimed for his tetsu-yū (iron glaze) technique, are fellow featured Living National Treasures.

In addition to those artists looking to connect their practice with and revitalize the traditions of the past, the mid-twentieth century witnessed the emergence of clay artists who were actively challenging accepted norms. The Sōdeisha Movement, which broke wide open ideas about functionality in ceramics, was founded in Kyoto by Suzuki Osamu (1926-2001), Yagi Kazuo (1918-1979), and Yamada Hikaru (1923-2001), all of whose boldly defiant works are presented here.

Other past masters highlighted here include Okabe Mineo (1919-1990), Kuriki Tatsusuke (1943-2013), and Koie Ryōji (1938-2020).

Current ceramic masters have demonstrated that their artistic originality can be built upon the 20th century's enormous legacy. Each living master is in dialogue with past masters, whether as former teachers, fathers and grandfathers, or as venerated practitioners of a specific style or technique. The resulting work, however, points as much toward the future as it looks towards the past. Kaneta Masanao (b. 1953), an eighth-generation Hagi potter, has expanded beyond the tradition of his ancestry to create a more sculptural oeuvre. Kawase Shinobu (b. 1950), also from a multi-generational pottery family, stepped outside his patrimony to embrace celadon and has brought the classical tradition to its absolute pinnacle in the contemporary era. Current Living National Treasures on view include Suzuki Osamu (b. 1934) for Shino ware, and Isezaki Jun (b. 1936) for Bizen ware, both of whom have taken the ceramic traditions of their families into the 21st century.

Many current masters have forged different paths that only became possible in the contemporary era. They have studied and lived abroad, such as Kondō Takahiro (b. 1958) in Scotland, who completely transformed his family's sometsuke (blue-and-white porcelain) tradition, or Katsumata Chieko (b. 1950) and Ogawa Machiko (b. 1946) in France, who are among the intrepid women artists to formally study ceramics in newly created university programs and then further their education outside Japan. Some have elected after university training to operate outside of traditional ceramic centers, such as Sakiyama Takayuki (b. 1958), who lives in a seaside village. Others have fully embraced sculpture, such as Sugiura Yasuyoshi (b. 1949) in his interpretations of botanical forms, or played with vessel and sculptural forms in inventive new ways such as Fukumoto Fuku (b. 1973).