This beautifully curated show, subtitled "Pioneers of Japan's Sodeisha Ceramic Movement," celebrated the work of three artists who were the guiding lights of Japan's avant-garde ceramists. Yagi Kazuô (1918-79), Suzuki Osamu (1926-2001) and Yamada Hikaru (1923-2001) were founders of Sôdeisha ("Crawling Through the Mud Association"), a pottery collective formed in Kyoto in 1948. Until then, the country's venerable ceramics traditions focused on tea bowls, jars, and other utilitarian objects.
But the experiences of the war, combined with a sudden exposure to modernist influences from the West, caused a young generation of ceramists to call into question the traditional assumptions of their craft.
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June 3, 2011