TEFAF Maastricht 2018 Yufuku Gallery TEFAF Maastricht 2018 10th March – 18th March 2018 Early Access Day (Invite only) 8th March Preview Day (Invite only) 9th March Stand 237 The Yufuku Collection 2018 Our Raison D'etre

06 Sueharu Fukami 50 Takafumi Asakura In recent years, the emergence of a group of Japanese artists who have spearheaded a new way of thinking in the realm of contemporary art has helped to shift paradigms and vanquish stereotypes borne from the 19th century, their art and aesthetic understood as making vital contributions to the broader history of 10 Niyoko Ikuta 58 Kanjiro Moriyama modern and contemporary art. This new current, linked by the phrase Keisho-ha (School of Form), encompasses a movement of artists who, through the conscious selection of material and technique, create 14 Satoru Ozaki 62 Yasutaka Baba boldly innovative sculptures and paintings that cannot be manifested by other means. The term craft does not encapsulate or faithfully capture this movement, nor do the traditional dichotomies that have traditionally separated fine art from craft art. To borrow the words of Nietzsche, "Craft is dead." A new age beckons. 18 Shigekazu Nagae 66 Ayane Mikagi No country exemplifies this expanding role more so than the artists of contemporary Japan, a country that continues to place premium on elegance in execution coupled with cutting-edge innovation within 22 Ken Mihara 70 Akihiro Maeta tradition. No gallery represents this new movement more so than Yufuku, a gallery that has nurtured and represented the Keisho School from its conceptual inception.

26 Eiko Kishi 74 Naoki Takeyama Michelangelo once said, "every block of stone has a statue inside, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it." Our artists are no different, wielding material and technique to create a unique aesthetic that can inspire future generations, yet would resonate with generations before us, regardless of age, creed or 30 Osamu Yokoyama 78 Keizo Sugitani culture. True art transcends time and borders. The Keisho School is not, then, a passing trend within contemporary art. It is, moreover, a much-anticipated Return to Innocence.

34 Yoshiro Kimura 82 Shunichi Yabe Yufuku's aesthetic is a reminder of what has been lost in today's art world, and is testament to what the future holds in store: the importance of integrity within execution, craftsmanship, material and artistry, long lost yet not forgotten within the overdrawn conceptualism of contemporary art, thereby placing 38 Sachi Fujikake 86 Kosuke Kato precedence upon art that will withstand the tests of time, emerging from the shadows like the morning sun.

42 Takahiro Yede 90 Kentaro Sato Wahei Aoyama Owner Yufuku Gallery 46 Hidenori Tsumori 94 Kazumi Nagano

2 3 To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

Taken from Auguries of Innocence by William Blake

4 SUEHARU FUKAMI 深見陶治

Infinity in Pale Blue

“To create a sense of noble simplicity and great silence, I search for a world of fundamental depth.”

Ko (Solemn) by Sueharu Fukami (2018) Slip-cast porcelain, celadon glaze, granite base 6 H176.5 cm SUEHARU FUKAMI

About the Artist About the Work

One of the most distinguished Japanese ceramists of his The artist is known for his genre-defining high-pressure generation, Kyoto’s Sueharu Fukami (1947- ) wishes to slip-casting techniques. Fukami’s works are first realised by express the ‘infinite space’ that lies beyond the supple creating a 3-tiered plaster mould of considerable size and weight. curves and sharp silhouettes of his abstract porcelain Porcelain slip is poured into this mould using a pressurised air sculptures, lusciously drenched in the delicate translucency compressor to ensure that the porcelain clay is proportionately of the artist’s signature pale-blue seihakuji glaze. The condensed without air pockets or impurities. Once the mould is triumphant edges and arches borne from Fukami’s minimal removed, the work is dried completely. Fukami then uses an forms represent what cannot be tangibly seen: the ultra-sharp Tungaloy alloy blade and sandpaper to sharpen and circularity of life and the continuity of space itself. With hone the form into the work he envisions. After bisque-firing in works in over 50 public collections, in particular the British an electric kiln, the work is sprayed with seihakuji (celadon) glaze, Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the and then reduction-fired in an electric kiln for approximately 30 Metropolitan Museum in New York City, the Museum hours. The completed sculpture is then attached to a base made of Fine Arts in Boston, the Musée national de from wood. Creating approximately 10 pieces a year, the art of Céramique-Sèvres and many others, Fukami has Fukami continues to inspire and fascinate the discerning eyes contributed to defining and expanding the meaning, of critics and collectors alike. The sculpture created for importance, and popularity of contemporary Japanese TEFAF 2018 is Fukami’s latest creation and is entitled Ko ceramics to collectors and museums the world over. (Solemn), a soaring ode to minimal yet striking beauty.

1947 Born in Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan / Lives and works in Kyoto Selected Awards 1985 Grand Prize, the Faenza International Ceramic Exhibition 1992 Grand Prize, MOA Mokichi Okada Award 1997 The Kyoto Prefecture Culture Prize, Prize for Artistic Merit 2011 Gold Prize, Japan Ceramic Society Selected Exhibitions 1986 44th International Competition of Ceramic Art, Hetjens Museum, Düsseldorf, Germany 1987 Galerie Maghi Bettini, Amsterdam, The Netherlands / Galerie Maya Behn, Zürich, Switzerland Musée des Arts Decoratifs de la Ville de Lausanne, Switzerland 1993 Modern Japanese Ceramics in American Collections, Japan Society, New York / New Orleans Museum of Art / Honolulu Academy of Art, USA 1995 Japanese Studio Craft: Tradition and Avant-garde, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK 2002 Garth Clark Gallery, New York, USA 2003 Japan- Ceramics and Photography: Tradition and Today, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany The Ruth and Sherman Lee Institute for Japanese Art at The Clark Center, Hanford, USA 2005 Faenza International Ceramics Museum, Italy 2006 Contemporary Clay: Japanese Ceramics for the New Century, Japan Society Gallery, New York, USA 7{ML$YDQW*DUGHHW7UDGLWLRQGHOD&qUDPLTXH-DSRQDLVH0XVpH1DWLRQDOGH&pUDPLTXH¬6qYUHV)UDQFH 2008 The Dauer Collection, California State University, University Library Gallery, USA 2011 Purity of Form, The Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture, Hanford, USA 2012 Vallauris Ceramics Biennale, France / Collect, London, UK (’13, ’14, ’15) 2013 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’14, ’15, ’16, ’17, ’18) 2014 Fukami Sueharu Porcelain Sculptures, Eric Thomsen Japanese Art, New York, USA Art Stage Singapore, Singapore (’15, ’16, ’17) / Art Miami, USA (’15, ’16, ’17) 2016 Spring Masters New York, USA / EAF Monaco, Monaco / Art Taipei, Taiwan 2017 TEFAF New York Spring, USA

Selected Public Collections Victoria and Albert Museum, UK / Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA / Indianapolis Museum of Art, USA / Argentina Museum of Modern Art, Japanese House, Argentina / Musée Ariana, Switzerland / Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Switzerland / British Museum, UK / Brooklyn Museum of Art, USA / Everson Museum, USA / Faenza International Ceramics Museum, Italy / French Culture Foundation, France / Hetjens Museum, Germany / Musée des Arts Décoratifs de la Ville de Lausanne, 6ZLW]HUODQG0XVpH1DWLRQDOGH&pUDPLTXH¬6qYUHV)UDQFH0XVHXPRI$UW5KRGH,VODQG6FKRRORI'HVLJQ86$ Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA / Newcastle Museum, Australia / New Orleans Museum of Art, USA / North Carolina Museum of Art, USA / Portland Art Museum, USA / Saint Louis Art Museum, USA / Spencer Museum of Art, USA / The Art Institute of Chicago, USA / The National Museum of History, Taiwan / The Yale University Art Gallery, USA / Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum, Japan / Chazen Museum of Art, USA / Kameoka City, Japan / Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Japan / Kyoto Prefectural Library and Archives, Japan / Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Japan / Suntory Museum, Japan / The Japan Foundation, Japan / The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan / The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan / The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan / The Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Japan / Tokoname City Education Bureau, Japan / Tsurui Museum of Art, Japan / Minneapolis Institute of Art, USA / Auckland Museum, New Zealand / National Gallery of Australia, Australia / Ackland Art Museum, USA / The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA / Harvard Art Museum, USA / Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Serbia / The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan / MOA Museum of Art, Japan / Rakusuitei Museum of Art, Japan 8 Close-up NIYOKO IKUTA 生田丹代子

Swirling Rhythms in Glass

“The image that impresses itself on the viewer represents the true and final nature of my work.”

Ku (Free Essence) by Niyoko Ikuta (2018) Laminated sheet glass 10 H37×W33×D45 cm NIYOKO IKUTA

About the Artist About the Work

The history of glass art in Japan is a relatively youthful one. Ikuta’s works capture “the complexity of light as it Yet this reality is hardly a bane but a blessing, for glass artists reflects, refracts and passes through cut cross are not shackled by the constrictions imposed on their sections of sheet glass”. Conveyed and entrapped creativity by the towering ghosts of tradition. It is within this in her glass sculptures are the artist’s inner context that the creativity of Kyoto artist Niyoko Ikuta (1953- ) sensibilities; with a particular emotion in mind, the flows freely into her spiralling sheets of glass. Considered to artist first draws a basic sketch that best captures be one of the leading figures in Japanese glass art, Ikuta has her feelings at a certain point in time. After enraptured collectors and museums the world over for her transferring this sketch into a descriptive blueprint, dynamic glass objects, executed with emphatic lyricism and Ikuta proceeds to materialise the design through spellbinding precision. With the artist’s glass works collected cutting thin and separate laminated sheets of plate by leading public institutions such as the V&A in London, the glass into her desired form with the use of a Musée de design et d'arts appliqués contemporains (MUDAC) glass-cutter. Each plate is then attached using clear in Switzerland, the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe in surgical glue that hardens and disappears under Germany, as well as the National Museum of Art in Osaka and ultraviolet light. The resulting works are graceful the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, Ikuta’s works manifestations of Ikuta’s inner consciousness, and continue to inspire a generation of younger artists in the the same can be said for her new work featured increasingly influential world of glass. herein, entitled Ku (Free Essence).

1953 Born in Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan Public Collections Lives and works in Kyoto Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe, Germany / State Lemberk Chateau Selected Awards Crystalex, Czech Republic / Musée de 1982 Grand Prize, Japan Stained Glass Grand Show, Nomura Hall, Tokyo Design et d'Arts Appliqués st 1985 First Prize, 1 Japan International Glass Conference, Contemporains Lausanne, Switzerland Yamaha Tsumagoi, Gunma / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 1986 Mayor's Prize, Kyoto Exhibition, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art The Netherlands / Yokohama Museum 2014 Kyoto Art Culture Prize, Kyoto Chuo Shinkin Bank, Kyoto of Art, Japan / Notojima Glass 2017 Kyoto City Cultural Merit Award, Kyoto City Museum, Japan / Suntory Museum, Japan / The National Museum of Selected Exhibitions Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan / The 1992 Contemporary Glass Sculpture, New Jersey Center for Arts, USA National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan Glass from Ancient Crafts to Contemporary Art, The Morris Museum, USA / Corning Museum of Glass, USA / 1993 Heller Gallery, New York, USA Victoria and Albert Museum, UK / 1994 Vänersborg Glass Festival, Vänersborg, Sweden Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, UK/ Habitat Galleries, Pontiac, New York, USA Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA / 1995 Japanese Studio Crafts, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK The Ringling Museum of Art, USA 2003 The Glass Vessel, Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, USA Commissions in Architecture 2009 Collect, London, UK (’10, ’11, ’12, ’13, ’14, ’15) Voices of Contemporary Glass, The Corning Museum of Glass, New York, USA Kyoto Brighton Hotel, Japan / Hotel 2011 Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Seashore Mitsumisaki, Japan / OS 2012 SOFA Chicago, USA (’13, ’14, ’15) Building, Japan / Hiroshima Women's College, Japan / Yao City Gymnasium, 2013 Gallery Nakamura, Kyoto, Japan Japan / The Japanese Embassy, 2014 Art Stage Singapore, Singapore (’15, ’16, ’17) Vietnam / Tokyo Memorial Park, Japan TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’15, ’16, ’17, ’18) / The Kobe Shimbun, Japan / The Asia Week New York, USA Kobe Shimbun Matsukata Hall, Japan / Art Miami, USA (’15, ’16, ’17) Pfizer Japan Inc. Laboratory, Japan / 2015 Takashimaya Department Store Gallery, Kyoto, Japan NTT DATA, Komaba, Japan / Aoyama 2016 Spring Masters New York, USA Park Tower, Japan / Imabari Funeral EAF Monaco, Monaco Hall, Japan / ANA Hotel Okayama, Art Taipei, Taiwan Japan / The Peninsula Tokyo, Japan / 2017 TEFAF New York Spring, USA Shima Kanko Hotel Bay Suite, Japan Alternate view

12 13 SATORU OZAKI 尾崎悟

Moments Entwined in Metal

“To create a work more natural than nature itself. Within it, a world of harmony, purity and the serene.”

candeo by Satoru Ozaki (2017) Polished, hammered stainless steel 14 H256×W85×D12 cm Transforming metal into something fluid, whilst distorting space and light, bending its properties with the gravity that is his sheer will, all by the traditional techniques of hammering metal – Ozaki’s latest work, a towering 2.5 metre vertical hammered and polished steel sculpture that hangs flat on a wall, is a tour de force in terms of sheer power, elegance and craftsmanship. Entitled “candeo” after the Latin phrase for light, the work is in fact an ode to a family member that the artist had recently lost. Yet rather than immersing the piece with sadness and grief, the work is instead a beautiful testament to life itself, a ray of hope that shines a light above and beyond, enwrapping the viewer with its reflective glimmer, while almost limning the silhouette of a candle itself. Life may be lost, but it is not forgotten. Rather, it is embraced in the hammered beauty of Ozaki’s new sculpture. SHIGEKAZU NAGAE 長江重和

Nature in Porcelain’s Silhouettes

"What matters above all is the pursuit of beauty in form. Nothing else."

Forms that Entwine by Shigekazu Nagae (2018) Slip-cast porcelain, glaze 18 H60.5×W41×D40 cm SHIGEKAZU NAGAE

About the Artist 1953 Born in Seto, Aichi Prefecture, Japan / Lives and works in Seto

Oft considered to be one of the leading pioneers of abstract porcelain, Shigekazu Selected Awards Nagae (1953- ) has elevated the technique of slip-casting into a mode of the 1979 Grand Prix, Japan Ceramics Exhibition avant-garde. Porcelain slip-casting has traditionally been associated with the mass 1986 Grand Prix, Chunichi International Ceramics Exhibition production of utilitarian vessels, yet the artist has valiantly fought to transcend such 1992 Grand Prix, Asahi Ceramics Exhibition stereotypes by creating wildly original works of art that manipulate the distinct 1998 Grand Prix, Triennal de la Porcelain, Nyon qualities of both slip-casting and kiln-firing. In fact, it is the intensity of Nagae’s kiln fires that help mould, shape and curve his delicate white porcelain, thereby giving birth Selected Exhibitions to sleek and organic silhouettes previously unimaginable in the context of porcelain clay. Nagae’s international recognition is strong, with consecutive acquisitions by the 1998 Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (’99, ’08, ’10, ’12, ’15) Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and 1999 Triad of Porcelain, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, USA / SOFA NYC, USA the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, totaling 24 museums throughout the world. Also 2000 Galerie Le Vieux-Bourg, Lonay, Switzerland collected by leading institutions such as the Musée national de Céramique-Sèvres and 2001 Invited to 6th Triennale Internationale Porcelaine Contemporaine, Nyon, France the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and most recently the Metropolitan Museum of Art 2002 International Asia-Pacific Contemporary Ceramics Invitational Exhibition, in 2016, vibrant is Nagae’s stature in the world of porcelain. Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan 2006 Contemporary Clay: Japanese Ceramics for the New Century, Japan Society Gallery, New York, USA Contemporary Claywork (Avant-garde et tradition du Japon), Musée National de Céramique - Sèvres, Paris, France 2008 Collect (Victoria and Albert Museum), London, UK About the Work 2009 Collect, London, UK (’10, ’11, ’12, ’13, ’14, ’15) / Group Exhibition, Quest Gallery, Bath, UK 2011 Galerie Hélène Porée, Paris, France Nagae’s latest series ‘Forms that Entwine’ test the limits of his porcelain Yido Gallery, Seoul, South Korea / Joan B. Mirviss Ltd., New York, USA slip-casting techniques, and is the culmination of his extensive experiments into 2012 Art Fair Tokyo, Japan (’13) / Vallauris Ceramics Biennale, France the qualities of both clay and fire. Two independent, triangular pieces are first 2013 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’14, ’15, ’16, ’17, ’18) slip-cast using liquid porcelain in a plaster mould, which is subsequently dried and 2014 Art Stage Singapore, Singapore (’15, ’16) bisque-fired. After carving and etching the surface of the clay body to the mind’s Tales Entwined as One- Shigekazu Nagae and Ken Mihara Exhibition, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan eye of the artist, the parts are suspended in mid-air within Nagae’s kiln by hanging Clark Art Institute Opening Exhibition, Massachusetts, USA / Art Miami, USA (’17) upon a flame-resistant metal rod. Glaze is further applied between the joints of 2016 Spring Masters New York, USA / EAF Monaco, Monaco / Art Taipei, Taiwan each part, and this glaze turns to glass through the kiln fires, helping to conjoin 2017 Forms that Entwine, Galerie Marianne Heller, Heidelberg, Germany the pieces into a single unity. By manipulating the power of gravity, the following main firing helps to drape and taper the porcelain body into riveting silhouettes. In other words, Nagae’s seductive curvatures are a result of natural kiln effects Public Collections that serendipitously warp the porcelain into original forms that cannot be realised Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA / Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, otherwise. The resulting work is a virtuosic display of abstract elegance, almost USA / Japan Foundation, Japan / Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA / Museum of paper-like in its thin, seductive movements, in essence inspired by and Modern Ceramic Art, Japan / Musée National de Céramique - Sèvres, France / Musée symbolically recreating the natural beauty of the hills, rivers, and gentle winds of Ariana, Switzerland / Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, USA / Minneapolis Institute of the artist’s hometown of Seto, Japan. Art, USA / Seto City Art Museum, Japan / Shiga Cultural Ceramic Park, Japan / The National Gallery of Australia / Tokoname City, Japan / Victoria and Albert Museum, UK / Yale University Art Gallery, USA / Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum, Japan / Powerhouse Museum, Australia / Musée Cernuschi, France / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA / Harris Museum, UK / Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, UK / Hetjens Museum, Germany / Museum of Asian Art, Berlin, Germany / Museum of Modern Ceramic Art Gifu, Japan

20 21 Kuon (Aetus) by Ken Mihara (2018) Multi-fired stoneware H61×W38.5×D21 cm The aesthetic qualities of serenity and the sublime coalesce within Mihara’s work. In essence, these qualities are the scents of Japan, a culture that has traditionally searched for beauty within wabi-sabi austerity, spiritual simplicity, and the cherishing of patina. Without the use of glaze, the natural landscapes found on his hand-built facades are borne through multiple, lengthy and difficult kiln-firings, with each firing revealing a new element to a work’s clay flavour that help to ‘unlock the memories trapped within clay.’ Yet perhaps most remarkable about Mihara is his ability to dramatically change styles over the years without diminishing the ‘essence’ found within his oeuvre. In fact, Mihara changes the physical appearance of his work every three to four years, altogether abandoning popular forms for new vistas. The work featured in this year’s TEFAF catalogue, in fact, marks the world debut of Mihara’s latest body of work, entitled Kuon (Aetus). Yet regardless of a given period in his career, each and every Mihara work is instantly recognisable as a Mihara. It is the immediate appeal of his clay flavour, his trademark blues and greys, the way his bases are elevated and executed with absolute precision, the seemingly classical, time-tested presence that brims from his minimal silhouettes, that are unmistakable for any other artist, and which have not changed throughout the years. Ultimately, Mihara, Izumo and clay cannot be separated. They are one. EIKO KISHI 岸映子

Revealing Truth in Clay

“Crack them open, and you will find the same colours within. Exteriors revealing interiors – this is what I wish to express.”

Shinsho Wo Tsumu (Forms Within) by Eiko Kishi (2018) Stoneware with coloured chamotte 26 H82×W73×D23 cm EIKO KISHI

About the Artist About the Work

Like jewels embedded in the most intricate of treasures, thousands Dynamic sculptures with bold minimal forms and an instantly recognisable array of of pebbled, colourful chamottes dot the surfaces of Kyoto artist colours, Kishi’s creations are pain-staking testaments to the observance of the Eiko Kishi’s (1948- ) towering ceramic sculptures. In fact, up to importance of craftsmanship within the making of great beauty. Kishi’s chamottes are thirteen varying pigments and pastels can be found sprinkled throughout pulverized pellets of fired, coloured clays that are kneaded directly into the the artist’s creations. Yet even if one were to slice her work in half, the Shigaraki base clay before formation; for this reason, Kishi’s works can be incised same colours would be found entrapped within its deepest depths. from any angle or dimension to reveal hidden rainbows underneath her surfaces. Not affiliated with any particular movement or group, Kishi has long Using both slab-building and hand-pinching, Kishi first shapes a generally abstract worked alone, valiantly honing her works over the years without silhouette through elongated blocks of clay, and then with the use of a kanna knife, dependence on the associations that commonly dictate artistic circles she striates the surfaces of the damp material, creating linear patterns that sharpen within Japan. Yet throughout the decades, Kishi has built a presence within and tighten a work’s overall form. Then with the use of needles, Kishi meticulously the ceramic avant-garde of Kyoto that has garnered the respect of not only pokes small holes into the colored grogs that extend upon the entirety of her work, her peers but of the world, as evidenced by acquisitions of her works by 30 and with the use of a small brush, Kishi further applies various colored slip into each public collections, thereby spearheading the equal recognition of female and every hole on the facades of her works: a dizzying process, to say the least. Lastly, artists within Japanese ceramics. Kishi is now widely considered to be one of she applies a transparent glaze to her surfaces. After a bisque-firing of 850 the most celebrated woman artists of her generation, and her achievements degrees Celsius, Kishi fires the work again at a temperature of up to 1250 degrees have paved the way for other woman artists in a multitude of genres to Celsius. Both firings are completed within an electric kiln. break free from the conservative constrictions imposed by traditional Having worked with the artist for nearly 20 years, Yufuku is proud to reintroduce Japanese society. In this light, it is difficult to understate her extraordinary Kishi’s latest oeuvre to a discerning international audience at TEFAF Maastricht, a contributions within the spectrum of contemporary Japanese art. powerful statement that symbolizes both the elegance and the will of the artist herself.

1948 Born in Nara Prefecture, Japan / Lives and works in Kyoto Selected Awards and Exhibitions 1981 Japan Ceramic Art Exhibition (’85, ’87, ’91, ’93, ’95, ’97) 1984 Special Prize, Kyoto Arts & Crafts Exhibition (’83, ’85, ’87, ’94, ’97) 1985 Grand Prix, Asahi Ceramic Exhibition (’87, ’90, ’84-’97) Mainichi Newspaper Prize, Ministry of Culture Prize Women’s Association of Ceramic Art (’80) 1991 The Mayor Prize, Kyoto City Exhibition at Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Japan (’92, ’93-’98 selected) The 20th Choza Ceramic Art Exhibition, Grand Prix, Japan, (’93 Selected) / New Artists Exhibition-Ceramic Art, Osaka, Japan (’94) 1995 Fine Art Prize, The 4th Togei Biennale (’91), Aichi, Japan 1999 Silver Medal Prize, The 51st International Competition for Contemporary Ceramic Art, Faenza, Italy 2000 Five McKnight Artists, Minneapolis, USA / the WSU Exhibition, Minnesota, USA 2001 Art and Crafts Kyoto Exhibition, Edinburgh, UK / Solo Exhibition, Master of Clay Five Artists from Kyoto, Barry Friedman Gallery, NY, USA 2002 The 25th Anniversary Prize, Kyoto Arts & Craft association Exhibition, Aichi, Japan 2005 Contemporary Clay – Japanese Ceramics for the New Century, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA 2006 Solo Exhibition, Takashimaya Department Store, Kyoto, Japan 2007 Takashimaya Art Gallery 100th Annivesary Exhibition in Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, Japan Generosity in Clay - from the Natalie Fitzgerald Collection, Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture,CA, USA 2008 Rays of Light, The Intricate Ceramic Art of Kishi Eiko, Joan Mirviss Ltd., NY, USA 2009 Grand Prize, Paramita Museum Ceramic Art Exhibition, Mie, Japan. Touch Fire - Contemporary Japanese Ceramics by Women Artists, Smith College Museum of Art, MA,USA Through the Seasons: Japanese Art in Nature, The Clark Museum, MA, USA Solo Exhibition - Nature's Poem - Shizen no Shi, Joan B. Mirviss LTD, NY, USA 2010 Solo Exhibition, Eiko Kishi, Clara Scremini Gallery, Paris, France 2011 Contemporary Japanese Ceramic Sculptures by Four Women Artists, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA Masters in the Making, Lesley Kehoe Gallery, Victoria, Australia 2012 Recollected Vistas - The Ceramic Art of Kishi Eiko, Joan B. Mirviss LTD, NY, USA Beauty in All Things: Japanese Art and Design, Museum of Art and Design, NY, USA 2013 Japanese Ceramics for the Twenty-First Century, The Betsy and Robert Feinberg Collection, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, USA The 36th Kyoto Association of Craft Artists Exhibition, The Minister of Education Prize, Kyoto, Japan 2014 Points of Departure Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum, Japan Society, NY, USA FIRED EARTH WOVEN BAMBOO Contemporary Japanese Ceramics and Bamboo Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA 2015 Unfolding Worlds, Japanese Screens and Contemporary Ceramics from the Gitter-Yelen Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, TX, USA Ancient to Modern Japanese Contemporary Ceramics and their Sources, San Antonio Museum of Art, TX, USA Contemporary Japanese Ceramics in Global Context, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, USA 2016 Sculptural Turn - Contemporary Japanese Ceramics from the Kempner-Stein Collection, Asian Art Museum, CA, USA 2017 Shinsho Wo Tsumu, Nihonbashi Takashimaya Department Store, Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands / TEFAF New York, USA

Public Collections Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA / Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA / Minneapolis Institute of Arts, USA / Museum of Art and Design, USA / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA / Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA / Victoria & Albert Museum, UK/ National Museum of Scotland, UK / New Orleans Museum Close-up of Art, USA / Northern Clay Center, USA / Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA / Hamilton Art Gallery, Australia / The Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida, FL, USA / International Ceramic Museum, Italy / Kecskemet International Ceramics Studio, Hungary / Musée Cernuschi, France / Musée Nationale de Ceramiques, France / Sekiguchi Museum, Japan / Seto City Art Museum, Japan / Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Japan / Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, USA / New Taipei City Yingee Ceramics Museum, Taipei, Taiwan / Tokoname City, Japan / Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, USA / Yale University Art Gallery, USA / Asian Art Museum, SF, USA / Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture, CA, USA

28 29 OSAMU YOKOYAMA 横山修

Virtuosity in Bamboo

“Bamboo is naturally beautiful, so it is the artist who must strive to bring out a beauty that surpasses its natural allure.”

aqua by Osamu Yokoyama (2018) Cut, bound and woven bamboo 30 H100×W60×D44 cm OSAMU YOKOYAMA

About the Artist

The aesthetics enshrined within the material of bamboo - its lustre, strength and resilience, represent the foundations of Japanese beauty, cherished for centuries on this island nation in the world of tea and in the daily rhythms of everyday life. Yet at the same time, bamboo has come to symbolise the very persona of Japan and the Japanese people, who have endured with steadfast fortitude the hardships borne from both human and natural disasters. Bamboo, however, is not simply a material suited for the creation of traditional arts and crafts. Rather, a new generation of artists have wielded the material with a new-found vigour, breathing life into its unique textures as a compelling material within contemporary art.

The young Osamu Yokoyama (1980- ) is one such artist, who finds within bamboo an ideal material for self-expression. For it is within its bends and curves, its ability to be cut, bound and stretched to its limits, that one can find the meandering, ethereal and poignant vicissitudes of life itself. Yokoyama does not hail from a storied lineage or distinct tradition, unlike many of the 3rd or 4th generation bamboo artists working today. Instead, Yokoyama was a graphic designer who eschewed a salaried position to delve into the world of bamboo, taking his wife and young daughter to Beppu, the mecca of Japanese bamboo art, and apprenticing to leading bamboo artist Jin Morigami.

Yokoyama is an up-and-coming symbol of a new wave within bamboo art, pushing the boundaries of his material in fresh and captivating ways. To capture a beauty unable to be expressed by other means, Osamu Yokoyama viscerally wields bamboo into forms previously unfathomable.

About the Work

Using only madake bamboo that is indigenous to Japan, Yokoyama differs from his contemporaries in that his works are predominantly ‘bound’ rather than ‘woven’, thereby allowing the artist to create large, sculptural forms that are almost architectural in their dynamism, accentuating the raw and material beauty of bamboo. Much of the techniques used by Yokoyama are self-taught inventions used to augment and shape bamboos in ways that would traditionally be frowned upon, such as heating and gluing. Yet it is during the dialogue with his material that the artist finds the final form of his work, and the techniques and materials used are the means to an end – the expression of an inner beauty that can only be realised by bamboo.

Yokoyama’s European debut at TEFAF Maastricht 2018 is the work featured herein entitled ‘aqua’, which embodies the life energies of water, its flow and ebb, its rhythm and waves, in virtuosic and captivating movements within the artist’s bamboo silhouettes.

1980 Born in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, Japan 2016 Apprenticeship, Jin Morigami Studio / Lives and works in Beppu Selected Awards 2015 New Artist Award, The 20th Japan Bamboo Art Exhibition / Selected, The 55th Japan Crafts Exhibition 2016 Selected, The 21st Japan Bamboo Art Exhibition / Selected, The 56th Japan Crafts Exhibition Selected Exhibitions 2016 Spring Masters New York, Park Avenue Armory, USA 2017 TEFAF New York, USA / Debut Exhibition “rewind – osamu yokoyama”, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Art Miami, USA 2018 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands

Alternate view

32 33 YOSHIRO KIMURA 木村芳郎

Porcelain’s Ocean Blue

"I wish to create works that help the viewer feel eternity in a single glance."

Vessel with Blue Glaze by Yoshiro Kimura (2018) Half-porcelain, cobalt blue glaze 34 H6.5×D68 cm YOSHIRO KIMURA

About the Artist 1946 Born in Ehime Prefecture, Japan / Lives and works in Hiroshima Selected Awards To capture the deep, bold blues of the oceans and skies upon the surfaces of his porcelain objects –such is Hiroshima-based artist Yoshiro Kimura’s 1984 Encouragement Prize, 31st Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition (1946- ) reason for creation. Deeply influenced by the philosophies behind 1989 Quasi Grand Prize, 1st Ceramics Biennial ’89, Aichi Zen Buddhism and the Way of Tea, Kimura had travelled to over 47 countries 1990 Hiroshima Art Grant ’90 Award, Hiroshima throughout the world during his years in university, and was first drawn to the 1993 Prize of Excellence, Chanoyu-no-Zokei Exhibition, Tanabe Museum (’84) beauty of clay upon seeing the enigmatic blue pigments of ancient Persian 2000 Bronze Prize, Exhibition of the Sixth Taiwan Golden Ceramics Awards, Taipei, Taiwan ceramics. Yet with the memory of witnessing first-hand the vivid colours of 2001 Kaneshige Toyo Prize, Japan Traditional Art Crafts Chugoku Division the Aegean Sea and the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii, Kimura would be inspired to 2003 The Sanyo Shimbun Culture Prize, Okayama recreate such natural beauty in his ceramic works. Kimura has received great 2005 62nd Chugoku Cultural Prize, Hiroshima acclaim for his signature bold hekiyu (blue glaze), with his works being collected by museums throughout the world, including the British Museum, the Selected Exhibitions Musée national de Céramique-Sèvres, the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1981 Mitsukoshi Department Store, Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan (’95, ’97, ’87, ’95, ’97, ’99, ’02, ’05, ’08, ’11, ’14, ’17) London, and the Museo Art Nouveau y Art Déco in Salamanca, Spain, etc. 1996 KIMURA Yoshiro, Gallery Daiichi Arts, New York, USA 2008 Design Miami / Basel, Galerie Pierre Marie Giraud, Switzerland (’08 -’17) 2009 Kimura Yoshiro, Galerie Pierre Marie Giraud, Belgium Glass and Ceramics Today, L’Arc en Seine, New York, USA About the Work 2010 TEFAF Showcase, Maastricht, Galerie Pierre Marie Giraud, The Netherlands Path of the elegance between the East and the West the Villa Empain, Belgium The artist commonly works with vessel forms, yet what Kimura Yoshiro tries to 2012 Giappone Terra Di Incanti, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy express is a Zen-like serene spirituality that brims from the gradations of colour Collect, London, UK (’15) that almost melt from from light to dark blues, in particular where his glazes pour Vallauris Ceramics Biennale, France and flow from the top of his works to their bases. Thrown on the wheel, his works 2014 Art Stage Singapore, Singapore (’16, ’17) feature a blend of porcelain and stoneware clays that help ease the process of TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’15, ’16, ’17, ’18) throwing large forms. His trademark layered cobalt blue glaze was developed during his twenties, and with age, Kimura has been able to mature and develop the colours to its current, mesmerising depths, created with multiple layers and consecutive Public Collections firings of great difficulty. One can also discover linear motifs etched upon the surfaces of his clay bodies, which further accentuate his blues and which add an National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan / Japan Foundation, Japan /Imperial Household extra dimension to his objects. Ultimately, Kimura draws upon and limns the beauty Agency, Japan / Jingu Shrine, Japan /Gifu Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Japan of the sky and oceans into his beautiful blues, often affectionately called ‘Kimura /Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum, Japan /Higashi-Hiroshima Museum of Art, Japan / Hiroshima Blue’ by aficionados in Japan and the world over. University, Japan / Okayama Shoka University, Japan /Tanabe Museum of Art, Japan /Shigaraki Cultural Ceramic Park, Japan /Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum, Japan / Hasegawa Machiko Museum, Japan / Faenza Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Italy / Auckland Institute & Museum, New Zealand / Museo Art Nouveau y Art Déco, Spain / Japan-Spain Cultural Center of Salamanca University, Spain / Museu Nacional do Azulejo, Portugal / Victoria and Albert Museum, UK / Musée national de Céramique, France / Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan / Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia / Qatar Visual Art Center, Qatar / World Ceramics Exhibition Foundation, Korea / Auckland Museum, New Zealand / The British Museum, UK

36 37 SACHI FUJIKAKE 藤掛幸智

Surrealism in Glass

"To change an inanimate material into something soft, and to capture its ransformation in form. I wish to stop the hands of time and enjoy the beauty that unfolds before me."

Vestige by Sachi Fujikake (2018) Blown, kiln-worked, sandblasted sheet glass 38 H33×W30.5×D21.5 cm SACHI FUJIKAKE

About the Artist About the Work

New ideas will flow into oceans of unforeseen beauty. Fujikake first takes individual sheets of Likewise, the works of Sachi Fujikake (1985- ) boldly defy white-coloured glass of 2 different gradations and transcend the qualities of glass to realms unchartered, and sandblasts dotted perforations onto their warping the material into ripples in time and space, tearing surfaces after fusing the sheets together in a at its very fabric to melt it into Dali-esque objects, surreal glory hole, thereby deepening the holes to yet finite, completely original yet utterly eternal in its heighten and accentuate the shadows that rippling majesty. Entitled Vestige, her works capture the form on her glass surfaces. After this initial remains of what is left behind, the beauty of glass as it turns process, Fujikake further attaches 6 sheets from a hard material into something soft, in many ways within her glory hole to form an essentially capturing the preciousness of time itself as its continuum is cubic shape. After this basic form is created, bent, twisted and expanded into forms formerly unfathomable. Fujikake incredibly begins to blow the The young Fujikake is quickly garnering a following within melting glass, thereby helping to warp and the world of glass, and has already been collected by the expand the glass in a bubble-like form. Such Alexander Tutsek Foundation in Germany, Kanazawa voluptuous, seemingly impossible curvatures Udatsuyama Craft Institute, Koganezaki Crystal Park, and cannot be achieved by the use of sheet glass most recently the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2015. alone, and it is the combination of various Organic and free flowing, crumpled yet inflated, and glass techniques – kiln-working, sand-blasting, translucently, lusciously radiant, Fujikake's works are and blowing glass, that eloquently melts it into an entirely new spectrum of glass for the mesmerising odes to an innovative new style of abstraction st in glass. The vestiges of light, embraced herein. 21 century.

1985 Born in Aichi Prefecture, Japan 2006 Aichi University of Education 2011 Kanazawa Utatsuyama Craft Workshop / Lives and works in Nagoya Awards 2006 Forever Foundation, Overseas study scholarship 2009 Pilchuck Glass School 2009 Lino tagliapietra scholarship 2010 NHK Kanazawa Director Award, 24th Ishikawa Contemporary Craft Exhibition 2010 Chairman Award, Kanazawa Lacquer Trade Cooperation, Ishikawa Prefectural Design Exhibition 2011 Award of Excellence, Kanazawa Utatsuyama Craft Workshop 2012 Award of Excellence , Takaoka Craft Exhibition / Encouragement Award, KOGANEZAKI Contemporary Glass Art Exhibition Award of Excellence, Kanazawa Utatsuyama Craft Workshop / New Glass Review 33 Jury Award, Contemporary Glass Art Exhibition in Sanyoonoda 2013 New Glass Review 34 / Honorable Mentions, The International Exhibition of Glass Kanazawa 2013, Japan 2016 Gold Prize, The International Exhibition of Glass Kanazawa 2016, Japan 2017 Selected, Young Glass, Denmark Selected Exhibitions 2006 Inspire Your Heart Exhibition, Coco Laboratory, Akita, Japan 2007 Gallery APA, Aichi, Japan (’08, ’09, ’10, ’12) / December Show, Gallery APA, Aichi, Japan / 26th Asahi Craft Art Exhibition, Japan 2008 47th Japan Craft Art Exhibition, Japan (’10) 2010 Forming Rainbows, Galerie Steine, Nagano, Japan / Forms of Tomorrow, Gallery sou, Kanazawa, Japam “31 Sensibilities – Kanazawa Utatsuyama Craft Workshop Exhibition”, Japan 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (’11, ’12) 2011 Art Fair Tokyo, Japan / VARIA Nagoya Art Fair, Nagoya, Japan 2012 Takaoka Craft Exhibition, Toyama, Japan KOGANEZAKI - Vessel Forms – Contemporary Glass Art Exhibition, Shizuoka, Japan Contemporary Glass Art Exhibition in Sanyoonoda, Yamaguchi, Japan HEART to HEART Craft Art Exhibition, Fukui, Japan / Art Fair Nagoya, Japan 2013 TARENTE 2013 International Skilled Trades Fair, Munich, Germany / Transfiguration of Glass II, Gallery VOICE, Gifu, Japan The International Exhibition of Glass Kanazawa, 21st Century Museum of Art, Ishikawa, Japan 2014 Collect, London, UK (’15) / Art Miami, USA (’15, ’16, ’17) 2015 Solo Exhibition, Vestige, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan / Art Stage Singapore, Singapore (’16, ’17) 2016 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’17, ’18) / Spring Masters New York, USA / EAF Monaco, Monaco / Art Taipei, Taiwan 2017 TEFAF New York Spring, USA / Group Exhibition, life-world, Alexander Tutsek, Munich, Germany Group Exhibition, Young Glass, Ebeltoft Glass Museum, Denmark Solo Exhibition, Vestige II – New Glass Works by Sachi Fujikake, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Public Collections Alternate view Alexander Tutsek Foundation, Germany / Glasmuseum Lette, Germany / Kanazawa Utatsuyama Craft Workshop, Japan / Koganezaki Crystal Park, Japan / Victoria and Albert Museum, UK 40 41 TAKAHIRO YEDE 家出隆浩

When Metal Turns to Tapestry

“To set myself free, I test the limits of myself and metal.”

Flowing Water by Takahiro Yede (2018) Shakudo (gold/copper), shibuichi (silver/copper), soldering silver 42 H13×W53×D46.5 cm

HIDENORI TSUMORI 津守秀憲

Entwined in Glass, the Rivers of Time

“To express the passing of time through the fossilisation of glass, to transform the inorganic into the organic... "

Remains of the Day by Hidenori Tsumori (2018) Cast glass mixed with clay 46 H53.5×W32×D32 cm HIDENORI TSUMORI

About the Artist About the Work

To capture the rivers of time flowing into oceans deep, Using an ingeniously original technique of firing glass the fragments of memories borne and the tenderness of together with clay, the myriad landscapes within the lives lost, to limn the power of nature and its eternal young Hidenori Tsumori's mind are only just emerging struggle between life and death, the vicissitudes onto the fragmented surfaces of his sculptures. Tsumori churning between Eros and Thanatos. Such thematic first takes multiple conical plaster casts of varying sizes elements strike at the elegiac core of the young Hidenori and places them upside down. After literally puttying Tsumori's (1986- ) glass sculptures, encompassing the his original concoction of glass and clay onto these fragile remains of the day that have turned to sombre conical forms, Tsumori connects the cones together yet powerful memories in glass and clay. Like the with his unique material, and then arranges the cones by turning of the seasons and the eternal rise and fall of height within his electric kiln using fire-resistant blocks. the sun and moon, the passing of time embodies the After firing, the artist pulls the object from the kiln and inevitable cycle of life that dictates the human removes the plaster, thereby leaving behind the remains existence. Tsumori's elegant sculptures represent the of glass and clay in all its elegiac splendour. Firing two remnants of what has passed and what (or perhaps opposing materials together into a single entity is a who?) is left behind in starkly poignant detail. In this revolutionary and innovative progression of material young artist's glass poems, the brave new sounds of an that allows Tsumori to realise the creation of sculptural emerging revolution in glass can be heard. beauty previously unknown.

1986 Born in Tokyo, Japan 2012 Tama Art University 2014 Toyama City Institute of Glass Art 2017 Kanazawa Utatsuyama Craft Workshop / Lives and works in Toyama Selected Exhibitions 2012 Art in Life Exhibition, Ginza Mitsukoshi, Tokyo, Japan 2013 Glass x Glass x Glass, Takamura Gyujin Memorial Museum of Art, Toyama, Japan Glass Story, Milestone Art Works, Toyama, Japan / Science Room, Kanka Gallery, Toyama, Japan 2014 7th Glass Educational Institutions Joint Exhibition (GEN Exhibition), Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Japan 29th Ishikawa of Contemporary Craft Art Exhibition, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan Solo exhibition, Gallery Q, Tokyo, Japan 2015 SOFA Chicago, USA / Space-Time Exhibition, Art For Thought, Tokyo, Japan Utatsuyama of Form Exhibition, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan Art Fair Tokyo, Japan (’16, ’17) Paris, Nobody Knows - Paris do not know anyone – Exhibition, ELEKTROKARDIOGRAMM, Okayama, Japan Tama Art University 80th Anniversary Exhibition, Tama Art University, Japan Solo exhibition, The Form of Vestiges, Ishikawa, Japan 2016 Art Stage Singapore, Singapore (’17) / Spring Masters New York, USA EAF Monaco, Monaco / Art Taipei, Taiwan / Art Miami, USA (’17) Solo-Exhibition “Remains of the Day” Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 2017 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’18) / TEFAF New York Spring, USA Notojima Glass Collection "New Acquisitions: Forms of Glass", Notojima Glass Art Museum, Ishikawa, Japan

Public Collections Toyama City, Japan / Museum of World War II, Boston, USA / Notojima Glass Art Museum, Japan

Alternate view 48 49 TAKAFUMI ASAKURA 朝倉隆文

A Revival in Japanese Painting

"My fountain of inspiration flows from the material that is black ink."

The Origin of Light, Effervescent in the Heavens by Takafumi Asakura (2018) Black ink on aluminum leaf, mounted on a four-panel silk screen 50 H180×W372 cm

KANJIRO MORIYAMA 森山寛二郎

Loops, Lines and Curves

"I search for beauty in abstraction using materials and techniques commonly associated with the utilitarian."

Kai (Turn) by Kanjiro Moriyama (2018) Stoneware with glaze 58 H86×W52×D40 cm KANJIRO MORIYAMA

About the Artist About the Work

The symbolic leader of a younger generation of emerging Yufuku By throwing individually large, cylindrical pots and artists in their late 20's to early 30's who are giving birth to wildly cutting them while still wet, Moriyama has devised a imaginative artworks far removed from rustic preconceptions of method of attaching separately thrown forms together what their respective materials can achieve aesthetically, Kanjiro to create an intriguing, unique whole. What is important Moriyama (1984- ) has mesmerised audiences for his uncanny to note, however, is that his silhouettes are impossible ability to create dynamically oscillating sculptures from the to form by hand-building, and his loops, lines and humble potter's wheel, a tool predominantly used for the mass curves can only be realised by the wheel. After cutting production of vessels and not for abstract and unique works of and glazing, the respective pieces are bisque-fired, and art made with clay. then an initial main firing takes place at a temperature of 1250 degrees Celsius within a gas kiln. It is only at Hailing from the idyllic kiln site of Koishiwara in Fukuoka, the next and final main firing wherein the individual Kyushu, the village is known as a centre for Mingei pottery, and parts are attached with glaze and fired/fused together - is far removed from any common connection with the world of an intricate, complex and extremely difficult process. abstraction. Yet from this traditional locale has sprung forth great Yet technique and material are only means to an end, innovation in the works of Moriyama, and it is this young artist and both thrown clay and fire are consciously chosen by who embraces the clay of his hometown with a penchant for the Moriyama to conjure and realise a beauty that not only sculptural. Captivating the Japanese ceramic scene in 2007 by lies within, but can only be realised by the selection of becoming the youngest Grand Prize winner of the prestigious clay, wheel and fire. Luscious silhouettes combined with Asahi Ceramic Exhibition at the early age of 23, and winning a razor edges, drenched in glazes both white and black. slew of major, nationally-recognized awards since, Moriyama is The young Moriyama's vision blooms brightly. one of Yufuku’s most promising clay artists of his generation.

1984 Born in Koishiwara, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan 2007 Saga University / Lives and works in Koishiwara Selected Awards 2007 Grand Prize, Asahi Ceramics Exhibition 2013 Mayor’s Prize, The 110th Kyushu / Yamaguchi Ceramic Art Exhibition Encouragement Award, Kobe Biennale Contemporary Ceramics Exhibition 2014 Award of Excellence, Ceramic Art of Today, 3rd Hagi Grand Prize Exhibition 14th Kakiemon Memorial Award, The 2nd TOBI Ceramic Art Exhibition 2016 Grand Prize, The 4th TOBI Ceramic Art Exhibition / Minister's Prize, Arita International Ceramics Competition 2017 Nominated, The 24th Japan Ceramics Exhibition / Selected, The 11th Mino International Ceramics Competition Selected, The 7th Kikuchi Ceramics Biennale Selected Exhibitions 2002 The 85th Saga Art Exhibition, Saga Prefectural Art Museum, Japan (’03, ’04, ’06) 2003 The 33rd Nagasaki Ceramic Art Exhibition, Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum, Japan The 53rd Saga Prefectural Exhibition, Saga Prefectural Art Museum, Japan (’04, ’07) 2004 The 20th Contemporary Arts and Crafts Exhibition of Kyushu, The Kyushu Ceramic Museum, Japan The 25th Chikugo Art Exhibition, Sathankusu Chikugo, Japan 2005 The 102nd Kyushu Yamaguchi Ceramic Art Exhibition, The Kyushu Ceramic Museum, Japan (’07, ’12, ’13) 2006 Group Exhibition, The Saga City Cultural Museum, Japan 2007 The 28th Choza Prize Contemporary Ceramic Art Exhibition, Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum, Japan (’13) 45th Commemorative Asahi Ceramic Art Exhibition, The Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Japan 2008 64th Fukuoka Prefectural Art Exhibition, Fukuoka Prefectural Museum of Art (’09, ’10, ’11, ’12) Mashiko Ceramic Art Exhibition, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Japan 2009 Young Artists Group Exhibition, House of Ryoichi Yamaguchi, Japan 2010 KUMAMOTO FINAL Biennale, Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, Japan Contemporary Ceramics Hagi Grand Prize Exhibition III, Hagi Uragami Museum, Japan 2011 9th International Ceramics Festival, Mino, Japan Kobe Biennale Contemporary Ceramics Exhibition, The Museum of Ceramic Art / BB Plaza Museum of Art, Japan 2012 lines and curves Exhibition, Fukuoka, Japan 2013 Selected, 58th Faenza International Ceramic Exhibition, Faenza, Italy (’15) Selected, 5th Kikuchi Biennale Ceramic Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan 22nd Japan Ceramic Art Exhibition, Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum, Japan 2014 Tobi Ceramic Art Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan / Collect, London, UK (’15) The Beauty of Materials, Galerie Marianne Heller, Germany loops. lines. curves - kanjiro moriyama Solo exhibition, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Alternate view Kiri Tsugi, Solo exhibition, Takashimaya Department Store, Tokyo, Japan 2015 Art Stage Singapore, Singapore (’16, ’17) / Japan!, Mouvements Modernes, Paris, France / Art Miami, USA (’16, ’17) 2016 Spring Masters New York, USA / EAF Monaco, Monaco / Art Taipei, Taiwan end of the world supernova – kanjiro moriyama solo exhibition, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 2017 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’18) / TEFAF New York Spring, USA

Public Collections Faenza International Ceramics Museum, Italy / The Kyushu Ceramic Museum, Japan / Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA / The Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Muller Museum, Dallas, USA 60 61 YASUTAKA BABA 馬場康貴

In Pursuit of the Elemental

“Using the textures of non-organic materials, and with light and shadows as leitmotif, I wish to create works that sublimate and transcend their geometrical structuralism."

elemental form I by Yasutaka Baba (2018) Porcelain with glaze 62 H50.5×W21×D19.5 cm YASUTAKA BABA

About the Artist About the Work

Every so often, an artist emerges who will Entitled ‘elemental form’, Baba’s new series of work is an rejuvenate the traditions of old with a fresh, evolution from his early body of work called ‘structural vessel’, bold zeitgeist that reflects the times in which we in that whereas his former works were simply adaptations of live in, who will push the boundaries of his or traditional forms often found in utilitarian and functional her mode of expression in innovative and new works, ‘elemental form’ is devoid of any instance of ways that help us to both remember, rethink functionality, and instead, embraces a brave new vision of and revisit the beauty found within materials abstraction that calls to mind the beauty of ancient architecture, and techniques. One such artist is Yasutaka from the wonders of Mayan and Aztec civilizations and the Baba (1991- ) of Hasami, Nagasaki Prefecture, elegance of Persian and Buddhist reliefs, amalgamated with the who will make his international debut at TEFAF minimal silhouettes reminiscent of towers and residential Maastricht 2018. complexes of the future. Capturing both light and shadows upon their facades, Baba’s aesthetic is intriguing for both its The eldest son of a family-run pottery in a sculptural beauty coupled with an immaculate sense of detail locale renowned for porcelain production since and craftsmanship, evidenced by the scrupulous intensity of the the 1600’s, Baba’s brave willingness to not small building blocks of porcelain that comprise his works. simply repeat Hasami’s past but to move it After drawing a blueprint of his intended object, he first cuts forward, to attempt a new aesthetic within out stencils that help him create the structural foundations for porcelain that others have yet to tread, has his sculptures. Then, after cutting out thousands of little already garnered both respect and great rectangular porcelain blocks of varying sizes, Baba attaches expectations of what lies ahead. With silhouettes each piece, one by one, upon his damp clay surfaces in a reminiscent of futuristic skyscrapers that buzz random fashion. After drying, the work is fired in an electric with facades of fevered intensity, Baba’s vision kiln for 1240 degrees Celsius for 15 hours. of light and shadows entwined in harmony shines brightly amongst a new and exciting In pursuit of the elemental essence of porcelain’s natural beauty, generation of youthful Yufuku artists eager to Baba’s ‘elemental forms’ are mesmerising odes to the sheer carve their place in the international scene. power and imagination of contemporary Japanese ceramics.

1991 Born in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan 2016 Arita College of Ceramics 2017 Tajimi City Pottery Design and Technical Center Lives and works in Gifu Prefecture, Japan Selected Awards 2016 Selected, Triennale of Kogei in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan 2017 Bronze Prize, International Ceramics Festival Mino, Gifu Prefecture, Japan Selected Group Exhibitions 2016 The Next Mino Ceramics, Mino Ceramic Art Museum, Gifu Prefecture, Japan (’17) 2017 Group Exhibition, Gallery Suki, Aichi Prefecture, Japan Kogei Art Fair Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan 2018 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands

Alternate view 64 65 A Single Blue by Ayane Mikagi (2017) Japanese pigments on washi paper, mounted on canvas H80.3×W80.3 cm AYANE MIKAGI

About the Artist 1988 Born in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan 2015 Tama Art University Graduate School Storied traditions in the indigenous type of Japanese painting called Nihonga, placing Lives and works in Tokyo emphasis on uniquely Japanese materials, techniques and conventions, have thrived in Selected Awards Japan for nearly 1,000 years, and continues into the present. Yet its present incarnation 2012 Award of Excellence, The 23rd Garyuzakura Japanese Painting Exhibition is often mired in the idolisation of Western materials and subject matter, and the Grand Prize, The 12th Sato Taisei Art Exhibition differences between Western oil painting and Nihonga have been greatly convoluted, 2013 Award of Excellence, JASSO Students of the Year with an inability to distinguish one from another. 2014 Selected, The 16th Setsuryosha-Firenze Prize Exhibition It is within this context that the emergence of Ayane Mikagi (1988- ), one of the Selected, The 50th Kanagawa Art Exhibition th brightest young painters of Nihonga, can be understood, who, with contemporaries such Selected, The 25 Mitsubishi Corporation Art Gate Program th as fellow Yufuku artist and Tama University of Arts alumnus Takafumi Asakura and 2015 The 25 Sato International Cultural Foundation Scholarship nd Kentaro Sato, are trying to create a new wave of Japanese painting for the 21st century, The 2 Kamiyama Foundation Art Support Program Scholarship / Selected, Shinsei Art Exhibition with an exhilarating zeitgeist focusing on traditional Japanese techniques yet placing an 2016 Award of Excellence, “FACE 2016” Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Art Award Exhibition Selected, Japan Arts Foundation Scholarship Program emphasis on innovative methods of abstraction that have not been featured or focused Selected, The 34th Ueno Royal Museum Art Exhibition within the artform. Winning a slew of awards since 2012 and already placed in two Selected, “Seed” Yamatane Museum Japanese Painting Award public collections in Japan, her paintings are at once evocative, luscious and emphatic, and are most often idyllic landscapes found within her mind’s eye, controlled and Selected Exhibitions painted carefully in layered, raw emotion. 2012 The 23rd Garyuzakura Japanese Painting Grand Prize Exhibition, The Museum of Fine Arts Gifu, Japan The 1st Mirai-no-Shukakusai “The Harvest Festival of the future”, Gifu, Japan 2013 The 12th Sato Taisei Prize Art Exhibition, Aichi, Japan 2014 Art Aoi Iwami, Art Universities Scholarship Exhibition of Japanese Paintings, Japan th About the Work The 16 Setsuryosha-Firenze Prize Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Japan The 50th Kanagawa Art Exhibition, Japan 2015 Joint Graduation Exhibition of Five Art Universities in Tokyo, Japan Using natural ingredients such as the grinded powder of precious stones, minerals 50 FACES, Reijinsha Gallery, Tokyo, Japan / “Soleil”, Surugadai Gallery, Tokyo, Japan and seashells, the polychromatic ‘paint’ used in Nihonga are the elements found in Shinsei Art Exhibition, Shinseido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan nature, and are commonly applied to traditionally hand-made Japanese paper or silk “INTRO4”, Exhibition of Younger Generation Artists-selected by Fuyuhiko Yamamoto, Tokyo, Japan using a form of hide glue. In her most recent work ‘A Single Blue’, Mikagi is “Shibuya Style vol.9”, Tokyo, Japan / The 22nd Sesshu International Art Society Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan painting what cannot be seen – the emotions that bubble from underneath the Ayane Mikagi, -faraway-, Art Space 88, Tokyo, Japan veneer of superficiality, the depths of the heart that pulsate within her very being, 2016 Roppongi Art Week, Tokyo, Japan even capturing the darkness of night hidden beneath a pop façade. Layers upon “FACE 2016”, Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan layers of blue, a colour deeply cherished in Nihonga painting and achieved by the The 3rd “Hi no Kai” Exhibition, Inoue Gallery, Tokyo use of azurite, transmit a depth of colour that is often lost in today’s Japanese “Binan-ga” Exhibition, Gallery Tomo, Tokyo, Japan painting. Sensual and striking, Mikagi’s abstractions give way to an inner nightscape EAF Monaco, Monaco / Art Taipei, Taiwan / Art Miami, USA (’17) that brims within Mikagi herself, her paintings abstract poetry that brings forth a 2017 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’18) new day and age of abstraction within the genre of Nihonga.

Public Collections Takayama City, Gifu, Japan / Fukuchiyama City, Kyoto, Japan

68 69 AKIHIRO MAETA 前田昭博

Minimalism as Absolute

"With the use of simple forms, I strive to create white porcelain that is distinctly my own."

White Porcelain Faceted Vase by Akihiro Maeta (2018) White porcelain, glaze 70 H37×W29.5×D30.5 cm AKIHIRO MAETA

About the Artist 1954 Born in Tottori, Tottori Prefecture, Japan Lives and works in Tottori An influential figure in the world of Japanese ceramics, Akihiro Maeta (1954- ) Awards creates elegant and minimal sculptures from white porcelain that are deeply 1991 Mainichi Shimbun Newspaper Prize, 11th Japan Ceramics Exhibition inspired by the vessel form. Minimalism in ceramics can be easily mistaken for 1993 Kenkichi Tomimoto Prize, 48th Shinsho Craft Exhibition an inability to decorate or experiment. For Maeta, this is far from truth. The 1999 Tottori City Cultural Award artist’s trademark landscapes are, in fact, the simplest of silhouettes coalesced 2000 Asahi Shimbun Newspaper Prize, 47th Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition with the purity of white, and his serene works reveal Maeta’s unique ability to 2004 Japan Ceramic Society Award give birth to riveting, simple and alluring beauty that is shorn of excess. 2005 Shinsho Craft Exhibition Grand Prize Having been collected by 26 public institutions throughout the world, in 2007 Purple Medal for Artistic Achievement, Government of Japan particular the Musée Ariana in Geneva, the British Museum in London, and the 2010 Tottori Prefecture Art Cultural Prize National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Maeta is considered to be one of the 2012 Designated Tottori Prefecture Intangible Cultural Property Holder for Ceramics leading ceramic sculptors of his generation. Subsequently, he has been awarded 2013 Designated Living National Treasure by the Government of Japan the Purple Medal of Honour in 2007 by the Government of Japan, and was designated a Living National Treasure by the Emperor of Japan in 2013. Selected Exhibitions 1979 5th Japan Ceramic Art Exhibition, Japan (selected every time since) 1983 30th Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition, Japan (selected 23 times since) 1996 New Expressions in Porcelain: Developments in the 1990s, The National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, Japan About the Work 2002 International Asia-Pacific Contemporary Ceramics Invitational Exhibition, Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan Surprisingly, the serenely faceted silhouettes of Maeta’s works are not formed on a 100 Years of Contemporary Ceramics Exhibition, Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan wheel. Instead, Maeta prefers to free himself from the formative and sculptural 2006 Asian Ceramic Delta: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan limitations imposed by this tool, and for this reason, only uses it to initially throw 2007 Crafting Beauty in Modern Japan, The British Museum, London, UK the basic shapes of his work. Then, using his bare hands, the artist begins to push 2009 Akihiro Maeta - Form in White Porcelain, Tottori Prefectural Museum, Japan and sculpture the surfaces of his works into individually ridged sides. Essentially, the 2010 Collect, London, UK (’11, ’12, ’13, ’14, ’15) artist’s plump silhouettes are created through free-forming using the sheer strength The Musèe Tomo Prize Contemporary Ceramics for the Tea Ceremony, Musèe Tomo, Tokyo, Japan of his hands and fingers. After the placements of his edges are determined, Maeta 2012 Vallauris Biennale, France trims and prepares his surfaces using a blade to completely erase his hand marks 2013 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’14, ’15, ’16, ’17, ’18) 2016 Spring Masters New York, USA from his facades. This final faceting/polishing completes the contemplative creative EAF Monaco, Monaco process of the artist’s work. After glazing, the work is consecutively fired in a gas 2017 TEFAF New York Spring, USA kiln at a relatively lower temperature than traditional porcelain, to imbue the work with a soft, milky whiteness. Ultimately, Maeta’s works reveal far more than superficial functionality, and are infused with the artist’s deep philosophy of Public Collections expressing the true beauty of porcelain through the elegance of minimal simplicity. Foreign Ministry, Government of Japan / Japan Foundation, Japan / Agency of Cultural Affairs, Japan / Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan / Shiga Ceramic Cultural Park, Japan / National Museum of Modern Art, Japan / Tottori Prefectural Museum, Japan / East Hiroshima City Museum of Art, Japan / Everson Museum, USA / Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA / Musée Ariana, Switzerland / Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia / Auckland Museum, New Zealand / The British Museum, UK / The Tanabe Museum of Art, Japan / Sano Toseki Museum of Art, Japan / MOA Museum of Art, Japan / Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum, Japan / Icheon World Ceramic Centre, Korea / Indianapolis Museum of Art, USA / Jingu Museum, Mie Prefecture, Japan / Gitter-Yelen Foundation, USA / Imperial Household Agency, Japan / Yakushiji Temple, Japan / Shikinensengu Memorial Shrine Museum, Japan / Osaka University of Arts, Japan

72 73 NAOKI TAKEYAMA 武山直樹

Reverie in Enamels Iridescent

“Art is a way of living, and for me, an affirmation of life.”

Negau (Hope) by Naoki Takeyama (2018) Enamelled copper, gold and silver leaf 74 H34.5×W35×D29 cm NAOKI TAKEYAMA

About the Artist 1974 Born in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Japan 1999 Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School / Lives and works in Toyota Naoki Takeyama (1974- ) is a charismatic young artist who wields the ancient Selected Awards technique of enamelling metal with an electric modernity, his highly distinctive creations calling to mind the avant-garde and asymmetrical designs of 1997 Ataka Prize, Tokyo University of the Arts world-famous Japanese fashion designers of the 1980’s. Head of his class at 1999 Prize, National Japan Gold & Silver Works Exhibition the prestigious Tokyo University of the Arts, Takeyama has been recognised Salon de Printemps Prize, Tokyo University of the Arts with a flurry of awards since his debut at the age of 24, while winning myriad 33rd International Enamelling Art Exhibition awards since, with recent acquisitions by the V&A in London in 2008, the 2000 Japanese Crafts Exhibition / 34th Japan Enamelling Art Exhibition Birmingham and Plymouth Museums of Art in 2011, the National Museum of 2001 Toyota Cultural Prize, Aichi Prefectur / Gold Prize, I.H.M TALENT, Germany Modern Art, Tokyo in 2012, the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2014, the Yale Vielun Prize, TALENT, Germany University Museum of Art and the Grassi Museum in Leipzig, Germany in 2002 Award, Japan Jewellery Arts Competition 2015. Takeyama’s metalwork is widely seen as a stunning reinterpretation of an 2005 Juror's Special Prize, 7th National Ceramics Competition, Mino age-old art, ultimately proposing to metal a wealth of new possibilities. 2010 Art Fund Prize, Collect, London (’11) 2012 Nominated, Okada Mokichi Prize, MOA Museum of Art, Japan (’14)

About the Work Selected Exhibitions 2003 METALLFORMEN, Germany and Italy Pushing the boundaries of enamelled metal is Takeyama’s raison d’ϲtre, and his 2005 Exempla, Germany new objects for TEFAF 2018 embody the many elements that have brought 2007 Solo Exhibition, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (’10) Takeyama critical acclaim. Incredibly, Takeyama first hand-pinches into shape 2008 A Japanese Dialogue, Scottish Gallery, UK / Collect, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK riveting copper bodies that twist themselves into animation, using thin sheets of 2009 Collect, London, UK (’10, ’11, ’12, ’13,’14, ’15) / Quest Gallery, Bath, UK copper that are often pleated to absolute perfection. Further, rather than 2012 Art Fair Tokyo, Japan (’13) enamelling via the use of wires, the artist uses a small sieve and a bamboo New Footing: 11 Approaches to Contemporary Craft, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan paddle to apply a powder-base enamel glaze onto the body of the work that 2013 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’14, ’15, ’16, ’17, ’18) crystalizes after firing. After applying the dry glaze, Takeyama fires the work in a Artfully Connected, Embassy of Sweden, Tokyo, Japan small electric kiln, re-applies enamel, dries, and fires again, with the process 2014 Art Stage Singapore, Singapore (’15, ’16, ’17) / Solo Exhibition, Asia Week New York, USA repeated more than 10 times. After cutting out silver and gold leaf shapes, the Clark Art Institute Opening Exhibition, USA / Art Miami, USA (’15, ’16, ’17) leaf is meticulously applied by hand onto the body of a work with the utmost 2015 Japan!, Group Exhibition, Paris, France precision. An object is then fired nearly 10 times more in order to fuse the leaf 2016 Spring Masters New York, USA / EAF Monaco, Monaco / Art Taipei, Taiwan onto the enamelled metal, with each firing warping slightly the form, in which 2017 TEFAF New York Spring, USA Takeyama must readjust with his hands again and again. As if in a state of constant flux, Takeyama’s enamelled works are an exquisite collaboration between metal and maestro. Public Collections Toyota City, Japan / Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan / Victoria and Albert Museum, UK / Manchester City Art Gallery, UK / Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, UK / Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery, UK / The National Museum of Modern Art, Japan / The Enamel Arts Foundation, USA / The Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA / The Yale University Art Gallery, USA / Grassi Museum, Leipzig, Germany / Die Neue Sammlung, Munich, Germany

76 77 KEIZO SUGITANI 杉谷恵造

In Clay, a Primal Grandeur

"To capture a man and a woman, in love, together, in raw, primitive harmony, where shadows combine as one."

Shadows Crossing by Keizo Sugitani (2018) Stoneware with glaze 78 H70×W50×D24 cm KEIZO SUGITANI

About the Artist About the Work

Keizo Sugitani (1959- ) of Osaka is virtually unknown in Although imbued with the rustic sheen of metal, Japan, yet underneath the radar of empty populism, he Sugitani’s works are in fact creations in Shigaraki has come to develop an aesthetic that would blindside clay that are hand-built into interlocking forms that spectators with a visceral beauty brimming with the are almost Escher-esque in their simple complexity. sheer urgency of now. Sugitani's works are minimal odes The artist, after blending a base white clay, begins that call to mind the abstractions of the Basque artist the rigorous process of hand-coiling his sculptures Eduardo Chillida and the natural beauty of Barbara into the forms in his mind’s eye. After carving and Hepworth, with grayish-black glaze and rustic hues, smoothening the surfaces, the artist bisque-fires hand-built and elegantly primitive in their innocent the work, and then applies an original glaze filled grandeur. Entitled Shadows Crossing, there is a rawness with copper that, after a main firing in his gas-kiln, to Sugitani's latest works that limn the Primitivism of gives his works a distinctive patina similar to rusted the Nabi and the austere simplicity of Brutalist metal. Appearances can be deceiving, and the sheer architecture. By capturing within his abstract silhouettes formative simplicity of the artist’s sculptures masks the interlocking, rugged yet eternal relationships the difficulty of firing such towering totems in clay, between man and woman, the serene shadows borne and hide, perhaps in the shadows, the modern within reveal multitudes of complex, raw emotion. mastery of Keizo Sugitani.

1959 Born in Osaka Prefecture, Japan 1982 Ceramic Art Institute of Tekisui Museum of Art Live and works in Osaka Awards 1996 Prize, All Kansai Art Exhibition (’97) 1998 Selected, Asahi Ceramic Exhibition (’99) Exhibitions 2014 The Promise – Keizo Sugitani Solo exhibition, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Collect, London, UK (’15) 2015 Art Miami, USA (’16, ’17) 2016 Art Stage Singapore, Singapore (’17) / TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’17, ’18) Shadows Crossing – Keizo Sugitani Solo exhibition, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Spring Masters New York, USA / EAF Monaco, Monaco / Art Taipei, Taiwan 2017 TEFAF New York Spring, USA

Alternate view

80 81 SHUNICHI YABE 矢部俊一

Bizen’s New Frontier

“To express the beauty of Bizen in a new and refreshing way, different from the past and moving towards the future…"

Moon Mountain by Shunichi Yabe (2017) Stoneware with natural ash glaze 82 H78×W15×D17 cm SHUNICHI YABE

About the Artist About the Work

For centuries if not thousands of years in Japan, it has been Immediately striking about the work of Yabe the repetition of innovation that ultimately leads to the birth is his elegantly bold sense of line, which is of tradition. Yet no matter how beautiful a storied tradition instantly recognisable and unlike any other may be, it too will someday turn to dust, abandoned to the silhouette in Bizen. His hand-built and faceted lonely graveyards of history, if it does not continue to stoneware feature aerodynamic edges that call innovate and change with the times. In this light, Shunichi to mind the prototypes of vehicles and Yabe (1968- ) is an artist who is helping to create new buildings oft found within the pages of science possibilities in form within the grand traditions of Bizen, fiction. First, the basic form of the sculpture is one of Japan’s fabled ‘Six Old Kilns’. hand-built from a blend of Bizen mountain Bizen is widely considered to be the most famous of kiln and rice-paddy clays, and then the work is sites of Japan, steeped in tradition and symbolically carved and trimmed, layer after layer, with a represented by the legendary Living National Treasures blade commonly used in harder surfaces such (LNT) selected from the region as its ‘vanguards of as porcelain. After Yabe’s meticulous method tradition’. Yabe, in fact, is the grandson of the 3rd Living of sculpting and treating the surfaces of his National Treasure of Bizen, Toshu Yamamoto (1906-1994), works, the sculpture is bisque-fired in an yet his soaring, sleek and razor-sharp sculptures are worlds electric kiln at 750 degrees Celsius, and then apart from the traditional vessels of his famous grandfather, subsequently fired in a small wood kiln for 3 who was a master at the potter’s wheel, and his father, Atsuo days at a temperature reaching 1180 degrees Yabe, a veteran Bizen potter. Instead, it is Yabe’s ability to Celsius, with a week used for cooling the work create dynamic objects not fettered by the ghosts of Bizen before removing from the kiln. The resulting tradition and freed from the constrictions of functionality silhouettes provide a breath of fresh air from that has made Yabe one of the most exciting artists to come the oft-repetitive forms of Bizen that continues forth from Bizen since the emergence of the Heisei Bizen to be borrowed from the Momoyama Period, artists of the early 90’s. Shorn of excess, minimal and and heightens the importance of Yabe in a abstract, fired elegantly and imbued with all that Bizen is Japanese heritage that will surely continue for cherished for, and further collected by the British Museum centuries to come – if, in fact, Bizen perseveres of London, the Japan Foundation in Tokyo, and the Asian to innovate in line with the advanced Art Museum of San Francisco, Yabe’s new vision for Bizen progressions led by visionary artists such will one day become the storied traditions of tomorrow. as Shunichi Yabe.

1968 Born in Imbe, Okayama Prefecture / Lives and works in Okayama Awards 1995 Selected, Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition, Chugoku region (’96, ’97, ’03, ’04, ’05, ’07, ’09) Selected, Okayama Fine Art Exhibition (’97, ’03) 2004 Prize, Okayama Art Exhibition / Selected, Chanoyu-no-Zokei (Tea Forms) Exhibition (’07, ’08, ’09) 2006 Prize, Okayama Art Exhibition (’07, ’08, ’09, ’10) 2008 Prize, Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition, Chugoku region (’10) / Selected, 46th Asahi Ceramic Art Exhibition 2009 Selected, 3rd Kikuchi Biennale 2010 Prize, 25th National Culture Art Exhibition 2011 Selected, 9th International Ceramic Art Festival, Mino / Encouragement Prize, Okayama Art Exhibition 2013 Okayama City Mayor Prize, Okayama Art Exhibition Selected Solo Exhibitions 2007 Okayama Tenmaya Department Store Gallery, Okayama 2008 Matsuzakaya Department Store Gallery, Nagoya (’11) 2009 Mitsukoshi Department Store Gallery, Niigata (’11) / Ginza Kuroda Touen, Tokyo Maruei Toyohashi Department Store Gallery, Aichi (’11) 2010 Toyama Daiwa Department Store Gallery, Toyama / Kohrinbo Daiwa Department Store Gallery, Kanazawa 2011 Takashimaya Department Store Gallery, Gifu 2012 Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo (’13, '15, ’17) 2015 Gallery X, Nihonbashi Takashimaya Department Store, Tokyo Selected Group Exhibitions 2012 Collect, London, UK ('13, '14) / Art Fair Tokyo (’13) Japan Zu Gast Yufuku Heidelberg Exhibition, Galerie Marianne Heller, Heidelberg Alternate view 2014 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands ('15, '16, ’18)

Public Collections The British Museum, UK / Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, USA / The Japan Foundation, Japan

84 85 KOSUKE KATO 加藤貢介

Finding Infinity in Damascus

“The organic flow of life and its infinite possibilities can be found within the surfaces of my Damascus steel.”

Legato II by Kosuke Kato (2018) Hammered, polished Damascus steel 86 H39×W30×D26 cm KOSUKE KATO

About the Artist About the Work

Kosuke Kato (1988- ) of Kanagawa is one of the Damascus steel is known as a hard gray metal decorated youngest artists at Yufuku, and represents an with speckled, silvery ripples that resemble the flow of up-and-coming generation of metal artists in Japan water, babbling streams and primordial pools of who, while understanding and embracing the storied microcosms and microorganisms. Kato’s creative process traditions of metal within Japanese history, strive for within Damascus is a highly intricate process akin to the new vistas never before seen in their respective materials. forging of Katana samurai swords. First taking 7 From samurai swords to armour, from tea ceremony different sheets of iron ore and nickel, the artist piles ware to ceremonial vessels, the material of metal has them together and heats the materials into a single unit long been engrained in the national consciousness as at a temperature of 1000 degrees Celsius. Once this only second to ceramics, a more physically tactile and temperature is reached, the process of hammering the utilitarian material, and the material of Damascus has metal, folding, then cutting the metal in two continues no true roots in this island nation’s history. repeatedly, while throwing sand in to create and solidify a base billet. After compressing the billet, a pattern is In this light, Kato wields the metal that is Damascus embedded within the metal, and then polished out to steel with a minimal elegance, transforming the austere achieve a metallic sheen. An acidic liquid is then applied and medieval material into a compelling medium for to the surface, and the multi-layered Damascus motifs contemporary art. In Kato’s metal facades are the seven begin to rise from within the metal and appear on Kato’s seas of serenity, an eternal loop that plays on and on, his facades. Lastly, the prepared base metal is hammer-raised minimal silhouettes sharp and accentuating the raw into Kato’s distinctively serene and minimal silhouettes. beauty of Damascus in splendour aplenty. With his TEFAF Maastricht will mark the grand debut of Kato’s feature work at his debut exhibition at Yufuku in the new series Legato, which brings forth an undulating summer of 2016 being acquired by the Philadelphia movement of ebb and flow never before seen on the Museum of Art, Kosuke Kato’s metal path is quickly artist’s facades. being forged internationally.

1988 Born in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan 2010 Tamagawa University 2013 Hiroshima City University Graduate School / Lives and works in Kanagawa Awards 2010 Dean’s Award, Tamagawa University 2012 Hiroshima Mayor Award, Hiroshima KAZARU Exhibition / Genbei Yamanaka Award, Imakara Mamesara Exhibition 2013 Yuji Akimoto Award, Art Craft of the Next Generation Exhibition 2015 Prix Villa Kujoyama, Institut français du Japon Kansaï Award, Imakara Mamesara Exhibition Selected Exhibitions 2009 Japan Traditional Metal Art Exhibition, Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi Department Store, Tokyo, Japan (’10, ’11) 2012 Hiroshima KAZARU Exhibition, Hiroshima, Japan 2013 Takaoka City Art Craft Exhibition, Toyama, Japan Art Craft of the Next Generation Exhibition, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Japan (’14) 2014 Essence and Quality Kosuke Kato x Kei Ogawa Duet Exhibition, Gallery Hinoki plus, Japan 50th Kanagawa Prefectural Art Exhibition, Japan / Tea Ceremony of Light, SHUHALLY, Kanagawa, Japan Selected Metal Art Exhibition of Hiroshima City University, Akitaka Municipal Yachiyonooka Museum of Art 2015 Nuit Blanche Kyoto, Japan / Solo exhibition, Powerful Expressions, Seikado Gallery, Kyoto, Japan 2016 Group exhibition, Keisho-Ha III: A New Materialism, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan kougei project vol.2, Ai Kowada Gallery, Tokyo, Japan view – Kosuke Kato Solo exhibition, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 2017 Art Stage Singapore, Singapore / TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’18)

Public Collections Philadelphia Museum of Art

Alternate view

88 89 KENTARO SATO 佐藤健太郎

Nihonga’s Abstract Expressionism

“To be one with nature… such is the starting point of my paintings. Yet perhaps this is but the act of living life itself.”

Remnants of Blue by Kentaro Sato (2017) Japanese pigments on Japanese paper, mounted on 2 individual panels 90 H182×W182 cm KENTARO SATO

About the Artist 1990 Born in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan 2015 Tama Art University Graduate School With evocative paintings that call to mind the luscious colours of Rothko, yet at the Lives and works on Shikine Island, Tokyo same time imbuing them with the intellectually dark timbre of Richter, the abstract Selected Solo Exhibitions canvases of the young Kentaro Sato (1990- ) awaken emphatic memories of nature and the inner spirit. The genre of Nihonga (Japanese painting using natural pigments and 2015 Kentaro Sato Solo Exhibition, Gallery Q, Tokyo minerals) in which he works in is an oft-archaic medium that has been unable to move 2016 Kentaro Sato Solo Exhibition, Art Space 88, Tokyo th on from the giants of the 20 century, with the majority of artists stuck in the quagmires Recent Exhibitions of a staid conservatism dating back from the Bubble Economy of the 80’s, or simply 2013 Group Exhibition, Ginza Mitsukoshi Department Store, Tokyo, Japan creating works with subject matter and compositions of a plastic realism that are Group Exhibition, Gallery Q, Tokyo, Japan (’14, ’15) difficult to distinguish from Western oil painting. 2014 Group Exhibition, Itochu Aoyama Art square, Tokyo, Japan (’15, ’16) It is within this context that one can see an emergence of a new generation of Nihonga 2015 Group Exhibition, Isetan Shinjuku Department Store, Tokyo, Japan (’16) artists who have pushed the genre in a new direction, garnering prominence and Group Exhibition, The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan recognition within the eyes of Western collections by focusing on paintings that are filled Group Exhibition, Jinen Gallery, Tokyo, Japan with intriguing subject matter never before featured in Nihonga, while using techniques Group Exhibition, GALLERY ARTPOINT, Tokyo, Japan and motifs that brim with progressive innovation. Sato is one such youthful artist who is 2016 Group Exhibition, FEI ART MUSEUM YOKOHAMA, Japan helping to propel Nihonga into vistas previously unseen, creating works that are 2017 Art Miami, USA painted using the oft-forgotten technique of tarashikomi, or pouring ink in layers 2018 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands over a canvas or screen. The resulting paintings are inner landscapes that call to mind the traditions of Western abstract expressionism, yet with a uniquely Japanese aesthetic.

About the Work

Tarashikomi is a medieval technique commonly understood to have been devised by the legendary Momoyama/early-Edo painter Tawaraya Sotatsu (1570 – 1640), wherein wet ink or paint is applied over a pre-painted colour, thereby creating the intentional effect of blotting, or nijimi. Often used for accentuating certain colours or motifs within figurative compositions, it is rarely, if not ever, used within the entirety of a painting as its immediate subject. In this light, the new Sato work painted for TEFAF Maastricht, entitled ‘Remnants of Blue’, is revolutionary in its use of tarashikomi as its focal point, the composition depicting an abstract interpretation of the night sky. With serenely enigmatic colours that help ignite the imagination and evoke visceral feelings of an innate, sublime world within, Sato’s works are far removed from the refined, figurative and detailed works traditionally associated with Japanese painting. Instead, the artist borrows elements of raw emotion, tension and flux within the context of Japanese painting, whilst imbuing his paintings with a beauty that derives from his materials, in particular the blues derived from Lapis Lazuri and the greens from Verdigris. While controlling the movements of his pigments that flow over his Japanese washi paper, Sato creates an impressive inner world of Nihonga that is irrefutably his own.

92 93

KAZUMI NAGANO

About the Artist 1946 Born in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan / Lives and works in Tokyo Awards As if capturing the beauty of Japanese painting into her woven jewellery, 2002 Fine Works Prize, Japan Jewellery Art Competition, Tokyo epitomised by the moon, flowers, and subtleties of snow, it can be said that Kazumi Nagano (1946- ) is one of the leading artists in her field. Contemporary Selected Exhibitions jewellery is one of the most hotly-collected mediums in applied arts by museums 2002 WINTER JOURNEY Christmas Exhibition, Galerie Slavik, Vienna, Austria (’04) and collectors, and Nagano’s works, which embody conceptual, structural and 2005 Schmuck, Munich, Germany (’08, ’11, ’12, ’13, ’15, ’16) creative elegance, have been collected by the Victoria & Albert Museum and a SOFA New York, Mobilia Gallery, USA (’06, ’07, ’08, ’09) / SOFA Chicago, Mobilia Gallery, USA (’06) multitude of various important private collections in recent years. Striking is the 2007 Collectables, Alternatives Gallery, Rome, Italy fact that Nagano had only delved into the world of jewellery after reaching the 2008 Magie Der Schmuckkunst, Galarie Slavik, Vienna, Austria age of 50. Instead, she was formally educated as a Nihonga (traditional Japanese Collect, London, UK (’09 -’15) painting) artist. Yet, as if painting the aesthetics of traditional Japan into her Exhibition of Contemporary Jewellery Yufuku Collection, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (’10, ’11, ’14) three-dimensional pieces, her seductive silhouettes are emblematic of the 2009 Cut the edge, Weave the Line Textile Arts, Mobilia Gallery, USA romanticism inherently found in the two-dimensional world of Japanese Paper jewellery exhibition, Triennale Design Museum, Milan, Italy painting, of subtle flowers blowing in the wind, with reverence to the warmth of Progetto Pezzi Di Luna – Music and Contemporary Jewelly, Padova, Italy not the sun but of moonlight. Serenity, not dynamism, are the hallmarks of Zwischen den Jahren, Galerie Pilartz, Cologne, Germany / Heirlooms of the Future, Mobilia Gallery, USA Nagano’s luscious forms made from materials such as gold and platinum threads, 2010 20 Jahre Galerie Slavik, Galerie Slavik, Vienna, Austria combined with the elasticity of the contemporary material that is nylon. 2011 Objects of Status, Power and Adornment, Mobilia Gallery, USA / Duo-Exhibition, Alternatives Gallery, Rome, Italy 2012 One, Mixed Media Foundation, Padova, Italy Contemporary visions of the necklace art for the ear the art of the ring, Mobilia Gallery, USA About the Work LOOT 2012, M.A.D. Gallery, New York, USA The Tree –A Material for Arts and Crafts, Galerie Handwerk, Munich, Germany Unexpected Pleasures, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia The world of Japanese painting has been condensed and captured into both 2013 Duo-exhibition, Kazumi Nagano, Kayo Saitou, Galerie Orfeo, Luxembourg sartorial and visual beauty within the contemporary jewellery of Kazumi Galerie Sofie Lachaert, Belgium Nagano. Widely known for the supple silhouettes found in her gold and 2014 TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’15, ’16, ’17, ’18) platinum bracelets and brooches, Nagano creates her art objects by utilising Dubai Design Days, Galerie sofie lachaert, Belgium / Petit est beau. Paper Jewelry, Manggha Muzeum, Poland threads made of various precious metals and weaving them together as if 2015 Schmuck 1970-2015, Sammlung Bollmann, Vienna, Austria tapestry. Obtaining her raw materials from Kyoto, the materials of gold Not Too Precious, Ruthin, UK / Galerie Noel, Canada (in widely different colours) and platinum are ingeniously transformed into 2016 Not Too Precious, National Craft Gallery, Ireland / MONO Japan, Amsterdam, The Netherlands her warp, or longitudinal threads, while her lateral threads, or weft, are made Skin: the jewellery surface, Museo del Gioiello Museum, Italy from nylon in order to add an element of elasticity, texture and substance. By 25 JAHRE GALERIE SLAVIK, Galarie Slavik Vienna, Austria weaving the warp and weft into her loom, radiant sheets of gold and platinum are Solo-exhibition, MANO Gallery, Taiwan / Spring Masters New York, USA / EAF Monaco, Monaco completed. Then, Nagano ultimately uses her hands to tie, knot, and braid her 2017 TEFAF New York, USA / Group-exhibition, The Most Secret Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark works into eloquent brooches that are not only beautiful worn, but can also be SOFA Chicago, Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h, Canada elegantly displayed as installation.

Public Collections Victoria and Albert Museum, UK / Alice & Louis Koch Collection of Rings, Switzerland / Olnick Spanu Collection, USA / Bollmann Collection, Austria / Katrin Basiner Collection, Germany / The Cominelli Foundation, Italy / Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Susan Grant Lewin Collection, USA

96 97 The European Fine Art Fair

TEFAF is widely considered to be the ‘crown jewel’ of international art fairs, held in Maastricht from the 10th to the 18th of March 2018 at MECC Maastricht, attracting leading museum curators and collectors the world over. We sincerely look forward to welcoming you to our stand. For more information on TEFAF, please visit the official TEFAF website, or Yufuku’s website, per below.

TEFAF Maastricht 2018: www.tefaf.com Yufuku Gallery : www.yufuku.net

Yufuku Gallery

Annecy Aoyama 1st Floor Tel : +(81) 3-5411-2900 2-6-12 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku Fax : +(81) 3-5411-2901 Tokyo, Japan 107-0062 www.yufuku.net

Please direct all enquiries to: Kumiko Sunahara (Ms) International Director [email protected]

Gaienmae

Number 4a Exit Aoyama ▲

▲ shibuya Icchome St. Akasaka 246 Gaienmae St. Unimat Daiichi Honda Aoyama Bldg. Hoki Bldg Chojian Bldg Twin Tower Soba Aoyama Icchome Number 5Exit

99 Published by Yufuku Gallery Written by Wahei Aoyama Edited by Maho Fujino, Kumiko Sunahara, Ren McMahon, and Yoriko Takahashi Designed by Naoko Itakura and Yufuku Gallery All photography by Tsunehiro Kobayashi, except Sueharu Fukami by Takeshi Hatakeyama, Niyoko Ikuta by Junichi Kanzaki, Shigekazu Nagae by Studio Essa, Eiko Kishi by Yo Nagata and Kazumi Nagano by Ryota Sekiguchi

© 2018 by East Meets West, Inc. Printed in Japan. All rights reserved.

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