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Nagakura Kenichi
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Nagakura Kenichi

Nagakura Kenichi

“For me it is very important to use parts of a bamboo plant from above ground and parts from below ground,” Nagakura says. “I like to add bamboo roots to some of my work as a reminder of the dark side of life.”

Unaffiliated with any of Japan’s craft arts organizations, Nagakura is the first recipient of the Cotsen Bamboo Prize, awarded in 2000, and an esteemed independent artist for more than 20 years.

His organic, contemporary pieces are rooted in the functional baskets made for centuries for flower arranging at Japanese tea ceremonies but also borrow from wide-ranging sources, including European sculpture, the American pop art movement, indigenous Japanese forms, and cord-patterned clay work from the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C. His fine plaiting mimics complex line drawing and the graceful shapes of his vessels are inspired by human form and by objects from the natural world, such as fallen leaves, emerging shoots, and cocoons.

Nagakura began his career dyeing fabric for kimonos but quickly realized he wanted to make artwork, like ceramics, that had an inherent vitality. He spent three years splitting bamboo for his grandfather, who was a bamboo craftsman. Several years later, he brought his work to a contemporary gallery that gave him a solo show. He is passionate about jazz, classical, and rock music, and strives to elicit the “rhythm and harmony” of bamboo. Nagakura’s work is in the collection of the Ruth and Sherman Lee Institute for Japanese Art.

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description

“For me it is very important to use parts of a bamboo plant from above ground and parts from below ground,” Nagakura says. “I like to add bamboo roots to some of my work as a reminder of the dark side of life.”

Unaffiliated with any of Japan’s craft arts organizations, Nagakura is the first recipient of the Cotsen Bamboo Prize, awarded in 2000, and an esteemed independent artist for more than 20 years.

His organic, contemporary pieces are rooted in the functional baskets made for centuries for flower arranging at Japanese tea ceremonies but also borrow from wide-ranging sources, including European sculpture, the American pop art movement, indigenous Japanese forms, and cord-patterned clay work from the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C. His fine plaiting mimics complex line drawing and the graceful shapes of his vessels are inspired by human form and by objects from the natural world, such as fallen leaves, emerging shoots, and cocoons.

Nagakura began his career dyeing fabric for kimonos but quickly realized he wanted to make artwork, like ceramics, that had an inherent vitality. He spent three years splitting bamboo for his grandfather, who was a bamboo craftsman. Several years later, he brought his work to a contemporary gallery that gave him a solo show. He is passionate about jazz, classical, and rock music, and strives to elicit the “rhythm and harmony” of bamboo. Nagakura’s work is in the collection of the Ruth and Sherman Lee Institute for Japanese Art.

BIO/CV

1952-2018, Shizuoka City, Japan

Education
  • 1975

    Studied under his grandfather


Exhibitions & Accolades
  • 1982

    Solo exhibition, Gallery Takei, Numazu

  • 1985

    Solo exhibition, Shin-Gifu Department Store

  • 1986

    Solo exhibition, Gallery Takei, Numazu and at Shizuoka Gas Salon

  • 1988

    Solo exhibition, Sapoa People, Tokyo and MOA Gallery, Nagoya

  • 1990

    Solo exhibition, Umeda Hankyu Department Store, Osaka
    Solo exhibition, Gallery Kouki, Paris

  • 1991

    Solo exhibition, La Richipel Surle, Bourgogne
    Solo exhibition, Gallery Kukan, Shizuoka and at Shoumeido Hall, Tokyo

  • 1992

    Solo exhibition, Gallery Space Ten, Tokyo
    Group exhibition, Gallery Yummy, Hamamatsu and at Studio Com, Kyoto

  • 1993

    Solo exhibition, Shoumeido Hall, Gallery F and Gifu Gallery, Space Ten, Tokyo
    Solo exhibition, Hokushin Gallery, Tokyo

  • 1994

    Solo exhibition, Studio Com, Kyoto and at Gallery Kukan, Shizuoka
    Solo exhibition, Matsuya Department Store, Tokyo

  • 1995

    Solo exhibitions, Akasaka Yu Gallery, Tokyo and Fujii and at Numazu and Shin-Gifu Department Stores

  • 1996

    Solo exhibitions, Isetan, Shizuoka and Kanazawa Department Stores
    Two person exhibition, Ishigami-no-Oka Open Air Museum, Iwate

  • 1997

    Solo exhibition, Gallery Kasumi and at Axis Sapoa People, Tokyo
    Exhibition, German Culture Center, Tokyo

  • 1998

    Solo exhibitions, Kura Gallery, Gifu and at Axis Sapoa People, Tokyo
    Group Exhibition, Kodaira Shomei Hall, Tokyo

  • 1999

    Solo exhibition, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

  • 2000

    Bamboo Masterworks, Asia Society, New York, NY

  • 2001

    Winner, Cotsen Bamboo Prize 2000
    Bamboo Masterworks, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
    Solo exhibition, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
    2001, Bamboo Masterworks, Honolulu Academy of Art, Hawaii
    2001, Bamboo Fantasies, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico

  • 2002

    The Next Generation, University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR
    Group Exhibition, Tigerman Himmel Gallery, Chicago, IL

  • 2003

    Three Views of Bamboo: Fujinuma, Nagakura, Shono, Kansas City Jewish Museum, Overland Park, KS
    Solo Exhibition, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

  • 2004

    Group Exhibition, Hand Workshop Art Center, Richmond, VA

  • 2005

    Solo Exhibition, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
    Exhibited at the Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY

  • 2006

    Power & Delicacy, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
    Hin: The Quiet Beauty of Japanese Art, Grinnell College, IA and the Chicago Cultural Center, IL
    Group Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
    Collaboration with Daniel Ost at Nocturne, Brussels

  • 2007

    Solo Exhibition, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
    Intertwined: Contemporary Baskets from the Sara and David Lieberman Collection, Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ
    Arts of Pacific Asia Show, San Francisco, CA
    Listening to Bamboo: Japanese Baskets from the Collection of Ritalou & Robert Harris, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

  • 2008

    Arts of Pacific Asia Show, San Francisco, CA
    New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters, Japan Society, New York, NY

  • 2009

    Intertwined: Contemporary Baskets from the Sara and David Lieberman Collection, The New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM
    New Bamboo, Clark Center for Japanese Art & Culture, Hanford, CA
    Solo Exhibition, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
    Form Follows Function or Does It?, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, AR
    Listening to Bamboo, Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca NY

  • 2010

    Intertwined Bamboo and Stem, Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, Los Angeles, CA
    Intertwined: Contemporary Baskets from the Sara and David Lieberman Collection, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY

  • 2011

    Solo Exhibition, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

  • 2012

    Solo Exhibition, Nagakura Kenichi: Fluid Duality, Denver Botanic Gardens, CO

  • 2013

    Birds in the Art of Japan, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
    Solo Show, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

  • 2017

    Masterpieces of Japanese Bamboo Art, TAI Modern at Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, NY
    Abbey Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

  • 2018

    Hanakago: The Art of Bamboo & Flowers, Portland Japanese Gardens, Portland, OR

    Masterworks of Japanese Bamboo Art, TAI Modern at Jason Jacques Gallery, New York, NY

    Fendre L’ Air, Musee du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac, Paris

  • 2020

    Spring is Here, TAI Modern, Santa Fe, NM


Museum Collections
  • Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
    Metropolitan Museum of Art, Abbey Collection, New York, NY
    Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
    Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, NC
    Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
    F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
    Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN


ARTIST STATEMENT

For me, bamboo is what pigment is for a painter or stone is for a sculptor. Discovering their true medium is a profound pleasure for an artist. When the sensitivities of both artist and the material are in sync, the medium becomes the voice, flesh, and heart of the artist.

Working with bamboo, I become both author and audience. The resulting creation stands between two worlds – visible and invisible. I hope that it resonates with an eternal spirit and stirs the soul.

My relationship with bamboo will continue throughout my life,

Sometimes like a ridge of sand.
Sometimes like water running over the surface of a rock.
Sometimes scenes of swirling winds.
Sometimes a piece of fallen leaf, quietly lying on the ground.

For me, inspiration comes from the workings of nature, both large and small, near and distant. My desire is to share with other human beings the silent voice of nature.

  • Bamboo crafts: Woven into Japan’s art history

    Left to right: Chikuunsai Tanabe IV’s “GATE” (2019) and Kenichi Nagakura’s “Flower Basket, ‘Woman (A Person)'” (2018) | © T. MINAMOTO; THE ABBEY COLLECTION, PROMISED GIFT OF DIANE AND ARTHUR ABBEY TO THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART. IMAGE © THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART SHARE The Abbey Collection of bamboo arts and crafts, the 20-year […]
  • An Empire of Bamboo in the Home of Collectors

    Diane and Arthur Abbey’s apartment contains a mix of modern art and Japanese baskets. On wall, clockwise from top left, “Spritze” (1924), Wassily Kandinsky; “Woman-Torso” (1965-66), Willem de Kooning; and “Moonlight Landscape” (1914), Man Ray. On left table, from left: “Fuki or Noble Wealth” (1940), Tanabe Chikuunsai II; bamboo basket for tea ceremony articles (2007), […]
  • Weaving a tale: Bamboo arts at The Met

    Original article at NY Press.com   Entering The Met Fifth Avenue’s Arts of Japan galleries, many visitors can’t help but gasp. We did. The guard on duty said it’s a common response. The exhibition title and signage promised bamboo baskets. It didn’t say anything about a floor-to-ceiling twisting mass of frenetic energy in a site-specific […]
  • At BAM, bamboo works that are anything but traditional

    “Spring Tide,” a basket of bamboo and lacquer, by Fujinuma Noboru.   What comes to mind with bamboo? Groves of tall, graceful, shushing, clonking stems? Eco-friendly building material? If you’re into art, you might think of delicate paintings of bamboo or meticulously plaited baskets. As one of Japan’s most abundant natural resources, bamboo has been […]
  • Venture into the World of Bamboo Sculpture

    Nagakura Kenichi Face 1, 2007 (left), madake, rattan, lacquer and powdered polishing stone and clay {h. 19 in, w. 7 in, d. 4 in}. Anne and Arnold Porath Collection. Face II, 2007 (right), madake, rattan, lacquer and powdered polishing stone and clay {h. 16 1/2 in, w. 5 1/2 in, d. 5 1/2 in}. Anne and Arnold […]
  • Japanese Bamboo & the World Expo: A Century of Discovery

    In honor of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition centennial celebration, TAI Modern is thrilled to present an expansive group exhibition at the Japanese Friendship Garden of San Diego, San Diego, CA, September 12 – December 6, 2015.The show will include over forty bamboo artworks created by a variety of artists. This special preview exhibition on view […]
  • PRESS RELEASE: TAI Modern at Art Miami 2017

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: TAI Modern at Art Miami 2017 December 5th– 10th, 2017 One Herald Plaza, Miami, FL Contact: Arianna Borgeson Arianna@taimodern.com (505) 984-1387 TAI Modern is pleased to announce its participation in the 28thyear of Art Miami. This year’s fair will be held at a new location at One Herald Plaza, on 14thStreet between […]

Bamboo crafts: Woven into Japan’s art history

The Japan Times, BY MATTHEW LARKING, FEB 26, 2020

Left to right: Chikuunsai Tanabe IV’s “GATE” (2019) and Kenichi Nagakura’s “Flower Basket, ‘Woman (A Person)'” (2018) | © T. MINAMOTO; THE ABBEY COLLECTION, PROMISED GIFT OF DIANE AND ARTHUR ABBEY TO THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART. IMAGE © THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

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The Abbey Collection of bamboo arts and crafts, the 20-year loving labor of New York collectors Dianne and Arthur Abbey, attracted 470,000 visitors when it showed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 2017-18. A traveling exhibition of some 75 pieces, which is now making a stop at The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, makes for captivating and edifying viewing.

Japan’s ubiquitous bamboo is unsurprisingly storied. Woven artifacts evidence from the later Jomon Period (10,000-200 B.C.). The ancient nation- and culture-building texts, the “Kojiki” (Records of Ancient Matters) and “Nihon Shoki” (“The Chronicles of Japan”), record bamboo knives and combs with magical powers. The oldest surviving baskets are 8th-century offering trays kept in the Shosoin treasure house in Nara. Bamboo was obviously crucial to the 10th-century prose narrative “Taketori Monogatari” (“Tale of the Bamboo Cutter”). Tea masters of the 15th century revered seemingly artless utensils in their burgeoning spiritual practice. Emperors were gifted the choicest of bamboo wares.

But it was only comparatively recently that bamboo crafting became considered fine art. The exhibition’s chronology from the 19th century indicates how this came about by participation in Japan’s National Industrial Exhibition and the world fairs.

Hayakawa Shokosai I (1815-1897) engraved his name on his pieces — Edo Period (1603-1868) craftsmen did not do this. One of his lidded baskets won the Phoenix Prize in the first National Industrial Exhibition in Tokyo’s Ueno Park in 1877, then was acquired by the Empress Shoken. Hayakawa’s plaited “Bowler Hat” (ca. 1880-90s) was a favorite of the Meiji Era (1868-1912) kabuki performer, Ichikawa Danjuro IX (1838-1903).

Tanabe Chikuunsai I (1877-1937) received an award at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925 — the showcase that introduced Art Deco to the world. This reception suggested bamboo artists could acquire the recognition Japanese ceramic and lacquer artists had previously achieved. Tanabe’s “Ryurikyo Hanging Flower Basket” (1900-20) was made after studying the baskets in works by the literati painter Yanagisawa Kien (1704-1758).

Individual creative flourishes followed in the Showa Era (1926-89), like Monden Kogyoku’s abstracted circular “Wave” (1981). Such pieces pushed craft further into art territory. But it was not until 1985 that there was even a significant historical review in Japan, “Modern Bamboo Craft: Developments in the Modern Era” at The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Overseas collectors assumed some of the mantle. California’s Lloyd Cotsen (1929 -2017) assembled a vast collection of basketry that showed around America before being donated to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco in 2002. Argentinian Guillermo Bierregaard created a museum for his collection in Buenos Aires 2006. The Stanley and Mary Ann Snider Collection went to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Now the Abbey Collection is a promised gift to New York’s Met.

Further exhibition pieces extend into the entirely contemporary. Kenichi Nagakura (1952-2018) is represented by an elongated personification, “Flower Basket, ‘Woman (A Person)” (2018), and an interdimensional wormhole-type construction, “Gate” (2019) by Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, is installed in the museum lobby. Intensified focus will fall further on Tanabe IV in May through June, then in July, with his solo exhibitions scheduled for the Osaka and Nihonbashi Takashimaya department stores.

“Japanese Bamboo Art from New York: The Abbey Collection” at The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, runs through April 12; ¥1,200. For more information, visit www.moco.or.jp/en.

An Empire of Bamboo in the Home of Collectors

Diane and Arthur Abbey’s apartment contains a mix of modern art and Japanese baskets. On wall, clockwise from top left, “Spritze” (1924), Wassily Kandinsky; “Woman-Torso” (1965-66), Willem de Kooning; and “Moonlight Landscape” (1914), Man Ray. On left table, from left: “Fuki or Noble Wealth” (1940), Tanabe Chikuunsai II; bamboo basket for tea ceremony articles (2007), Watanabe Shochikusai II; and “Flower Basket” (after 1946), Suemura Shobun. Credit Wassily Kandinsky, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Man Ray 2015 Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris; Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Rene Lalique, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Winnie Au for The New York Times
Collectors who are just starting out spend time chasing down their objects of desire. Once they’ve made it, they can sit back and wait for the phone to ring.

“We’re at the point now, where, if something brilliant comes up, somebody calls us,” said Diane Abbey, who, with her husband, Arthur, is among the world’s top collectors of Japanese bamboo baskets. The couple — who split their time between the Upper East Side and the Hamptons when not traveling the world — own around 300 in total.

Some of them were seen in the 2017-18 exhibition “Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A version of the show opens at Japan’s Oita Prefectural Art Museum in May. The Abbeys are donating much of the show’s contents to the Met, which they can see from the window of their apartment; they could send the baskets down via a zip line if such methods weren’t frowned upon.

Baskets in the living room: top shelf, from left, “Diamond Pattern Flower Basket” (2003), Hayakawa Shokosai V; “Four Waterfalls” (circa 1927-34), Iizuka Rokansai; middle shelf, “Celestial” (2004), Tanioka Shigeo; bottom, from left, “Chinese Jade,” Oki Toshie and “Okame” (1956), Isamu Noguchi. Credit The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Winnie Au for The New York Times
“Moonlight Landscape,” by Man Ray, with the standing mobile “Sandy’s Butterfly” (1964) by Alexander Calder. Credit Calder Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Man Ray 2015 Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY/ADAGP, Paris; Winnie Au for The New York Times

The couple, who are mostly retired (he from law, she from teaching) discovered the artistry in baskets 25 years ago, visiting a gallery in Santa Fe, N.M. “We picked them out because we loved them, and they just started to be a collection,” Mr. Abbey said, adding that the oldest piece they own was made about 150 years ago.

The Japanese baskets, woven from thin strips of bamboo, come in a huge variety of colors, shapes and sizes. The collection ranges from the late-19th-century, chapeau-shaped “Bowler Hat” by Hayakawa Shokosai I, an old master of the trade, to the more recognizably basketlike “Muso” (2012), by Fujinuma Noboru. Famed makers like Iizuka Rokansai and Tanabe Chikuunsai IV are also represented. This painstaking craft is often handed down in families, so the Abbeys have pieces by Tanabe Chikuunsai III, II and I, too.

The Abbeys have also acquired a eye-popping trove of modern paintings and sculptures by the likes of Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell and Joseph Cornell, which they have installed liberally in their apartment, mixing it with the baskets. The couple, who were honored during Asia Week New York in March for advancing Asian art, spoke recently about why they love baskets. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

This is such a wonderfully niche field. What appeals?

DIANE ABBEY They’re all made by hand, which is truly amazing.

Do you have help in finding these?

ARTHUR ABBEY We don’t have an adviser; we just see things. And my wife’s got a great eye for art. And everything has been just picked out by us. And so we live with it.

“Dream” (2002), Fujinuma Noboru. Credit Winnie Au for The New York Times

What are they intended for?

MR. ABBEY The baskets are used functionally in Japan in two ways. They’re used for tea ceremony, and they’re also used for a ceremony called ikebana. And ikebana is a display of flowers. And some of the baskets have hidden tubes in them, and the tube is filled with water, and you put flowers right in there.

Do you think the Met show had an impact on the field?

MR. ABBEY Yes, this has been a very big a boost to this art form — 400,000 people attended the Met show. People who came didn’t even realize that things like this existed. One of the important things to us is to keep this tradition going. And hopefully this recognition will influence a number of people in Japan to do this.

One that caught my eye here is “Woman,” the shape of which reminds me of a Klimt or a Giacometti somehow.

MS. ABBEY It’s by Nagakura Kenichi, and it’s one of my most favorite pieces. When the Met decided to include the piece in the exhibition and asked us to gift it to them, I didn’t want to be without it. So, in 2016, I contacted the artist and asked him if he would make me another piece just like it. I was so lucky to have done that because in 2017, Nagakura Kenichi died. I treasure it.

 

Weaving a tale: Bamboo arts at The Met

Original article at NY Press.com

 

Entering The Met Fifth Avenue’s Arts of Japan galleries, many visitors can’t help but gasp. We did. The guard on duty said it’s a common response. The exhibition title and signage promised bamboo baskets. It didn’t say anything about a floor-to-ceiling twisting mass of frenetic energy in a site-specific installation by Tanabe Chikuunsai IV.”The Gate,” woven of tiger bamboo, torques and twirls like a funnel cloud, or the tendrils of a great vine, or the circulatory system of some unseen giant. It’s at once ethereal and overpowering, weightless and crushing. It’s extraordinary.

At home, our kitchen counter usually holds two or three bamboo baskets filled with bananas and apples or unsorted mail. It was clear from this introduction that the work in the exhibition that followed would have little to do with our everyday experience of bamboo.

Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection” highlights some 90 works in bamboo, from functional baskets to abstract sculptures, that date from the late 1800s to the present. It’s The Met’s first exhibition focusing on basketry, and most of the works have never been on public view before. New York residents Diane and Arthur Abbey have amassed one of the most comprehensive and exquisite collections of a form that has only recently been considered fine art. Yet, six of the artists whose work is on view have been recognized in Japan as Living National Treasures.

From delicate grasses to timber towering five stories high, the more than 60 varieties of bamboo that are native to Japan have become woven into the arts, culture and daily lives of the society for hundreds of years. Its shoots are a dietary staple, and it’s been used to make kitchen utensils, furniture, hats and shoes, transportation devices for everything from medicine to travelers, and even bridges, roads and buildings. Called one of the “three friends of winter,” along with pine and plum trees, bamboo doesn’t succumb to cold, grows quickly, and bestows its gifts to animals and humans with grace. It bends without breaking and is thought of as steadfast and loyal. For all these reasons, the venerable and venerated plant has been depicted and utilized by artists for ages.

One of the pleasures of the exhibition is the engaging way that curator, Monika Bincsik, has woven the Abbeys’s baskets through a presentation of The Met’s superb collection of screens, woodblock prints, Inrō containers, manuscripts and ceramics. Each gallery contains conversations between basketry and other objects, expressed in the language of bamboo, but with almost infinite dialects and inflections. One case presenting a glorious painted manuscript had me wondering what it was doing there, until I read the title of the story: “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.” Bamboo imagery throughout the galleries decorates delicate fans, massive folding screens and antique porcelains.

But it’s the baskets that carry the exhibition. Many were created to hold ikebana floral arrangements, a classical art of spiritual refinement. They range from minutely detailed to radically abstract, and from traditional to uncompromisingly contemporary. “Tide,” a 1978 work by Fujitsuka Shōsei, displaying the “thousand line” technique is beautifully placed in front of a screen decorated with painted bamboo leaves. Nagakura Ken’ichi’s “Woman Flower Basket,” tall and spindly, recalls a Giacometti figure. A dramatically lit, black-lined case holding two objects is a show stopper. In “Wave,” created by Monden Kōgyoku in 1981, a rolling mass of energy coils in on itself. Next to it is the 2000 work, “Dance,” by Honda Shōryū. It pliés and twirls with elegance, precision and grace.

“Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection” presents a sweeping view across centuries and media with spectacular forms expressing a humble and hardy, but hardly plain plant.

At BAM, bamboo works that are anything but traditional

Special to The Seattle Times, Gayle Clemans, December 28, 2012

“Spring Tide,” a basket of bamboo and lacquer, by Fujinuma Noboru.

 

What comes to mind with bamboo? Groves of tall, graceful, shushing, clonking stems? Eco-friendly building material? If you’re into art, you might think of delicate paintings of bamboo or meticulously plaited baskets.

As one of Japan’s most abundant natural resources, bamboo has been a popular material and subject for centuries, although the training and expertise involved has limited its practitioners. Today, according to some accounts, there are fewer than 100 professional bamboo artists.

In the hands of the 17 artists in “Modern Twist: Contemporary Japanese Bamboo Art,” on view at Bellevue Arts Museum, the grass becomes embedded in clay, nailed to a wall, or twisted and steamed and manipulated into a range of forms that break the boundaries of tradition.

It’s best to keep traditional bamboo basketry in mind if you visit “Modern Twist,” in order to appreciate how radical these forms are. My criticism of the show is that it presupposes a familiarity with the ideal against which these artists react. It would have been nice to have a small introductory display with examples of conventional basket forms — maybe in different stages of development as they’re typically woven from the bottom up.

Tradition is an enormously important backdrop for these artists. The apprenticeship and training system follows strict protocols and can take years; according to some experts, 10 years can be spent just learning the basic techniques of cutting, dying and plaiting.

To get some sense of the history and conventions of bamboo art, I suggest starting with the gallery to your left as you come up the stairs from the lobby. It’s filled with bamboo pieces that more directly refer to the traditional uses of bamboo art — as containers made for tea ceremonies or flower arranging. But even here, it becomes clear that the artists are taking liberties. Some play with technique, weaving from the top down, for example. Some play with form, plaiting their functional vase structures into evocative forms.

My favorite is “Warrior” by Tanabe Shochiku III, who has created a functional flower basket in the shape of the top portion of a samurai’s suit of armor. The container for holding flowers is right in the neck hole, supplanting the mighty warrior’s head. The ideas of tradition and lineage resonate for Tanabe. He comes from a long line of bamboo artists and is the son of the well-respected artist Tanabe Chikuunasai III, whose work is also in the exhibition.

In other galleries, artists leave function and tradition even further behind. At about 4 feet high, “Circle” by Nagakura Ken’ichi is a massive presence. Nagakura first created a basket, then sluiced clay over it and wiped down areas to reveal strips of shiny bamboo. These shards radiate inward toward the void of the circle, creating the impression of movement and contradicting the density of the piece.

It’s as if the standard cylindrical basket form has been upended, punched through, and petrified, both distorting and preserving history, while creating possibilities of expression. And there’s still a nod to functionality with a small vase, barely visible, embedded in the center.

Works by Uematsu Chikuyu are overtly sculptural. His wall-hanging works — a rare form for bamboo art — are large-scale and nonfunctional (except, of course, as they function as works of art). But, even here, the structures could be seen as more abstracted containers of tradition. Uematsu fills his work with symbolic references to common Japanese artistic motifs: enlightenment, nature, music, patterns.

Curated by Andreas Marks, of the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture (in Hanford, Calif.), “Modern Twist” is one of several exhibitions and books of the last decade that establish bamboo art as a prestigious contemporary art form. Two artists in the exhibition, Katsushiro Soho and Fujinuma Noboru, have been named Living National Treasures by the Japanese government.

The show also reflects well on BAM’s continuing, thoughtful practice of curating or selecting art, craft, and design exhibitions that allow us to reflect on the fluid intersections of art and craft, form and function, and tradition and innovation. Or we can simply be duly impressed by marvelous objects made with remarkable skill.

Venture into the World of Bamboo Sculpture

Nagakura Kenichi Face 1, 2007 (left), madake, rattan, lacquer and powdered polishing stone and clay {h. 19 in, w. 7 in, d. 4 in}. Anne and Arnold Porath Collection. Face II, 2007 (right), madake, rattan, lacquer and powdered polishing stone and clay {h. 16 1/2 in, w. 5 1/2 in, d. 5 1/2 in}. Anne and Arnold Porath Collection.

Author: Christine Kaminsky

The Japan Society Gallery
New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters
New York, New York
October 4, 2008 – January 11, 2009

One glimpse of Kawana Tetsunori’s split-bamboo installation, Enclosure, majestically standing in a pond on an island in The Japan Society’s modernist lobby, leads you to believe that this is the beginning of an extraordinary presentation. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would be disappointed.

Joe Earle, the Society’s gallery director, curated the first exhibition inside or outside Japan devoted entirely to bamboo as a material for sculptural works of art. The 23 featured artists in the show draw on centuries-old methods of basket-making as they push bamboo’s traditional boundaries, creating a cornucopia of original sculpture. The simplicity of many of the objects at first glance belies their complexity and refinement as each piece requires incredible technical virtuosity, scrupulous attention to detail and immense amounts of creativity.

According to Earle, the enormous process of preparing the bamboo can take more time than the actual construction of a piece. Many artists take on this process themselves and some are even involved with the cultivation of the material. When engaged in a piece, Earle says that Uematsu Chikuyu, for instance, who confines his productivity to one large piece every year, works entirely in seclusion, refusing to see anyone during the making of a piece, as Earle himself discovered.

All of the artists in the exhibition are Japanese, with one exception. Stephen Talasnik, a New York-based sculptor, created a series of intricate structures illuminating Western architectural and engineering principles that Earle calls “at once precise and mysterious.” They harmoniously neighbor Kawana’s grand, organic construction beyond the gallery walls.

Upstairs, where the remaining 86 sculptures are displayed, it’s hard not to feel a deep reverence for the sheer genius and dedication behind the work. Matsumoto Hafu’s flower basket fashioned from ten-foot lengths of pale timber bamboo greets visitors with a dramatic hello as the show divides into four sections-Vessel to Sculpture, Regional Masters, Individual Voices and New Directions. Somewhat defying the non-functional premise of the show, the basket has a removable copper water container and on the day I visited a lovely flower arrangement reached high and wide. Illustrating bamboo’s versatility, the arrangement will only be on display during the opening days of the exhibition, then removed to present the piece purely as sculpture.

The transition from container to sculpture is further explored with curved, expressive sculptures by Honma Kazuaki, who still continues to weave flower baskets, and his son Honma Hideaki, who employs unusually complex weaves and a wide range of different bamboos. Kazuaki has developed a very hard smoking technique which in the hands of a less practiced artist can burn the bamboo. Both use bands of rattan, an extremely important tool to tie the strands together, as do many of the other artists in the exhibition. Several use lacquer and dyes for color variation while Ueno Masao, a former architect and one of the younger artists in the show, combines the simplest tools with advanced computer-design software, all this after he grows, harvests, seasons, treats and splits the bamboo himself.

Shono Tokuzo, son of a Living National Treasure, Shono Shounsai, the first bamboo artist to attain that honor, abandoned his father’s teaching that the finishing of the mouth was the most important feature of a bamboo work in his flexible piece titled Illusion, allowing vertical strands to float freely.

Morigami Jin may very well be the Henry Moore of the bamboo world with his smooth, anthropomorphic forms that have no edge, no mouth, no beginning and no end. Woven in three dimensions at once, as the work proceeds the pattern shifts, resulting in openings with five or seven sides.

Most works in the show are owned by Americans, including Lloyd Cotsen, whose collections of both Japanese and American baskets are among the most important in existence. Set alongside the kinetic energy of Yako Hodo’s Skyscrappers, the spherical My UFO, a piece from the Cotsen Collection, exudes tranquility and offers a vigorous juxtaposition.

In comparison to the perfection of other pieces, Ikeda Iwao’s Destruction and Creation is a radical departure. Raised in a basket-weaving family, Ikeda studied lacquering at Tokyo National University of Arts where he was shown lots of lacquer ware by famous early-twentieth-century artists. While he was amazed by their meticulous workmanship he was never moved by them. Following years of crafting lacquer boxes for tea ceremonies, Ikeda began experimenting with personal expression and today comments on notions of technical prowess by smashing his works. His objects are neither vessels nor sculptures but could be a bold, contemporary version of the tea aesthetic with its stress on the rough and imperfect.

Oki Toshi, one of two women artists in the show (the other being Tanabe Mitsuko), was the last pupil of Iizuka Shokansai, who became more involved with Toshi’s development than was usually the case in the traditional master-pupil relationship, actively instructing her for long periods of time. The interplay between exterior and interior in Oki’s Outburst, styled with strips of unplaited bamboo contrasted with rows of knotted rattan, dramatically suggest her struggle to evolve from basket-maker to sculptor.

Recent bamboo sculptures by another fascinating artist in New Bamboo, Nagakura Kenichi, can also be seen from October 4 through November 3 at the Susan Sheehan Gallery located at 535 West 22 Street in Manhattan. According to Amber Jordan, associate director at Tai Gallery in Santa Fe, which represents Nagakura, the defining characteristic of Nagakura is his independence, a rarity within the Japanese bamboo arts where participation in various craft art associations is the norm. Jordan describes Nagakura as “very dynamic, very unexpected,” having no self or culturally imposed boundaries on how he creates his work. He steps outside traditional limitations, mixing in materials beyond the customary bamboo and rattan, although Jordan says the mysterious Nagakura will not reveal his secrets to her. Yet while the enigmatic artist’s organic work appears to be sculptural, as with the work of other ‘post-basket’ artists, it still gives a nod to tradition.

Whether the sculpture on view is ethereal, bold, serene or dirt-encrusted, the intermingling of dramatic lighting with the organic nature of a material bathed in sun, earth, air and water generates a feeling of equanimity and certainly provides a much needed interlude from the hectic and lately, calamitous filled streets of New York. And if pure enjoyment is not enough, keep in mind that the act of crafting exciting, beautiful forms with bamboo is also a celebration of sustainability.

Japanese Bamboo & the World Expo: A Century of Discovery

In honor of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition centennial celebration, TAI Modern is thrilled to present an expansive group exhibition at the Japanese Friendship Garden of San Diego, San Diego, CA, September 12 – December 6, 2015.The show will include over forty bamboo artworks created by a variety of artists. This special preview exhibition on view at TAI Modern highlights several historic works, some on view for the first time.

The 1915 Panama-California Exposition—which celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal and sought to establish San Diego as a port of call—was the site of a major early exhibition of Japanese arts and culture, including bamboo art, in the United States. Beginning in the late 19thCentury, Japan’s participation in the world’s fairs initiated some of the earliest encounters with Japan’s art and culture within Europe and the Unites States, resulting in an enormous demand for their unique products.

Japanese Bamboo and the World Expo: A Century of Discovery celebrates the fairs’ roles as critical moments of international exposure that inspired Japanese bamboo artists to further their crafts. With pieces spanning from an 1887 vessel by Hayakawa Shokosai I to Nakatomi Hajime’s 2015 Prism: Square, the exhibition provides a rich introduction to the diverse developments bamboo arts have undergone throughout the last century. The show is organized around three primary regions of bamboo art: Kansai, centered around the historic cities of Kyoto and Osaka; Kanto,which encompasses the Tokyo metropolis and the urbanized center of Japan; and Kyushu,the southernmost of Japan’s main islands.

 

KANSAI

The birthplace of modern Japanese bamboo, the Kansai aesthetic is characterized by elegant forms, balanced proportions, refined craftsmanship and elaborate detail. Kyoto, the historic capital of Japan for over a millennia—also the birthplace of the sencha tea ceremony—was traditionally home to members of the nobility, whose refined tastes and high culture influenced bamboo artists. Three pieces from the Hayakawa Shokosai lineage, spanning almost a century, exemplify the region’s graceful shapes,intricate rattan work, rich dyes, and harmonious integration of various weaving techniques. In later works, such as Tanabe Chikuunsai II’s Lily-shaped Flower Basket, all of these traits are retained while artists have shifted toward lighter constructions and airy, open weaves.

 

KANTO

The Kanto region, centered around the Tokyo metropolis, is home to artists known for their innovation and break with tradition. From a broad range of colors and types of bamboo to inventive, asymmetrical shapes, these artists share an impulse for experimentation. This is evident in Isohi Setsuko’s cherry-red dyes and Honma Kazuaki’s use of shakotandake, a unique type of speckled bamboo grass. Oki Toshie’s geometric Spring Breezeand Honma Hideaki’s abstracted sculptures exemplify ongoing explorations within bamboo’s potential for new techniques and forms.

 

KYUSHU

Kyushu, the youngest of the three regions (bamboo art began in this region in the early 1900s), is currently home to the largest number of practicing bamboo artists due to the establishment of the Oita Prefectural Bamboo Craft and Training Support Center in the city of Beppu. Influenced by a number of teachers from various regions, the Kyushu artists are known for powerful constructions and robust, jar-shaped curvatures.Interest in dynamic horizontal progression can be seen in pieces such as Honda Syoryu’s Sound of Wavesand Okazaki Chikuhosai’s Flower Basket with Arrow Design. Many of these artist’s styles embrace bamboo’s wooden qualities, often using wider strips of material and dyes in a natural palette; this is seen in Yufu Shohaku’s muscular Sacred Mountainand Iwao Honan I’s Blue Ocean plaited Flower Basket.

PRESS RELEASE: TAI Modern at Art Miami 2017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

TAI Modern at Art Miami 2017
December 5th– 10th, 2017
One Herald Plaza, Miami, FL

Contact:
Arianna Borgeson
Arianna@taimodern.com
(505) 984-1387

TAI Modern is pleased to announce its participation in the 28thyear of Art Miami. This year’s fair will be held at a new location at One Herald Plaza, on 14thStreet between the Venetian and MacArthur Causeways. Art Miami opens with a VIP preview on Thursday, December 5th, and runs through Sunday, December 10th. TAI Modern will be exhibiting recent works by contemporary Japanese bamboo masters, as well as contemporary American artists of various media.

For TAI Modern’s return to the fair, the gallery will present works which reflect the continued development of the Japanese bamboo arts. Representing over 35 artists in this medium, including Living National Treasure Fujinuma Noboru, TAI Modern has been the premier gallery for contemporary Japanese bamboo art for over 20 years. Other noteworthy bamboo artists include Honda Syoryu, Fujitsuka Shosei, and Nagakura Kenichi, who each exemplify varying traditional and regional aesthetics with their unique sculptural styles. These artists have pieces in several major American museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is featuring its first exhibit of Japanese bamboo art.

To compliment the selection of Japanese bamboo, TAI Modern will also feature works by contemporary American painters Erik Benson, Siobhan McBride, and Monique van Genderen. Benson’s work is highly detailed with an urban edge, creating cityscapes with his signature technique of cutting shapes from acrylic paint and applying them to canvas. McBride’s work is fragmented and dream-like, her subject matter and color choice represent a combination of the mundane and unfamiliar.  In contrast, van Genderen’s work focuses more on the versatility of her color and her use of direct brushstrokes, which result in highly lyrical compositions.

For more information about Art Miami or to request a pass to the fair, please contact Arianna Borgeson at arianna@taimodern.com, or (505) 984-1387.

  • From Timber to Tiger: The Many Bamboos of Japanese Bamboo Art at AWNY 2025
    March 13, 2025–March 21, 2025
  • Nagakura Kenichi: A Retrospective
    June 28, 2024–July 20, 2024
  • On the Wall
    December 5, 2023–December 31, 2023
  • Mountains & Sky
    November 19, 2021–December 31, 2021
  • Spring is Here
    March 27, 2020–April 10, 2020
  • Masterpieces of Japanese Bamboo Art
    June 14, 2017–July 6, 2017
  • Nagakura Kenichi
    July 8, 2016–July 24, 2016
  • Nagakura Kenichi
    June 28, 2013–July 20, 2013
  • Nagakura Kenichi
    July 8, 2011–July 22, 2011
  • Nagakura Kenichi
    July 10, 2009–July 18, 2009
  • Balance
    Balance
  • Beginning
    Beginning
  • Bow
    Bow
  • Cascade
    Cascade
  • Encircling Clouds
    Encircling Clouds
  • Position
    Position
  • Shining Mountains
    Shining Mountains
  • Sitting
    Sitting
  • Sky Being
    Sky Being
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  • Vista
    Vista
  • Wings
    Wings
  • Woman
    Woman

Tuesday–Saturday
10am–5pm

 

1601 Paseo de Peralta
Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 984 1387

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