Original article at Asian Art Newspaper.com

THE MUSEUM OF Fine Arts in Boston has recently received a transformative gift of over 90 pieces spanning the late 20th and 21st centuries, given by collectors Stanley and Mary Ann Snider from their Japanese art. This continues the tradition of collectors of Japanese art making donations to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), that have included such gifts from Ernest Fenollosa and William Sturgis Bigelow. Stanley and Mary Ann Snider represent a new generation of Bostonians who want to ensure that visitors to the museum will understand the vibrancy of Japanese art and culture in our own time by viewing their collection of ceramic and bamboo art.

This exhibition, curated using their recent gift,  highlights the craftsmanship and highly creative sculptural forms of Japanese decorative arts. Among the first exhibitions to present contemporary ceramics alongside baskets, Fired Earth, Woven Bamboo offers an in-depth look at 60 objects created by dozens of leading artists based in Japan. Many of the works are on view for the first time and are enhanced by a selection of contemporary textiles, screens and paper panels.

During the late 19th century and into the 20th century, ceramics and bamboo arts in Japan evolved from traditional crafts into modern art forms, as those who produced them evolved from craftspeople into artists. As modernisation continued, a new generation of artists began to assume creative control over the works they produced, creating unique pieces with their own hands, based on their own ideas. Creativity – rather than mere technical excellence – became the standard for an artist’s work.  In ‘basket with bamboo-root handle’ (1930s), for example, Maeda Chikubosai demonstrates an early example of bamboo art as a form of personal expression.

In the years following World War II, avant-garde clay artists in Japan declared that their work no longer had to take the form of traditional vessels. Many of these artists maintained respect for ancient methods and aesthetics, while embracing the non-functionality of their ceramics. The earliest generation of contemporary ceramic artists live through a major turning point in the history of the medium: a shift in creative control from kiln foreman or craftsman to artist, and the ensuing evolution of ceramics from commercial products to works of art. Beginning in the early 20th century, leading ceramicists, while still influenced by traditional approaches, explored the medium as a means of self-expression and gave shape to their own aesthetic sensibilities by working directly with the materials. Akiyama Yo intentionally exploited deformations that would be considered defects in commercial products with Untitled MV-1019 (2010), which purposely employs cracks in the clay to provide a weathered effect. Fukami Sueharu, who brought Japanese ceramic arts to global attention, also adopted inventive approaches to traditional techniques. His The Moment (Shun) (1998) is a keenly edged abstract work of porcelain that slices through space like a knife.

Recently, international praise has centred on pioneering female ceramists. Until the post-war era, virtually no women in Japan were ceramic artists; men feared that the presence of women would pollute their kilns. Koike Shoko was one of the first female graduates of the ceramic department at Tokyo National University of the Arts. Her shell-shaped vessels, such as Shell 95 (1995), were first thrown on a wheel and then sculpted from the clay of the Shigaraki region. Whereas traditional Shigaraki vessels are left unglazed, Koike applies layers of white slip (liquefied clay) to the surface. Sakurai Yasuko, also among the first women to work with clay on a university campus, plays with forms that make the viewer aware of light and shadow in Vertical Flower (2007).

In contrast to ceramic art, contemporary bamboo art continues to be dominated by artists who were trained through apprenticeships, often in regions where bamboo work has traditionally flourished. During the last century, however, the medium has seen great change. Since the 1950s, Japanese bamboo artists have created highly original pieces that transcend utilitarian use and represent independent works of sculpture. Contemporary bamboo art continues to be dominated by artists trained in the facilities or apprenticeships in regions where bamboo work has traditionally flourished, including Oita, Osaka, Shizuoka, Tochigi, and Niigata. Most of the artists whose works are collected (in this exhibition) were trained in or are active in these regions. Despite this adherence to tradition, the medium has greatly evolved and diversified over the last century. As bamboo art focuses not on the application of decoration, but on fashioning the form of the object itself, it calls forth more radical originality from artists seeking innovation.  In the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, the making of Chinese-style baskets flourished, primarily in Osaka, against a background of sencha (tea) ceremony culture. Soon, as with ceramics and other crafts, those who made bamboo works began to gain recognition as artists rather than merely as craftsmen.

By the 1920s, bamboo artists had begun to show their work in public exhibitions such as the Japan Art Exhibition (Nitten), and from the 1950s at the Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition, which demanded originality from participants.

A novelty introduced by artists working in the style where curving forms predominate is the appearance of quasi-architectural structures, composed of straight lines. This is illustrated in Yako Hodo’s piece in the exhibition – Late Autumn. The more daring and experimental work is done by artists exhibiting in shows such as the Japan Art Exhibition and the Japan Contemporary Arts and Crafts Exhibition, along with other artists who are not affiliated with any arts and crafts organisations. Among the artists in this category are Torii Ippo, Honma Hideaki, Watanabe Chiaki, Yamaguchi Ryuun, Shono Tokuzo, Honda Shoryu, Morigami Jin, and Mimura Chikuho. These artists often generate a unique and lyrical sense of movement in their work through the spatial properties of braided structures that make dynamic use of the material’s pliability and elasticity.

In Fire (2011), Yamaguchi Ryuun displays his creative approach by leaving the ends of strips of bamboo unbound, allowing them to spread out and create a voluminous form. Morigami Jin produces shapes that are possible only in bamboo sculpture, his Red Flame (2007) is vessel-like but is transformed into an expression of lines and silhouette in brilliant colours. The development of bamboo works as art – freed entirely from functional use as vessels or baskets – can also be seen in works by Fujitsuka Shosei. Fujitsuka’s pieces span a range from useful objects such as lampshades to the minimalist, elegant flames of Fire (mentioned above). Tori Ippo’s undulating works are far from traditional, functional wares. His Flight (2003), features complex, contrasting bands of twisting bamboo that arc and command the space around them. Another novelty introduced by contemporary bamboo artists, where curving forms predominate, is the appearance of quasi-architectural structures composed of straight lines, such as Yako Hodo’s Late Autumn (2004).

Until 8 September, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, www.mfa.org.

The Craft & Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) in Los Angeles presents Bamboo, an exhibition of 30 historical and contemporary works that explore the trajectory of Japanese bamboo basketry and sculpture. Drawn mostly from the Los Angeles-based Cotsen Collection, this exhibition reflects the evolution of the art form—from Chinese-style tea ceremony baskets to striking contemporary sculptures. A large-scale, site-specific installation by Japan-based artist Akio Hizume evokes the possibilities of bamboo as an artistic material. The exhibition will open on May 27 and run through September 9, 2018.

Fine bamboo basketry gained a foothold in Japanese culture during Japan’s medieval period (1185-1573 CE) as the tea ceremony was adapted from China and became an important part of Japanese lifestyle. The demand for fine Chinese style bamboo tea and flower arranging vessels resulted in numerous talented artist and apprentices devoted to the artform. Though earlier artists were emulating Chinese forms, by the mid-19th century Japanese bamboo artists were making artist-signed baskets with a distinctly Japanese aesthetic that embraced the imperfect and organic simplicity known as wabi-sabi. From the 20th century to present day, bamboo basketry became less functional and more radically sculptural.

Bamboo is an expressive material that is challenging to work with, involving complex weaving, plaited, dyeing, bending, and knotting. Though early artists learned through apprenticeship and were part of artist lineages, present-day artists are often self-taught and begin learning through university programs,. Included in the exhibition or two works by Shono Shounsai (1904-1974), the first bamboo artist named a Living National Treasure (1967) by the Japanese government. Artist Yamaguchi Ryuun, noted for his voluminous bamboo forms, apprenticed with Shounnsai and is active in teaching a new generation of bamboo artists. Though the art mostly passed down to male practitioners, there are a small number of women artists working today. These include Kajiwara Aya and Tanabe Mitsuko, who both studied the art form after marrying into families of bamboo artists.

Architect and artist Akio Hizume’s Fibonacci Tunnel (2018) is an architectural installation that shows new directions in bamboo artistry. Made entirely of bamboo poles and stakes, the large tunnel incorporates the geometric principles of the golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence and is meant for visitors to walk through. Hizume will lead a workshop at the museum during the course of the exhibition.

As the importance of the tea ceremony declined in Japan during the last century, bamboo basketry was no longer a sustainable enterprise for artists. Collector Lloyd Cotsen saw decline in the artistic legacy and created a competition for young bamboo artist that took place from 2000 to 2007. The competition helped revive contemporary bamboo basketry and has encouraged a new generation of artists to expand and innovate the artform.

Bamboo is organized by CAFAM exhibitions curator Holly Jerger and Lyssa Stapleton, curator of the Cotsen Collection, at the Craft & Folk Art Museum.

For more information and museum hours please visit www.cafam.org

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In 1970, there were between 600 and 700 bamboo craftspeople making a living in Japan, creating items ranging from simple food steamers and chopsticks to flower baskets of extraordinary beauty and complexity. The world has changed much since 1970. Today less expensive bamboo objects imported from Southeast Asia have largely displaced locally made wares in Japanese shops. In Oita Prefecture, which for over one hundred years has boasted the largest concentration of bamboo craftspeople in all of Japan, the number of people working with bamboo has shrunk by two thirds. The Commerce, Industry, and Labor Department of the Oita Prefectural Government has long appreciated the cultural and economic importance of bamboo crafts in the region and is actively promoting the field to ensure its long term vitality. Bamboo artists have also banded together to help their cause. The Oita Bamboo Fine Arts Association was formed to bring together both sculptural and more traditional artists, and the Beppu Bamboo Craft Union has looked after the artists’ interests for many years. Individual masters, such as Shono Tokuzo, Yamaguchi Ryuun and Morigami Jin, have taken an active role in encouraging the next generation of bamboo artists.

Two generations ago the apprenticeship of a bamboo craftsman might have lasted ten years. The first few years were often exclusively spent learning how to select and cut bamboo into usable strips for the master. It might take five years before a student was making simple baskets from start to finish. Many years passed before an ambitious assistant would offer works with their own signature to be judged by their master and the public. This may seem a daunting process to us in the West, but the apprentice knew this would lead eventually to a good livelihood, and all the years of disciplined focus aided in establishing a worthy personal style. Master bamboo artists of today will often speak of a self-transcending devotion to the tradition and to the medium itself. Many say they allow the bamboo to speak through them, and they strive to be true to the spirit of bamboo. This humility shows what is considered the ‘proper mind’ of a Japanese artist working in a traditional craft.

Modern teaching methods are more condensed. The two-year course taught at the Oita Prefectural Bamboo Craft and Training Support Center teaches the preparation of bamboo, the different plaiting patterns, and the vocabulary of knots seen in bamboo art, but then a student must find a mentor and, most of all, keep up full-time studio practice. However, the evaporation of the domestic market for bamboo articles means most students cannot support themselves through bamboo craftwork. If a graduate is lucky enough to be hired as an assistant by a master artist, and still wants to work in the field five years after splitting their first culm of bamboo, a threshold has been reached.There is a good chance this person will continue on the path of mastering bamboo art. Few who begin arrive at this five-year mark. Few have enough savings to live on for five years while they spend 60 hours a week honing their skills. To care for bamboo art’s future, we must find new ways for the student to earn whilethey learn.

For nearly twenty years, TAI Modern (formerly TAI Gallery)has exhibited Japanese bamboo art in the United States and Europe with great success, finding hundreds of passionate collectors. The strong international response to bamboo art has fueled efforts within Japan to promote and nurture this unique creative capital. The new artists exhibiting at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center were challenged jointly by the Oita Bamboo Industry and Culture Association and TAI Modern to work on designing a centerpiece for the home that would be priced at a level affordable to many people. If a worldwide market for Japanese bamboo decorative arts could be rekindled, much as it was by the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 19th century, a new source of earnings could allow young artists the time they need to master their medium.

The results of the centerpiece project are promising. All the artists deserve congratulations and I hope they forgive me for only mentioning a few of them. The work by Kizaki Kazutoshi, a student of Shono Tokuzo, has a strong design that connects it to his teacher’s famous lineage but employs a bold red color that is emphatically individual. Matsuda Hiroki’s exuberant fireworks-inspired piece will appeal to many viewers. Taniguchi Michito has created a playful, eccentric form that is weighted to stand at various angles.Yufu Hiroshi is working to synthesize his own style with the powerful techniques he has learned from his father, Shohaku, and Kodama Mie has enlivened a basic basket form by incorporating dynamic horizontal dividing layers.

Standing next to these youthful efforts are works made by the most accomplished bamboo artists in the world. While these artists’ works speak for themselves, I can’t help but mention several. Using the simplest of shapes, Abe Motoshi Kiraku’s pine needle plaited basket is a marvel of subtlety while Kibe Seiho’s basket, armored in aged, smoked bamboo, displays amazing, rich color. The Kajiwaras, husband Koho and wife Aya, staying true to the vessel form their entire careers, have created unmistakably individual styles that complement each other. And while the vessel tradition is ancient in Oita, the region is also the birth place of modernist, sculptural bamboo art. Shono Tokuzo, son of Shono Shounsai, the great pioneer of the sculptural tradition, strives to both communicate a contemporary sensibility in his art and honor the natural beauty of bamboo. Tokuzo’s work tends toward the philosophical, questioning the identity and role of a basket in its holding of something tangible and the identity of sculpture which holds space. Also trained in Shounsai’s studio, Tanabe Kochikusai is a seminal artist, being his master’s primary assistant during the creation of the first abstract art made of bamboo. Oita is home to individualists with free roaming imaginations as well, such as Sugiura Noriyoshi, Yonezawa Jiro, and Kawashima Shigeo.

When the next generation of bamboo artists steps forward to claim its place, we cannot be sure how many it will number or know what its artworks will look like. But all of us who love bamboo will know we have done all we could to ensure this next generation of bamboo artists will be just as vital and creative as the previous five generations have been.

Steven Halvorsen, TAI Modern, September 2014

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 19^thCentury, 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.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

TAI Modern at Art Miami 2017
December 5^th– 10^th, 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 28^thyear of Art Miami. This year’s fair will be held at a new location at One Herald Plaza, on 14^thStreet between the Venetian and MacArthur Causeways. Art Miami opens with a VIP preview on Thursday, December 5^th, and runs through Sunday, December 10^th. 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.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

TAI Modern at Asia Week New York
Realization of Form: Masterworks of Japanese Bamboo Art
March 15^th– 24^th, 2018

Exhibiting at Jason Jacques Gallery
29 East 73rd St, Apt. 1
New York, NY  10021

NEW YORK, NEW YORK—TAI Modern is pleased to announce its participation in Asia Week New York 2018. The exhibition, Realization of Form: Masterworks of Japanese Bamboo Art, will be on view March 15-23 at Jason Jacques Gallery, 29 East 73rd St, Apt. 1, New York, NY. An opening party will take place Friday, March 16^th, 6-9 pm.

For TAI Modern’s first year participating in Asia Week, the gallery will present both historic and contemporary works which exemplify the dialogue that occurs between the artist and the bamboo. “Bamboo art is a material specific art,” Director of Japanese Art Koichi Okada explains. “This exhibition explores the relationship between artists and their chosen medium. Monozukuriis a term often used by Japanese artists and craftsmen. It can be described as ‘the process of creating an object in harmony with the medium through pride of craftmanship.’”

Veteran artists often speak of the necessity of listening to the bamboo. One might wait years to find the right bamboo for a basket or the right form for a particular piece of bamboo. Artist Tanioka Aiko described her bond with the material, saying “This medium gives me joy and challenges me…Bamboo is both delicate and powerful. It is not a tame material to shape according to my desire. It gives me joy when my will and the will of the bamboo fit together nicely.”

Among the more than 30 bamboo artists in the exhibition are noteworthies such as 101-year old Monden Kogyoku, Living National Treasure Fujinuma Noboru, and cult-favorite Tanioka Shigeo, each of whom excel at expressing the unique character of bamboo. These artists are in several major American museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Asian Art Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

TAI Modern has been the premier gallery for contemporary Japanese bamboo art for over 20 years, and currently represents over 35 artists in this medium. During Asia Week New York, TAI Modern’s exhibition at Jason Jacques Gallery will be available for viewing Monday through Saturday from 10am-6pm or by appointment.

For more information, please contact Arianna Borgeson at arianna@taimodern.comor (505) 984-1387.