Materials: Ceramic clay
Exhibition location: ESPACIO Nagoya Castle – Houoh Suite (11th Floor)
Vessel Not a Vessel
Vessel Not a Vessel redefines the relationship between vessel and space by relinquishing its conventional function as a vessel. A pair of ceramic forms, shaped through the natural movement of clay, blur the boundaries between inside and outside while carrying forward the two-dimensional compositions of Tawaraya Sōtatsu and Ogata Kōrin, as well as the aesthetic of continuity and discontinuity found in traditional Japanese picture scrolls.
Takuo Nakamura
Born in Kanazawa in 1945 into a family of Kutani ware potters, Nakamura has expanded the relationship between the vessel and architectural space while drawing inspiration from the Kanazawa interpretation of the Rinpa tradition developed by his father, Umeyama. Combining Kutani overglaze painting with techniques inspired by Kaga maki-e on a brown clay body, he reinterprets Rinpa for the present day. His works are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (USA), the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and other museums.
