- Izumita Yukiya and Fold from KESHIKI: The Landscape Within, Contemporary Japanese Ceramics from the Brodfuehrer Collection
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The exhibition KESHIKI: The Landscape Within, Contemporary Japanese Ceramics from the Brodfuehrer Collection debuted at JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles from late April to June of 2019. Gordon Brodfuehrer subsequently donated many works from the exhibition to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The exhibition allowed the public to see this collection before the rebuilding of LACMA's main permanent collection spaces (to be completed in 2024), and for JAPAN HOUSE to feature contemporary design, which is part of its mandate.
A second priority of JAPAN HOUSE is to present the particular attractions of the localities of Japan, extending the focus on its urban capitals. The exhibition display was therefore designed in geographical order from west to east, beginning in Kyushu and ending in Tōhoku. The ceramics of western regions began their history at the end of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries with the introduction of Korean potters to Japan. By contrast, among older sites near the ancient capital Kyoto, some date back to the twelfth century. In eastern Japan and Tōhoku, pottery traditions have gained recognition within the last 200 years.
Beyond age, the particularities of clay or porcelain, glaze, and kiln type altered based on local conditions, although in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries clay and the artists themselves have become more mobile. Artists might work in Echizen clay for one project and Bizen clay for the next, make their own mixtures from clays of varied origins, or travel to borrow space in a particular type of kiln owned by a friend.
The term keshiki, meaning scenery, refers to how Japanese traditionally look at stoneware objects in particular, seeing the landscape within glaze drips or kiln effects on non-glazed wares. This method of appreciation dovetails with Brodfuehrer's own, as he has a high regard for how potters evoke aspects of nature in their work. In arranging a version of the exhibition in its nascent phase at the Mingei International Museum in [End Page 159] San Diego, Brodfuehrer paired many works with photographs of natural scenery taken by gallerist of Bizen ware and photographer, Itō Taijirō. A select number of Itō's pictures offered an aesthetic comparison to ceramics in this exhibition as well.
Brodfuehrer also has a personal affinity for ceramics that he can use in daily life. He appreciates an idea shared among many potters that their work is not complete until the collector has added flowers, food, or tea to bring the object to life. Quotes from Brodfuehrer, who lives surrounded by his collection and contemplates the beauty of each piece, were displayed in the gallery on transparent banners, as an example for viewers, showing how one person has appreciated the works.
Among the non-functional works in the exhibition, one stands out. Called Fold, the abstract layered gray form is by Izumita Yukiya (1966–), who lives on the northeastern coast of Japan, the area that sustained a direct hit during the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. Although his studio was repaired, the disaster decimated his village. Izumita has transferred his trauma from that experience and reactions to the vicissitudes of life on that blustery coastline to the forms and surfaces of his works. Using clay mixed with sand from the beach outside his studio, Izumita fashions his delicately potted shapes by supporting thin clay layers with tough, long-fibered Japanese paper (washi). The paper burns away in the kiln. Fold is unbalanced, teetering on an uneven base. The broad clay sides strain upward like an unfolding origami crane...