Sculpture Sparks Renovation at Dai Ichi Arts 

A new focus on ceramic sculpture from Japan was the impetus for an extensive renovation of Dai Ichi Arts in Manhattan. “For years we have been recognized for our superb tea wares and Zen-inflected objects,” says Director Beatrice Chang, “but in the last year we have dramatically expanded our offerings to include ancient and antique works from the Jōmon to Momoyana periods, early modern masters such as Shoji Hamada and Osamu Suzuki, and large-scale contemporary sculpture by Goro Suzuki, Yuriko Matsuda, Yasuo Hayashi and others.”

The sculpture, in particular, tends to be larger in scale and demands more “psychic space” between objects. Dai Ichi Arts has renovated its space in tones of gray and burgundy to provide a serene and elegant backdrop for exciting, innovative sculptural forms. “Our enormous platter by Goro Suzuki is fully forty-one inches in diameter,” notes Ms. Chang, “and works by Harumi Nakashima are that tall or taller. We’ve exchanged our former “teahouse” interior for a more luxurious, museum-like setting that complements contemporary sculpture without overwhelming it. It also helps collectors envision how these works might look in a private home or office.” 

Dai Ichi Arts will feature large-scale contemporary Japanese sculpture at its exhibit at SOFA/NY June 3-6, 2004.

In successive exhibitions throughout the spring and summer of 2004, Dai Ichi Arts will introduce to an American audience a number of prominent Japanese ceramic sculptors who have stellar reputations in Japan, but are little known here. “The best Japanese ceramic sculptors have no need to seek new customers,” says Ms. Chang. “Their shows are sold out immediately in Japan, and collectors are on wait-lists. The biggest difficulty is in persuading these artists to allow a few pieces to come to the U.S.” Artists such as 
Yasuo Hayashi, Kosuke Kanishige, and Tsubusa Katoh, are among those Ms. Chang will feature throughout the spring and summer. 

Yasuo Hayashi is a contemporary of World War II avant-garde Japanese ceramic artists such as Osumu Suzuki and Kazuo Yagi. He himself was the last suicide or kamikaze pilot trained in Japan. Fortunately for art, and for many American lives, the war ended before he could be sent on a mission. Today he crafts exquisite, almost crystalline, geometric illusions (photographs only capture the illusion, you have to see the pieces in person to perceive the secret) that he says are inspired by his training flights over the Japanese landscape in a tiny fighter plane.

Kosuke Kaneshige is a Bizen potter with a long family lineage, and a modernist sensibility. His work “From the Sea” is a quiet explosion of sharp, angled forms, evocative of the detritus of a shipwreck, cupped in a basket-like container. The pottery town of Bizen is one of the “six ancient kilns” of Japan, famed for iron-rich stoneware that fires a deep reddish brown. Today, over 400 potters are active in the area, but superb work can be hard to find. Several very fine potters craft new interpretations of traditional teawares such as tea caddies and mizusashi (water jars), but Kosuke Kaneshige is one of the very few who have ventured to take this venerable clay into fully contemporary directions. His feeling for the “soul” of clay is evident, and his forms audacious.

Also new to Dai Ichi is Tsubusu Katoh a prominent and promising sculptor who claws porcelain into dramatic forms evocative of wind and waves. Many if not all of his objects can be put to use if one is willing to risk the razor sharp edges and daunting fragility of his “vases”, “platters”, and “tea bowls”. His flowing celadon glaze envelopes the pieces in a pale blue shimmer. The brilliant white, fine-grained porcelain clay is raked and teased into undulating forms extending into graceful tatters, like ancient battle flags. Combining beauty and a sense of incipient injury (either to oneself or the vessel), the objects remind us of nature’s dark side (the wasp’s sting, the prick of the thorn) and its evanescence. “Many artists working in celadon in Japan strive for a cool, gem-like precision, the traditional beauty of celadon,” notes Ms. Chang. “Katoh is unique in his willingness to add emotion to the mix. He is truly pushing the envelope and giving the formal celadon tradition an energetic new twist.” - Dai Ichi Arts, 249 East 48th Street. Tues. – Sat. 10:30 – 5:30, through June 27. Open by appointment only during the remainder of the summer. Phone: 212-230-1680. 




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