SEEN|UNSEEN

SEEN|UNSEEN

AKIYAMA YŌ KITAMURA JUNKO J O A N B M I R V I S S LTD

Seen|Unseen AKIYAMA YŌ KITAMURA JUNKO November 2020

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e are honored to once again exhibit the works of Akiyama Yō and Kitamura Junko in

America. Though we have represented these artists for many years, Seen | Unseen is only their second joint exhibition at Joan B Mirviss LTD. Following the success of their previous show at our gallery, this Kyoto-based artistic couple has worked for several years to create totally new work designed specifically for our gallery. Now presented in dialogue, pairing their seemingly very disparate styles and viewpoints in our space as well as in this publication, has yielded surprising and unexpected harmonies.

We all very much hope that “opening” this important and much-anticipated exhibit during this challenging and uncertain time, might provide our viewers and collectors a new source of inspiration and respite.

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Untitled T-198 2019 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating 15 x 27 1/2 x 16 1/8 in.

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onsidered one of Japan’s most important contemporary artists, Akiyama Yō (b. 1953) has

spent a lifetime exploring the physical properties of clay.

His forceful sculptural works have more in common with those by contemporary sculptors in other media than those by other ceramists. Unconcerned with labels, Akiyama has instead worked steadily to bring forward the ideas that first inspired him from the Sōdeisha avant-garde postwar movement, whose founders include his teacher, Yagi Kazuo (1918-1979). Using the fundamental potter’s tool – the wheel – as a departure point, Akiyama disrupts the symmetry created by it in startling ways, such as by breaking off portions to reveal interior construction, or by inverting sections to create an internal tension. Akiyama’s powerful sculptures look as if they have been excavated from the earth’s very core – and, in subtle reddish-brown tones, as if the liquid magma had just barely cooled.

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kiyama isn’t just allowing the medium to dictate the results. Each surface effect is carefully realized by the

artist’s steady hand. Fired at relatively low temperatures and unglazed, his carefully built sculptures are mostly unchanged after firing to reflect his intent. As a result, unlike most massive contemporary sculptures, whose silhouettes are appreciated in totality at a distance, Akiyama’s sculptures invite closer inspection and intimate engagement with the surface textures shaped by the artist’s hands.

As Japan’s most distinguished clay sculptor, Akiyama has been widely celebrated over the years for his groundbreaking work. In 2010, he received the MOA Okada Mokichi Award, one of the most prestigious Grand Prizes on the Japanese art calendar. In 2015, Akiyama won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Japan Ceramic Society. His works are accordingly in many important collections and museums both in Japan and the West.

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Vessel 20-G 2020 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 17 3/8 x 10 1/4 in.

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ike her fellow pioneering female Japanese ceramists, Kitamura Junko (b. 1956) brings a fresh

perspective into a field that had long excluded them.

Her painterly instincts, developed as the daughter of an abstract painter, combined with the visual language of textiles and other crafts that flourishes in her hometown of Kyoto, inform her elegant yet otherworldly sculptures. The result is a captivating new approach to ceramic surface decoration that when executed at the highest level of skill requires painstaking attention to detail. Her complex, repeating yet dynamic patterns in immaculate detail draws upon those local disciplines.

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itamura’s conceptually daring works, however, shake loose such traditional ties to functionality. She covers her

curvilinear forms in ethereal geometric patterns that seem to ebb and flow across the surface. She uses a homemade bamboo tool to incise intricate, remarkably unscripted, rippling geometric patterns over a dark, matte, black slip-covered body with the precision of a lace-maker. After bisque firing at a low temperature, she meticulously inlays the majority of these small impressions with white slip and fires again. The result is a study in contrasts, and her starkly black and white works cut dramatic profiles that belie their fluid, curving forms.

Kitamura was featured in seminal American exhibitions focused on Japanese ceramics: Contemporary Ceramics for the New Century at the MFA Boston (2005) and Japan Society, New York; Touch Fire: Contemporary Ceramics by Women Artists at Smith College Museum of Fine Art (2009); as well as Soaring Voices: Contemporary Japanese Women Ceramic Artists that travelled to thirteen museums on three continents.

Her works may be found in important museum collections throughout the world.

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Untitled MV-204 2020 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating 12 1/2 x 21 1/4 x 16 1/2 in.

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Untitled MV-204 2020 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating 12 1/2 x 21 1/4 x 16 1/2 in.

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Vessel 20-H 2020 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 15 1/8 x 8 1/2 in.

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Vessel 20-D 2020 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 4 3/4 x 12 1/2 in.

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Untitled T-196 2019 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating 12 1/4 x 15 1/8 x 19 3/4 in.

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I make it a habit to seek out the invisible through the visible. This is something I’ve learned from various experiences throughout my life. My teacher, Yagi Kazuo, used to say: “ Even when you look at a mountain towering before you, pay attention to the structure hidden beneath its outer appearance.”

—Akiyama Yō

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Untitled MV-205 2020 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating and slip with blue pigment 7 7/8 x 13 3/8 x 13 3/8 in.

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Vessel 19-C 2019 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 4 7/8 x 12 1/2 in.

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Untitled MV-208 2020 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating and slip with blue pigment 9 1/4 x 15 x 11 1/4 in.

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Vessel 20-A 2020 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 22 1/2 x 11 3/8 in.

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When gazing up at the moon, one is drawn both to the area illuminated by the light of the sun and that which is unseen melting into darkness. For me, it is the unseen lunar area that enhances the beauty of that which is visible.

This is the inspiration for my current work.

—Kitamura Junko

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Vessel 19-A 2019 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 14 1/8 x 11 3/8 in.

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Untitled MV-203 2020 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating 8 1/2 x 18 7/8 x 13 3/8 in.

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Reflecting further on Yagi-sensei’s artistic philosophy, I am inspired by the beauty of trees.

While clearly visible, their roots remain hidden beneath the earth and their branches soar far into the sky beyond sight.

Exploring the connection between the visible and invisible is one of the important pillars of my work.

—Akiyama Yō

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Vessel 20-I 2020 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 9 1/4 x 11 in.

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Untitled T-197 2019 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating 9 1/4 x 24 3/4 x 12 3/8 in.

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Vessel 20-B 2020 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 17 3/4 x 9 in.

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Untitled MV-202 2020 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating 8 7/8 x 19 5/8 x 16 1/4 in.

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Vessel 20-E 2020 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 3 3/8 x 11 5/8 in.

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Untitled MV-207 2020 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating and slip with blue pigment 6 1/4 x 14 1/8 x 10 1/4 38 in.

Vessel 20-F 2020 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 19 3/4 x 12 1/4 in.

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Vessel 20-C 2020 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 9 1/2 x 11 7/8 in.

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Untitled MV-192 2020 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating 8 1/2 x 21 1/4 x 17 1/2 42 in.

Untitled MV-205 2020 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating and slip with blue pigment 7 7/8 x 13 3/8 x 13 /8 in.

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Vessel 19-B 2019 Stoneware with black slip, inlaid with white slip 18 7/8 x 7 1/4 in.

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KITAMURA JUNKO (b. 1956) Career Highlights 1956 1987 1980 1984 1985 1990

1994 1997 2007-12 2009 2012 2014 2013

2015 2018

Born in Kyoto Completed MFA program at Kyoto City University of Arts studying under Yagi Kazuo, Suzuki Osamu, Fujihira Shin and Kondō Yutaka Acquisition Prize, Kyoto City University of Arts Exhibition Excellence Prize, Kyoto Arts and Crafts Exhibition Best Emerging Artist Prize, Kyoto Arts and Crafts Exhibition Fletcher Challenge Ceramics Award and exhibition (also in ‘92), New Zealand Akiyama Yō + Kitamura Junko, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo Varazdin Prize, World Triennial Exhibition of Small Ceramics, Zagreb Soaring Voices: Contemporary Japanese Women Ceramic Artists, Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Shiga; then eleven subsequent museums around the globe Touch Fire: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics by Women Artists, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA Shifting Paradigms: Contemporary Ceramics, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX Points of Departure: Treasures of Japan from the Brooklyn Museum, Japan Society, NY Fired Earth, Woven Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics and Bamboo Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA Ancient to Modern: Japanese Contemporary Ceramics and their Sources, San Antonio Museum of Art, TX Japan Now: Form + Function, Gardiner Museum of Art, Toronto, Canada

Works by Kitamura may be found in over twenty major museums, including Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA; British Museum, London; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Museum of Kyoto; and National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

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Untitled T-201 2020 Unglazed stoneware with rusted iron coating 38 1/2 x 18 1/2 x 17 in.

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AKIYAMA YŌ (b. 1953) Career Highlights 1953 1972-78 1986 1986 1988 1994 1997 2004

2007 2008 2009 2011

2015 2016 2018 2019

Born in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture Studied at Kyoto City University of Arts under Yagi Kazuo Became an official member of International Ceramic Academy Excellence Prize, Yagi Kazuo Competition of Contemporary Ceramics Designated Professor of Ceramics at Kyoto City University of Arts 12th Kyoto Prefecture Culture Prize Japan Ceramics Society Prize Confronting Tradition: Contemporary Art from Kyoto, Smith College Museum of Art, Northhampton, MA Solo exhibition at Joan B Mirviss LTD, again in 2011 and 2015 21st Kyoto Municipal Award for Art and Culture Grand Prize, 17th Mokichi Okada Award, MOA Museum of Art, Atami Tension and Transition: The Clay Language of Akiyama Yō, Joan B. Mirviss LTD, New York Lifetime Achievement Award, Japan Ceramic Society Cetavoids: The Ceramic Art of Yō Akiyama, Musée Tomo, Tokyo Yō Akiyama: In the Beginning Was Clay, Gallery Aqua, Kyoto City University of Arts Qatar Museums, Gallery Katara Appointed Professor Emeritus at Kyoto City University of Arts

Works by Akiyama may be found in the collections of over forty museums in Japan, U.S. and Europe including Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA; Musée National de Céramique de Sèvres, France; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; National Museums of Modern Art, Kyoto and Tokyo; and Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

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VIDEOS Please click the images to view the videos.

Seen|Unseen In their own words, artists Akiyama Yō and Kitamura Junko describe the inspiration for this current body of work.

Kitamura Biography

Learn more about Kitamura Junko’s life and technique.

Akiyama Biography

Learn more about Akiyama Yō’s life and technique.

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Price List as of November 2, 2020 Seen/Unseen Page 4

Akiyama Yō

Untitled T-198

$48,000

Page 8

Kitamura Junko

Vessel 20-G

$11,000

Page 12

Akiyama Yō

Untitled MV-204

SOLD

Page 14

Kitamura Junko

Vessel 20-H

SOLD

Page 15

Kitamura Junko

Vessel 20-D

$5,850

Page 16

Akiyama Yō

Untitled T-196

$28,000

Page 19

Akiyama Yō

Untitled MV-205

SOLD

Page 20

Kitamura Junko

Vessel 19-C

$5,850

Page 22

Akiyama Yō

Untitled MV-208

$16,500

Page 24

Kitamura Junko

Vessel 20-A

SOLD

Page 26

Kitamura Junko

Vessel 19-A

SOLD

Page 27

Akiyama Yō

Untitled MV-203

$25,000

Page 29

Kitamura Junko

Vessel 20-I

SOLD

Page 31

Akiyama Yō

Untitled T-197

SOLD

Page 33

Kitamura Junko

Vessel 20-B

SOLD

Page 34

Akiyama Yō

Untitled MV-202

SOLD

Page 36

Kitamura Junko

Vessel 20-E

SOLD

Page 37

Akiyama Yō

Untitled MV-207

$8,800

Page 38

Kitamura Junko

Vessel 20-F

$12,000-RESERVED

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Kitamura Junko

Vessel 20-C

SOLD

Page 41

Akiyama Yō

Untitled MV-192

SOLD

Page 42

Akiyama Yō

Untitled MV-206

$9,800

Page 43

Kitamura Junko

Vessel 19-B

SOLD

Akiyama Yō

Untitled T-201

SOLD

Page 45

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Photography by Fukunaga Kazuo and Richard Goodbody Video production: Nicolle Bertozzi Catalog Designed by Yukiko Ishii

©2020 Joan B Mirviss LTD., NYC

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Published in conjunction with the exhibition: Seen | Unseen Akiyama YĹ? & Kitamura Junko

J O A N B M I R V I S S LTD JAPA N E S E A RT Antique-Contemporary

39 East 78th Street, 4th Floor | New York, NY 10075 Telephone 212 799 4021 | www.mirviss.com