TAKURO KUWATA: TOGETHER SHIYOZE! (LET’S GET TOGETHER!)

Salon 94 is pleased to present Together Shiyoze! (Let's Get Together!), an exhibition of work by Takuro Kuwata.

January 10 - February 15, 2025

Over the past two decades, Kuwata has steadily used his knowledge of ceramic materials and glaze to encourage unpredictable results. Reaching beyond the crazed surfaces and kintsugi repairs of venerated tea vessels, Kuwata has formulated a series of glazes that turn supposed flaws into the vessels’ greatest assets. Rather than using glaze to immaculately enrobe his forms, Kuwata’s glazes crawl back on themselves or flow unpredictably through pierced holes. It is easy to connect these “chance operations” to Dadaist games (exquisite corpse, cut-up poetry), or to name-check David Pye’s theory of “the workmanship of risk,” but the root of Kuwata’s love of unpredictability is much more relatable, lying at the heart of what it means to be a potter.

Kuwata is among the most thoughtful (and skilled) ceramic artists of his generation; he is certainly not averse to risk, despite the exponential growth in interest in his work. He doesn’t pay lip service to Japanese pottery traditions; rather, he has sought out a wide range of mentors and teachers throughout his career. Many ceramic artists begin their studies with traditional potters, then evolve toward contemporary ideas, but Kuwata started out at Kyoto Saga University of Arts, the wellspring of Japanese avant-garde ceramics. In Kyoto, Kuwata was exposed to the Sōdeisha movement, which initiated a radical break from function.

Staying true to his work’s roots in tea ceremony’s ability to stretch time and confound expectations, Kuwata has also begun to introduce realistic trompe l’oeil objects that both collide with and strangely complement his abstract language. In 2023, Kuwata was commissioned by the Okayama Performing Arts Theater to create a public work of art. Kuwata came up with the idea for a larger-than-life Chawan with realistic peaches sprouting from signature platinum-coated appendages to pay tribute to the region’s famous peaches—both a literal agricultural product and a symbol of longevity, hospitality, and generosity.

With their metallic bling and candy-colored palette, Kuwata’s works surely are hyper pots. It is no less accurate to label Kuwata himself a hyper potter. Although his works are difficult to locate in space and time, Kuwata himself is an artist who possesses the hyper-embodiment of the qualities of a superior potter.