The Japanese artist Takashi Murakami turns curator next month with an exhibition of Japanese ceramics that the artist is organising in Los Angeles. The show, due to open at Blum & Poe gallery on 11 September (until 24 October), will feature more than 100 works including vases, tea bowls and other vessels by three young ceramicists: Kazunori Hamana, Otani Workshop and Yuji Ueda. Many of the works on show have not been seen in the US before.
The artists all work in remote surroundings, which is common for ceramicists who do not want “to disturb anyone with the smoke from their kilns”, Murakami told Deutsche Welle in 2013.
Yuji comes from a family of award-winning tea farmers in the Shiga Prefecture town of Shigaraki and is known for his experimental approach to glazing and firing. Otani Workshop is also based in Shigaraki—one of the oldest pottery centres in Japan that dates back 800 years. Kazunori works in Chiba on the Pacific coast and his irregularly shaped urns and bowls reflect the coastal environment.
This is not the first time Murakami has organised an exhibition of clay works. He opened his now defunct Hidari Zingaro gallery in Berlin in 2012 with an exhibition of works by eight ceramic artists represented by his sister gallery in Tokyo, Oz Zingaro. The Japanese-born artist, whose company Kaikai Kiki produces a ceramics range, has also been building a personal ceramics collection for more than a decade.
