One hundred and fifty pieces owned by great European collections (Italy, Germany, France, Czech Republic) offer the public an unprecedented overview of the developments in Japanese pottery from 1950 to the present day.
In the 1920s, there were several attempts to develop studio pottery, encouraging individual work in opposition to popular ceramics and the practice of workshop pottery. This form of pottery paved the way for a sculptural movement – "ceramic objects" – which started in Kyoto in the 1950s. Indeed, since the post-war period, Japanese pottery has undergone many changes which have played a decisive role in the evolution of pottery worldwide.
The 1970s and 1980s saw the development of a large number of decorative techniques (kokutō, the encrustation of coloured glazes) while some artists chose provocation (happenings, installations). Since the 1990s porcelain and smooth materials have come back in force.
In Japan, pottery (Tōji) is considered to be a major art because of its links with the tea ceremony and the Buddhist doctrine of Zen. Pottery utensils are treated with the greatest respect. The religious ties between the Japanese and nature have always influenced this form of production in which clay is regarded as a living, noble material.
The exhibition puts the accent on the work of the leading artists from two generations (one born before the Second World War, the other after). About a hundred potters have been selected for their subtle or powerful styles.
Through this exhibition, the Sèvres porcelain factory reinforces the links it has maintained with Japan from the time when the Japanese potter NUMATA Ichiga came to France to work in the factory, in 1903-1905 (figurative sculptures) until recent exchanges of exhibitions and commissions for contemporary works.
The exhibition opens with a startling confrontation between the first attempts at individual creation in a still traditional Japan (NUMATA Ichiga, Asai Chū) and an installation designed specially for the exhibition by the minimalist artist ITŌ Kōshō.
The display area is designed like dry Zen Garden using bamboo and ropes. The ropes are also a reminder of the famous "rope decoration" of Neolithic Japanese pottery.
Next come works in utilitarian forms, created in very personal styles in which each "living national treasure" reviews the tradition, using ancestral materials and techniques (Hamada Shōji, Shimizu Uichi)
After the Second World War, individual expression definitively broke away from the yoke of tradition, confirming a trend that had begun in the 1920s. Under the influence of Western art movements (Miro, Picasso, Noguchi), young artists trained in traditional milieus rebelled against their teaching and carried ceramics into the world of modern art.
In 1946-1947, two movements appeared (Shikōkai, literally, "Association of four ploughings" and Sōdeisha, literally, "Association of the worm’s mark in the mud"); they promoted “ceramic objects”, that is, non utilitarian items, with a tendency towards abstraction. The three great artists of Sōdeisha (Suzuki Osamu, Yamada Hikaru and Yagi Kazuo) and one of the founders of Shikōkai (Hayashi Yasuo) are represented by several pieces illustrating their long careers.
After these artists, several movements emerged. A tendency to Primitivism, in reference to Neolithic Japanese terracotta, appeared in the 1950s (Horse by Suzuki Osamu). In the 1970s a taste for provocation and contestation grew up under the influence of Pop Art and abstract expressionism, using bright colours and trompe-l’oeil (Yanagihara Mutsuo, A Smiling Flower-Eating Vase). At the same time the notion of craft design was adopted in Japan, producing decorative works with interesting surface textures (Miyashita Zenji, Kishi Eiko, Itō Motohiko).
Growing awareness of environmental pollution in industrial societies led to the emergence of organic (Katsumata Chieko, Koike Shōko) and mineral forms (Ogawa Kinji, Chimera of Space).
Porcelain, a material assimilated to the Chinese tradition, did not attract avant-garde potters before the 1970s because of the technical constraints it imposed. But since 1980 there has been a sharp rise in porcelain production using several techniques, casting in plaster moulds, coil construction and modelling. The geometrical or realistic shapes thus obtained are associated with bluish white or celadon glazes (Yoshikawa Masamichi, Fukami Sueharu) or with bright colours (Yoshikawa Chikako, Such a Good Wife).
