Takuro Kuwata

 by Japanese artist, Takuro Kuwata, his second solo exhibition with the gallery. As the title suggests, the works in the show engage the viewer in the sensual manner akin to lips touching a teacup or rice bowl. Yet, Kuwata’s ceramics are earthquakes in which the glazes shatter, re-shape, melt, unravel, stick, poke and create a feeling of the artist’s geographical origins. As Jeffrey Uslip describes in his recent article in Kaleidoscope Magazine, “while not explicitly engaged with national issues of destruction, [the work] provides an aesthetic correlation to Japan’s recent natural and social disasters.”

Kuwata mixes an artificial palette of glazes with that of natural elements, presenting monumental and intimate objects. Polychromatic vessels, otherworldly mushrooming clouds, gold and silver totems and bulbous fruit like shapes people his landscapes in clay. Here, function follows form, science meets chance, and the crude and delicate coalesce.

Some of the traditional Japanese techniques and concepts that Takuro Kuwata employs and radicalizes are:

Kairagi – Thick white glaze (80% feldspar) that breaks so bare clay shows.

Ishihaze – Ishihaze or “stone explosion” is created by adding stones to the clay mix. When fired, stones puncture and burst through the clay, as if a tooth grows out of place.

Shino-yu – thick white glaze that can either drop and drool or harden and crack depending on the heat of the kiln.

Wabi Sabi – Japanese aesthetic theory, describing the acceptance of transience and imperfection.

Takuro Kuwata was born in 1981 in Hiroshima and lives in Toki City, Gifu. He graduated from Kyoto Saga Art College, Department of Fine Arts, Ceramics Arts in 2001. His work has been shown extensively in Japan, including the exhibition “Japanese Kōgei | Future Forward” at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, which opens October 20, 2015 at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City. Since his last solo exhibition with Salon 94 in 2013, he has had solo shows at Tomio Koyama, Kuroda Touen, and Pierre Marie Giraud, Brussels. Kuwata has also participated in group exhibitions at Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, Venus over Manhattan, New York, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago and Salon 94, New York. He will have his first US solo institutional showing at the Saint Louis Museum of Art, Saint Louis, Missouri in 2017. His work is included in the following public collections: Rubell Family Collection, USA, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary, Japan, University of Michigan Museum of Art, USA, and the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Japan.

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Dear Tea Bowl

Salon 94 Bowery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in the United States of the Japanese artist, Takuro Kuwata.

Japanese ceramic techniques and aesthetic principles, both traditional and experimental, form the foundation for Takuro Kuwata’s otherworldly objects & vessels. His creations push the ancient medium to a riotous extreme, dancing between pop and 

 (traditional craft). Kuwata presents contemporary textures and colors, inspired by the world around him.

Riffing on the classical tea vessel, Kuwata plays freely with an intense chromatic repertoire: blue, red and gold are a favored palette—quoting Yves Klein and Yayoi Kusama with whimsy and sophistication. The vivid colors paired with the metallic glazes provide an at once rustic and futuristic update to the more austere 

 aesthetic of traditional tea ceremony wares.

 or “stone explosion”. By adding stones to his clay mix, when fired, they puncture and burst through the clay, as if a tooth growing out of place. In his hands, the shrunken, crackled glaze of the 

 technique brings to mind exploded prehistoric eggs or plants dipped in metal. Kuwata actually adds powdered platinum and almost pure gold on top of the cracked white glazed and refires it. In other works, the cracked mercury surface breaks on top, and spikes of the metallic substrate pierce through the surface, to melt at the bottom. Kuwata has pioneered the incorporation of needles employed in the construction of kilns, using them in the ceramic works to catch the glaze on its slide down, creating a textural marvel and mystery. Some of the sculptures are functional; others stand as abstract totems—their origin and time slipping from East to West, past to future.

Takuro Kuwata was born in 1981 in Hiroshima and lives in Toki City, Gifu. He graduated from Kyoto Saga Art College, Department of Fine Arts, Ceramics Arts in 2001, and started studying under a ceramic artist Susumu Zaima in 2002. His work has been shown extensively in Japan, including this year as part of the exhibition “Art Crafting Towards The Future” at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. He has had solo shows at Tomio Koyama, Kuroda Touen and participated in the group exhibition “Paul Clay” at Salon 94 in 2011.

Flavor of Nature

“I’m not trying to break the rules… I just want to apply a contemporary sensibility to pottery. I believe I can create something truly new, work that reflects our time.”

Porcelain, glaze, pigment, platinum, and steel

21 5/8 x 21 1/16 x 20 1/16 inches (54.9 x 53.5 x 51 cm)

Tea bowl

Porcelain, glaze, pigment, gold, platinum, and palladium

17 1/8 x 14 1/8 x 14 1/8 inches (43.5 x 35.9 x 35.9 cm)

15 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches (39.4 x 41.9 x 41.9 cm)

Porcelain, glaze, pigment, gold, and platinum

16 1/8 x 18 3/4 x 15 1/8 inches (41 x 47.6 x 38.4 cm)

18 7/8 x 21 1/16 x 21 1/4 inches (47.9 x 53.5 x 54 cm)

Porcelain, stone, glaze, pigment, gold, and platinum

13 3/4 x 19 1/2 x 14 1/8 inches (34.9 x 49.5 x 35.9 cm)

11 13/16 x 14 1/8 x 11 inches (30 x 35.9 x 27.9 cm)

Untitled

Porcelain, stone, glaze, gold, and platinum

29.13 x 24.21 x 25.39 inches (74 x 61.5 x 64.5 cm)

Tea Bowl

4 x 5 7/8 x 4 inches (10.2 x 14.9 x 10.2 cm)

Small bowl

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Takuro Kuwata (Born–2024)

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