JAPANESE GLASS TODAY

JAPANESE GLASS TODAY

13.01.2018 - 02.04.2018

Exotic, spiritual and emotional – Japanese art has an aesthetic all its own. In our new exhibition we delve deep into this world to present current artworks in glass. These sculptures, installations and wall pictures made of glass were already on view last year at the Glasmuseum Frauenau (in the Bavarian Forest), so we seized the opportunity to exhibit this unique selection of works at the Glasmuseum Lette as well.

Art lovers in Germany have had to wait a long time to experience contemporary Japanese glass of such excellence and diversity: The last major exhibition on this subject took place in 1993 at the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf. Since then, Japan’s still-young glass scene has undergone some fundamental changes. While artists there initially worked with the medium of glass under the influence of European and North American role models, today’s generation takes inspiration from their own Japanese roots and values.

Our exhibition now gives visitors a chance to feel the effects of this elemental Japanese aesthetic sensibility. In Japanese art and culture, light and shadow, space and emptiness, silence and attentiveness are intuitively perceived and recognised not as opposites, as negative or positive poles as with us, but as value-free qualities that are inextricably connected. Only together do the two poles generate a whole.

The exhibition traces an arc from Japan to Europe, because it also includes works by Japanese artists living in Europe and by European artists who have lived and worked for a time in Japan. Viewers are therefore invited to look at Japan from multiple perspectives.

We would like to warmly thank the participating artists for making this possible:

Machiko Ito (Toyama, J), Masami Hirohata (Nuremberg, D), Jin Hongo (Toyama, J), Tsuyoshi Inoue (Tokyo, J), Ai Kigoshi (Tokyo, J), Yoshiaki Kojiro (Takayama, J), Takahito Komure (Akita, J), Runa Kosogawa (Takayama, J), Yoko Miyata (Hiroshima, J), Keiko Mukaide (Edinburgh, GB), Akira Nakagawa (Hokkaido, J), Mica Okuno (Yokohama, J), Shunji Omura (Chibaken, J), Mare Saare (Tallinn, EST), Masahiro Sasaki (Nagoya, J), Lada Semecká (Teplice, CZ), Yoshi Yamauchi (Kevelaer, D), Harumi Yukutake (Tokyo, J)

Thank you – ありがとう

 

Photos:

Shunji Omura, Blade Man 004, 2014 – Photo SAIKI TAKU

Takahito Komure, Message from the passed, 2015 – Photo Takahito Komure

Yoshiaki Kojiro, Breaking Composition 6, 2016 – Photo Yoshiaki Kojiro

Akira Nakagawa, Wind deviated, 2008 – Photo Akira Nakagawa

Masahiro Sasaki, Tensei #1604, 2016 – Photo Masahiro Sasaki

Keiko Mukaide, Family Tree, 2016 – Photo Keiko Mukaide

Masami Hirohata, Apfel und Birne kann man nicht vergleichen, 2013 – Photo Helge Articus

Mare Saare, Mono no aware, 2017, Detail – Photo Mare Saare

Photo above: Runa Kosogawa, Engraved on Life, 2013 – Photo Kichiro Okamura