Kyoto, Re-creation of Reminiscence— Lacquerware in Modern Japan

The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto

This event has ended.

Since the olden days, lacquer art, in which the tap of lacquer trees is applied as daub or glue, has been used for a wide variety of daily utensils in Japan, including furnishings, stationery, accessories and tableware, and has established rich culture of lacquer, represented by the maki-e technique, unparalleled anywhere in the world. Drastic change in social structure occurred in Japan during the modern period, together with the introduction of a wide variety of aspects of western civilization which have continued to pour into Japan. In this influx of western culture were included the new concepts of “art” and “crafts.” The division of the two concepts greatly affected the environment surrounding lacquer art, as it did other fields of craft as well. While a great deal of influence came from Tokyo, which played a leading role in introducing a new system for art and art education during the Meiji period, the lacquer art world of Kyoto, which had always been intertwined with various traditional and cultural phases ranging from local industry to the refined world of leisure and inherited since the pre-modern period, gave birth to a rich, cultural diversity that cannot be explained within the conventional framework of craft history alone.

This exhibition features the lacquer art of Kyoto in the modern period which until now has garnered little attention. Although there has been a substantial outflow overseas of many significant Japanese modern craft pieces in recent years, some of the most excellent works of prominent craftsmen such as Tomita Koshichi and Koda Shuetsu are returning home from museums abroad on this occasion. This, the first large-scale exhibition of modern lacquer art in Kyoto, introduces superb works by generally unknown lacquer artists from the late Edo, through Meiji and Taisho, to early Showa periods, and will provide us with a unique opportunity to reconsider the modernization of “crafts” through lacquer art.

[Related Event]
Lecture “Lacquerware in Modern Japan” (in Japanese)
Speaker: Yui Nakao (Associate Curator, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto)
Date & Time: August 16 (Sat.), 2014 2:00-3:30 PM (numbered tickets distributed 11:00AM before the lecture hall)
Place: 1F Lecture hall
Fee: Free Admission, maximum capacity 100
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