NYAB Event - Takuro Kuwata "Flavor of Nature"

Takuro Kuwata "Flavor of Nature"

Salon 94 Bowery

This event has ended.

Salon 94 Bowery presents 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 Kogei (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 wabi sabi aesthetic of traditional tea ceremony wares.

Kuwata also turns up the volume on Ishihaze, 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 Kairagi 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 platinum surface breaks on top, and spikes of the metallic substrate pierce through the surface, only to melt at the bottom. Like sugar on a confection, the thick glazes slide downward, 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.