 Light and Abundance: Gold in Japanese Art
Place:
Ippodo Gallery - New York, 35 N Moore Street, USA
Date:
Mar 13, 2025 to Apr 17, 2025
Detail: The pure material, never to tarnish nor rust, is the object of fascination and admiration for more than a thousand years in Japan. Gold represents divinity, the eternal, and symbolizes spiritual enlightenment since ancient times, serving to cover statues of Buddha, temples like Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, and the feudal lord Hideyoshi Toyotomi’s famous Gold Tea Room. Under shadows the gold leaf adorned folding byobu screen thrives; “in the darkness, where sunlight never penetrates, gold leaf will pick up a distant glimmer, then suddenly send forth an ethereal glow, a faint golden light like the horizon at sunset” (Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows). ‘Zipangu, the Land of Gold’ as Marco Polo named the archipelago more than five-hundred years ago, reminds how the country was once the foremost global producer of gold, which empowered the development of a distinct Japanese visual culture. While modern minimalist and wabisabi philosophies rise, flamboyance remains a quintessential element of Japanese aesthetics. Ippodo Gallery presents twenty-four top emerging Japanese artists in contemporary kogei for whom gold persists as a medium of innovation and virtue.
Rising star lacquer artist Terumasa Ikeda leads the tradition of raden inlay with mother-of-pearl and gold leaf towards the timeless. Each bejeweled box, tea caddy, and incense container is the thinnest Kiso hinoki wood enveloped in layers of brushed lacquer. The final hand-laid gold and mother-of-pearl sparkle with iridescence in patterns evocative of electronics and the extraterrestrial.
Noriyuki Furutani elevates the tea bowl to its most formal form as the works from his kiln singularly focus the tenmoku—perfectly rounded walls of equal height slanted outward, culminating in a sublime shaped lip. Golden glaze, his latest advancement, realizes the beauty of the play between light and ceramic. Hirotomi Maeda crafts by hand meticulous metalworks that incorporate ancient hand-beaten methods for molding sheets of pure gold and silver into forms of exceptional intricacy and function. The precious metals are inlaid with patterns in scintillating Japanese shibuichi alloy of gold, silver, and copper.
Painter Kaori Someya nurtures the deep and rich hues of mineral pigments with the nobility of gold; the rusticity of the powdered earth-based mediums made from precious ore, animal shells, and sumi charcoal set off the subtle details of her gilded figures. The light dances as it strikes the gold, textured washi paper, and voluptuous paints, giving animated life to the woman and kimono; this is her debut showcase at Ippodo Gallery.
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