CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE CRAFTS

The exhibition took place in Palanga Amber Museum (1st August, 2001- 19th August)
and in Vilnius Picture Gallery (21 August, 2001 - 26 August, 2001)

Virtual Exhibition "Contemporary Japanese Crafts"

The history of crafts in Japan is very ancient, spans several centuries, and is filled with a variety of influences from sources such as China and Korea. These influences have been gradually absorbed and further developed, eventually resulting in works that reflect the Japanese artistic temperament. In modern times, with the rapid introduction of Western social systems and culture, Japanese crafts have not simply retained the traditional forms and decorative embellishments that had been handed down from previous generations. Instead, artists who attempt to express their own artistic temperament through their work have appeared.
These artists have demanded a variety of footholds on which to anchor their own creativity. Some make a traditional artistic view the basis for their own work. Some incorporate artistic ideas from Europe and the United States, such as Art Deco or Constructivism, into their creations. Some intend their creations to be used as part of our everyday life, and they therefore emphasize practical functionality while infusing their work with creativity. Others, taking an avant-garde stance, seek to express new artistic concepts in concrete form in their work. And others attempt to reexamine the meaning of the materials themselves.
Just as the values of the Japanese people became more diverse following the Second World War, crafts also developed in ever more complex ways and branched out in many directions. So much so that it is now considered impossible to state what the salient characteristics or common attributes of Japanese crafts are. However, even though contemporary Japanese crafts may appear to be completely disparate, it is possible to identify several common themes. And therefore it is these common themes that indicate the state of contemporary Japanese crafts.
In order to provide an understanding of a wide variety of crafts, the present exhibition identifies several characteristics of contemporary Japanese crafts and presents works that exhibit those characteristics. The works are classified by material (for example, ceramics, dyed fabrics, and lacquerware), by historical period, or by group of artists. To make contemporary crafts as easy to understand as possible, several common characteristics of the works have been singled out and used to classify the items on display.

Masami Shiraishi,
Chief Curator,
Crafts Gallery, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

 

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