Permanent Collection 2nd term 2023

The study and critique of art are transmitted around the world, and we enjoy seeing and understanding works that are considered to be masterpieces in their historical context. This exhibition introduces artists who deal with art history itself as a motif for creation. Diving into the work of MORIMURA, Yasumasa and HASHIZUME, Sai will expand your interpretation of art with fresh surprises.

There are countless pieces that depict events that happened in reality, functioning as traces and records of human action and holding the potential to be inherited as history told through narrative and art. In Japan, there was a long period in which work marked as “war painting”–painted by the military commission during the Pacific War–was taboo, but HIRAKAWA, Kota attempts to reconcile them as a contemporary human.

Narratives are handed down, rich in detail, through the involvement of many people rather than by individuals. If a narrative appears temporarily before fading away, like a festival, it can stir the imagination even more. Christo and KAWAMATA, Tadashi have transferred canvases onto architecture and earth to plot a project involving many people. The narratives of their proposals, drawings, and extracts of memos will be handed down by the audience because the temporary “piece of work” has drawn to a close. KONOIKE Tomoko’s “A Fable Told by the Wind” is a hand-crafted piece born through people who worked side by side with the artist. The audience can even place their hands on it: this is how we can become a part of its narrative.

Through these works, we offer you the opportunity to enter the world of art and to enjoy stretching out the branches of their narratives.

The master of OTA, Hitoshi and Katsuko, an artist couple residing in Takamatsu City, was ISOI, Joshin. In 1952, Katsuko went along with her stepfather ISOI to Okayama University, where he had been invited to give lectures to open an art course in the Education Department. There she met ITANO, Hitoshi, later OTA, Hitoshi, who was working as an assistant technician for woodwork production. ISOI encouraged Katsuko to develop skill lacquerware skills, and fostered her technique. She married Hitoshi, who had begun studying under ISOI, in 1960 and they polished their skills together. Hitoshi believed Katsuko could continue the traditional techniques of the kinma lacquerware of Thailand and Myanmar, characterized by fine line engraving patterns, while he would explore the possibilities of lacquerware and revitalize rantai-kinma (lacquerware layered over a bamboo basket), which had died down in the late Meiji era. In this way, he expanded the possibilities of painterly expression in lacquerware.

During his life, OTA, Hitoshi had four students. First amongst these, OTANI, Hayato (living in Takamatsu City) explains that his earliest encounter with lacquerware was OTA’s home production at a time when he was working as an art teacher at Ogi Elementary School. OTANI officially became an apprentice after graduating from Takamatsu Kougei High School, and through his addition of unique work with the techniques of rantai-kinma was recognized as a Holder of Important Intangible Cultural Property, Kinma. TSUJI, Takashi (living in Takamatsu City) became an apprentice of OTA after his father, the lacquerware artist Shoji, fell ill. One of TSUJI’s ancestors is TSUJI, Hokuyosai I, from Ishikawa, who learned maki-e inlay in Kyoto, and Takashi produces work that emerges from his study of the work of predecessors, as well as what he learned from OTA.

This exhibition focuses on partners, masters and students, and families, introducing 26 pieces of work by eight artists that were produced in the course of inheriting traditions and exploring individual techniques.