It is not that there is no pleasure in placing two things with such radically different characters side by side, but that is not quite the point. Rather, the idea is to look at Tanimoto’s distinctive forms through the two different lenses of Iga and white porcelain, and perhaps gain some insight into what is going on inside his mind.
Looking at the works featured in this catalogue, for example, his tea bowls are built upon an extraordinarily complex sense of balance. Their forms are so finely poised that if any part were shifted by even a single millimeter, the entire thing might fall apart.
His plates and bowls are different. Their broad, relaxed forms seem almost to make visible the inherent plasticity of clay, into which Tanimoto introduces sharper, highly intentional gestures to create forms unmistakably his own. Whether Tanimoto himself is conscious of it or not, I sense something in them that connects to Kōetsu.
Then there are the guinomi.
Perhaps he made them on a day when he had lost his wallet.
There is clearly intention behind them, and yet completely alien elements appear to have been attached almost by accident. They belong to an entirely different world from the tea bowls and plates.
We asked Tanimoto to work in white porcelain as another way of looking into the mind capable of producing such forms.
I have rambled on at some length about form, but his work also possesses a highly distinctive sense of keshiki—the landscapes created across the surfaces. His firing methods are unusual, and the resulting textures have the rustic, untamed character that makes Iga so compelling.
Quite simply, the works are deeply attractive as ceramics.
And they make me very glad that Tanimoto became a potter.
The exhibition will feature tea wares, flower vessels, sake wares, and tableware.
We very much hope you will come and see the exhibition.
