"The Designs of Shoya Yoshida"—subtitled "Imagining the Future with the New Mingei Movement"—is the first Tokyo show dedicated to the long-overshadowed figure of Yoshida, who operated far from the capital in what is, even today, the somewhat remote prefecture of Tottori.
Through roughly 300 works and items, many drawn from the Tottori Folk Crafts Museum that Yoshida founded, the exhibition traces how this provincial doctor turned Sōetsu Yanagi’s aesthetic ideals into living, usable objects that greatly influenced Japanese taste. And not only Japanese taste, as the museum's curator of public relations Toshiro Kurasawa is keen to point out.
"We have noticed that as many as 2% of the visitors to this exhibition are foreigners," Kurasawa tells Tokyo Metropolis. "I don’t really know why, because we thought this would be an exhibition that would appeal solely to Japanese visitors."
Yes, something of a mystery, or is it?
The story of the exhibition is of a doctor who took what is sometimes called an "unhealthy interest" in something beyond his professional duties.
Starting in the 1930s, Yoshida began to collaborate with craft artists and network with intellectuals like Sōetsu Yanagi, the art critic, and collector who founded the Mingei ("people’s craft") movement in the mid-1920s. This was set up with a philosophy centred on the idea that real art was in authentic, utilitarian objects made by anonymous craftspeople for everyday use, rather than in showy masterpieces by big name artists attempting to outdo each other.
"Although primarily a doctor, he was keen to assist craft artists, and also to participate in designs, such as chairs and other furniture items," Kurasawa explains. "Even when he went to China as a doctor during the war, he continued to assist craft people in China also, and continued doing this when he returned to Japan."
Chairs seem to have been one of his main interests. The exhibition includes several excellent examples, like the Chinese-style Bentwood Chair designed by Yoshida and made some time in the 1940s.
Chinese Style Bentwood Chair, maker unknown, designed by Shoya Yoshida, 1940s, Private Collection"He became a kind of producer and promoter, seeking out craftsmen and bringing them to wider attention," Kurasawa adds.
This led to collaborations with local makers in ceramics, woodwork, metalwork, dyeing, weaving, and paper to create shinsaku mingei—newly designed folk craft items, suited to modern life. Yoshida was not merely preserving old forms.
.jpg)
Left: Lamp Stand with Round Shade, Masaji Torao, designed by Shoya Yoshida, Later half of 1930s, Tottori Folk Craft Museum / Right: Spherical water dropper with Brush Stand, green glaze, Ushinoto kiln, c1950Many of items like the lamps designed by Yoshida in the 1930s and made by Torao Masaji have a beautiful, muted, retro-futuristic aesthetic that references the Art Deco movement that was then ascendent.
Yoshida's involvement from 1931 in the revival of Ushinoto-ware, a traditional folk pottery from Tottori Prefecture with characteristic green-and-black divided plates, is particularly noticeable at the exhibition.
Plate, green and black glazes, Ushinoto kiln, 1931Lamps, textiles, neckties, bread boards and knives, bamboo bags, and furniture followed. After his return from China, his activities intensified. He set up the Takumi Folk Crafts Shop in Tottori with links to various department stores in Tokyo, the Tottori Folk Crafts Museum, and even became engaged in efforts to protect the now world famous Tottori Sand Dunes, as well as Jinpukaku, a Western-style French Renaissance style residence of the Ikeda clan.
Kawai Kanjiro, a prominent craft potter in the Mingei movement, called Yanagi the "father of Mingei" and Yoshida its "mother." The analogy is apt, because, while Yanagi was the intellectual driving force, Yoshida provided much of the substance and support necessary for the movement to grow, building workshops, distribution networks, shops, and other environments where those ideals could be realised.
Reconstructions of his clinic and residence in the exhibition allow visitors to experience "Mingei architecture," in which examination chairs, medicine organizers, fittings, and furniture form a coherent world. For Yoshida Mingei was far from an "unhealthy interest" beyond his medical duties. He even wrote that medicine and Mingei were not two pursuits but one:
Installation view
The surprising thing, perhaps, is just how much Yoshida had slipped from the public consciousness before this exhibition. A lot of this is to do with how Tokyo-centric Japan is. Yoshida has always been well known in Tottori, and was even well known in Tokyo at one time, but over the years he has faded from view, as the Tokyo-based Yanagi circle became the dominant face of Mingei, this despite the fact that Yoshida and Yanagi were close friends and acknowledged collaborators, as this exhibition makes clear.
But what about the "unexpected" foreign interest in Yoshida and indeed in Mingei? Really, this is not to be wondered at, as another prominent associate of the movement and friend of Yoshida was the British potter Bernard Leach (1887-1979).
Indeed, this is a question that cuts to the core of why foreigners come to Japan in the first place. What draws many of them here is a fascination with what they see as essentially a traditional craft society at odds with the crass commercialisation of a globalised West.
Of course, both sides exists in Japan, side-by-side, but it is the side of Japan that harks back to authentic craftsmanship that appeals to the visitor. There is thus plenty here to interest both Japanese and foreign visitors.
Portrait of Shoya Yoshida, photo by Hirokichi Ikeuchi, ca 1965, Tottori Fold Crafts Museum
The objects here feel immediate, practical, unpretentious, and beautiful in that natural, unfussy way. The Mingei ideal continues to whisper across the years to those who will listen! The show does not romanticize; but instead clearly sets out how a doctor assembled networks of makers, established sales channels, and set up educational institutions, so that crafts could remain part of ordinary existence rather than museum curiosities.
Thanks to the excellent work of Mr Kurasawa and the museum's staff, the exhibition has plenty of information in English, as does the catalogue. Also, with a few exceptions, photography is freely permitted.
Reconstructions of his clinic and residence in the exhibition allow visitors to experience "Mingei architecture," in which examination chairs, medicine organizers, fittings, and furniture form a coherent world. For Yoshida Mingei was far from an "unhealthy interest" beyond his medical duties. He even wrote that medicine and Mingei were not two pursuits but one:
"I live my life as a doctor with the spirit of Mingei."
Installation viewThe surprising thing, perhaps, is just how much Yoshida had slipped from the public consciousness before this exhibition. A lot of this is to do with how Tokyo-centric Japan is. Yoshida has always been well known in Tottori, and was even well known in Tokyo at one time, but over the years he has faded from view, as the Tokyo-based Yanagi circle became the dominant face of Mingei, this despite the fact that Yoshida and Yanagi were close friends and acknowledged collaborators, as this exhibition makes clear.
But what about the "unexpected" foreign interest in Yoshida and indeed in Mingei? Really, this is not to be wondered at, as another prominent associate of the movement and friend of Yoshida was the British potter Bernard Leach (1887-1979).
Indeed, this is a question that cuts to the core of why foreigners come to Japan in the first place. What draws many of them here is a fascination with what they see as essentially a traditional craft society at odds with the crass commercialisation of a globalised West.
Of course, both sides exists in Japan, side-by-side, but it is the side of Japan that harks back to authentic craftsmanship that appeals to the visitor. There is thus plenty here to interest both Japanese and foreign visitors.
Portrait of Shoya Yoshida, photo by Hirokichi Ikeuchi, ca 1965, Tottori Fold Crafts MuseumThe objects here feel immediate, practical, unpretentious, and beautiful in that natural, unfussy way. The Mingei ideal continues to whisper across the years to those who will listen! The show does not romanticize; but instead clearly sets out how a doctor assembled networks of makers, established sales channels, and set up educational institutions, so that crafts could remain part of ordinary existence rather than museum curiosities.
Thanks to the excellent work of Mr Kurasawa and the museum's staff, the exhibition has plenty of information in English, as does the catalogue. Also, with a few exceptions, photography is freely permitted.
Panasonic Shiodome Museum of Art, Now ~ 20th December
1000 yen (online ticket)/ 1,200 yen (in-person ticket purchased at the museum)
Students (high school and college): 700 yen (500 yen)
Admission is free for children in middle school or younger and the disabled
Admission is free for children in middle school or younger and the disabled
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please feel free to comment. All comments are moderated.