Considered one of the most inventive and expressive artists to emerge in contemporary ceramics, Akio Takamori focuses on human relationships and an ongoing search for personal and cultural identity in an era of increasing global influences and contradictions. Born in Nobeoka, Japan in 1950, the artist has spent more than half of his life living in the United States. Informed by a dual citizenship, Takamori’s sculptures are liberated from their social context and grouped to suggest the artist’s belief in a collective memory representing the shifting historical, cultural, and racial perspectives that create individual and group identity. (Barry Friedman Ltd)

Akio Takamori wordt beschouwd als een van de meest inventieve en expressieve kunstenaars in de hedendaagse keramiek. Hij richt zich op menselijke relaties en een voortdurende zoektocht naar persoonlijke en culturele identiteit in een tijdperk van toenemende wereldwijde invloeden en tegenstellingen. De kunstenaar werd in 1950 geboren in Nobeoka, Japan, en woonde meer dan de helft van zijn leven in de Verenigde Staten. Geïnformeerd door een dubbel staatsburgerschap, zijn Takamori’s sculpturen bevrijd van hun sociale context en gegroepeerd om het geloof van de kunstenaar te suggereren in een collectief geheugen dat de verschuivende historische, culturele en raciale perspectieven vertegenwoordigt die individuele en groepsidentiteit creëren. 

With Alice / Venus, Takamori explores the fundamental difference in adolescent girls before and after puberty. His figures may represent the same young woman, but at different times in her life. “Alice,” with her ruffled collar and dress directly appropriated from a Velasquez painting represents the younger child, while the post-pubescent girl is depicted as “Venus” whose nude body resembles a Roman marble interpretation complete with missing arms. The theme of assimilation runs through both series of work with the decidedly Japanese features of the heads contrasted with their Western torsos. (ibidem)

Met Alice / Venus onderzoekt Takamori het fundamentele verschil tussen adolescente meisjes voor en na de puberteit. Zijn figuren kunnen dezelfde jonge vrouw voorstellen, maar op verschillende momenten in haar leven. “Alice,” met haar kraag met ruches en haar jurk die rechtstreeks afkomstig is van een schilderij van Velasquez, stelt het jongere kind voor, terwijl het meisje na de puberteit wordt afgebeeld als “Venus”, wiens naakte lichaam lijkt op een Romeinse marmeren interpretatie, compleet met ontbrekende armen. Het thema van assimilatie loopt als een rode draad door beide series, waarbij de onmiskenbaar Japanse trekken van de hoofden in contrast staan met hun westerse torso.

Takamori’s sculptures are inspired by memories of his childhood and the people who surrounded him: nurses, students, fishmongers, and gossiping women. These are not specific individuals, but types of people that are contrasted with figures borrowed from paintings by Old Masters, Greek Mythology, history and photography highlighting differences of class, culture, and politics. As both an insider and an outsider in Japanese and American cultures, the artist warps time and history to create a global village.

(Barry Friedman Ltd)

Altijd op zoek naar liefde en schoonheid in de duisternis, sprak Takamori ooit over kunstenaars als doorgeefluiken. Hij vergeleek ze met regen die op de grond valt, waarbij elke regen geleidelijk wordt opgenomen en de grond verrijkt, zodat er nieuw gras kan ontspruiten: “Kunstenaars zijn als regendruppels – stuk voor stuk. Je moet dit erkennen als de natuurlijke rol van het beïnvloeden van de samenleving door middel van kunst.” Takamori zelf biedt zo’n catharsis door kwetsbare momenten uit te beelden die de feilbaarheid van onze menselijke ziel laten zien. De werken in deze tentoonstelling wijzen op onze fouten, maar Takamori herinnert ons er ook aan dat kunst kan helpen om de strijd te verlichten. (Judy Anderson)

The simplified volume and form of the musculature along with Akio’s painterly glazing echo his interest in classical sculpture of the East and West. The nuance of gesture references Greek Kouros, Renaissance sculpture, and Buddhist sculpture. While creating this work, Takamori was also influenced by photography. Edward Weston’s photograph of his son Neil and a photograph of three boys taken by John Swope, one of the first American photographers to set foot on Japanese soil at the end of World War II, are of particular influence. Takamori continues to push the boundaries of the ceramic medium through his subject matter and scale of the work. All of his works are personal investigation of cross-cultural attitude about family, sexuality, and relationships. (James Harris Gallery)

Takamori’s childhood in Japan was both idyllic and unconventional. His father, a dermatologist and urologist, specialized in treating venereal diseases and victims of the nuclear bombing. His small medical clinic was attached to the family house creating a bustling environment where nurses and members of Takamori’s extended family lived. Takamori’s artwork has been influenced by the many stories he heard from the nurses and the wide range of patients his father treated. The young Takamori also took great interest in browsing through his father’s vast library which contained not only graphic medical texts, but also an extensive array of books on Western and Japanese art.

Titled Willy B, the sculpture memorializes a single action by Chancellor Willy Brandt, who in 1970 became the first German leader to visit Poland since 1939, when the country was invaded by Nazi Germany. Words are often times insufficient, and the Chancellor instead opted to act: he laid a wreath upon the monument to the thousands of Jews killed in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. As captured in the documentation of the event, Brandt knelt and solemnly bowed his head. This gesture—one of humility, deference, and respect—was seen and felt throughout the world, understood as a pivotal step by the German government towards healing the traumas of World War II.

“The artist demonstrates his painterly approach to the three-dimensional with his glazes by layering patterns upon patterns in bold colors that imbue his work with a baroque sensibility. The intense hues evoke a feeling of joy and youthful inventiveness. These painted figures have only an implied connection to the young, perhaps as their siblings or as symbolically related, representing the next stage of development and again referencing notions around aging and the cycle of life”. (James Harris Gallery Seattle)

Net voor deze werken werden tentoongesteld vertelde Akio dat deze vrijstaande kinderen geïnspireerd waren op de spookachtige, pijnlijke foto hier onderaan. De foto komt uit de serie ‘Photographing the Bomb’ van de Japanse fotograaf Yosuke Yamahata. Op 9 augustus werd hij uitgezonden om de vernietiging vast te leggen. In 1952 schreef hij over deze ervaring de tekst onder de foto.

A warm wind began to blow. Here and there in the distance, I saw small fires, like elf-fires, smoldering: Nagasaki had already been completely destroyed. Higashi, Yamada, and I progressed quickly along the prefectural road that ran down the middle of the plain. Stepping carefully in spite of our hurry, we nearly tripped on the human and animal corpses lying in our path.

The photograph here is of a child carrying his brother as they searched for the parents amongst the rubble of what once been a city and villages. This is one of those images I wish I could un-see, scrub it from the mind. It is now scorched into my memory, as it was with Takamori, and hopefully it now resides your brain as well because it is something that should never be forgotten, a ghostly shadow to his ceramic sculpture. 

(Garth Clark is the Chief Editor of CFile.) (Cfile.Capsule. 08.06.15)

En dit jaar zal het acht jaar geleden zijn sinds Akio Takamori stierf aan pancreaskanker. Zijn website wordt nauwelijks bijgehouden, je moet steeds dieper onderduiken in de tijd om bronnen en besprekingen te vinden. Deze wereld heeft helaas bijzonder weinig met het voorbije. Tik zijn naam in en ga verder zelf op zoek mochten deze beelden en woorden je nieuwsgierig hebben gemaakt. 

Hij laadde zijn laatste oven in, de dag voor hij stierf.

Ayumi Horie, a potter who studied with Takamori as a graduate student at the UW, agreed that Takamori’s work was always evolving.

“He was the kind of artist we as students aspired to be,” she said.

Zo lang je naar dit intense, liefdevolle werk kunt kijken weet je dat hij inderdaad een weg vond om bij ons te blijven.