28 ASIAN ART Exhibitions


JAPANESE BAMBOO ART The Abbey Collection


BAMBOO (Bambusoideae) is one of the fastest growing plants in the world and is native to almost all temperate regions on Earth, and some varieties can grow as fast a one inch in forty minutes. Bamboo is probably the most widely used, multi-purpose plant in the world. In South, Southeast and East Asia it is of strong economic and cultural importance as a food source, but mainly as a versatile source of building material because it is stronger that brick, wood or concrete and has tensile strength that rivals steel. From prehistoric days, areas of the world, where bamboo is native, have employed it to make items for domestic and farming use. It appears that the Chinese first began to use bamboo in more decorative ways, to wit, decorative baskets that could be used indoors for various purposes, such as food trays and more importantly as containers for tall ceramic beakers to hold water for flowers. Tis probably occurred during the Tang or Song dynasties, but whenever the exact date, they certainly existed during the Japanese Muromachi period (1336-1573), when the concept of taking tea in a ceremonial way was imported from China into Japan where it was quickly adopted by the


Dancing Frog by Hayakawa Shokosai III (1864-1922), Japan, Taishō period (1912–26), 1918 Mandake and Chikkon (Ara-ami), 52.1 x 22.2 cm


ruling elite, particularly with the ruling shogun and the daimyo, the feudal lords. Part of this adoption necessitated items of Chinese origin, karamono, or ‘Chinese things’. Items such as archaistic bronze vessels and decorative bamboo baskets, both used as flower containers, were most in demand, as well as Chinese taste in Japanese sansui landscape paintings.


Te Japanese began making baskets in imitation of the Chinese originals to fill the need of Tea practitioners, but for nationwide purposes,


utilitarian bamboo articles continued to be made. Of greater importance to the eventual development of modern Japanese bamboo basketry was the rise of the sencha tea ceremony in the late 17th century. As styles of bamboo weaving varied slightly from area to area, they continued unchanged and these styles were instrumental during the late 19th century, when artisans began to create works in bamboo for domestic and international exhibitions, often continuing methods used in one of the original provincial styles. Tis remarkable exhibition of Japanese bamboo masterworks is made possible by Diane and Arthur Abbey from whose collection more than 90 baskets, of which 71 are promised gifts to the Metropolitan, are on view. Te exhibition is rounded out by the inclusion of some of the Met’s own collection of bamboo works of art, paintings, as well as screens, ceramics and metalwork, which either feature bamboo as subject matter or would be found in situ with works in bamboo.


Te time frame of the exhibition begins in the late 19th century and continues up to today. Because of the three principal regional styles, the exhibition has been divided


Two other Iizuka lineage Living National Treasures, Katsushiro Soho (b 1934) and Fujinuma Noboru (b 1945) are also represented. Te warmth of Kyushu was


ideal for bamboo and local artists such as Shono Shounsai (1904-1974) thrived. In 1967, he became the first bamboo artist to be appointed a Living National Treasure and his new techniques and sculptures created a distinct regional style.


Te sculptural tradition in Sokai no Uzo by Torii Ippo (b 1930)


into these regions: Kansai (western Japan, Osaka and Kyoto), Kanto (eastern Japan,Tokyo), and Kyushu (southernmost Japan). Kansai, with the imperial


capital, Kyoto, there, was the original region where karamono were first made. Together with flower baskets (hanakago), bamboo was also used to make articles and chests for the sencha Tea Ceremony in Chinese style from then through today. Te three most important masters of the Meiji (1868-1912) and modern eras were Hayakawa Shōkosai I (1815-1897), Wada Waichisai I (1851- 1901), and Tanabe Chikuunsai I (1877-1937), all of whom are represented, as well as some of their line descendants. Tey were the first to sign their pieces because once bamboo had been used for strictly utilitarian objects, its


use had been gradually elevated to an art form. Te Kanto region was much


more pioneering and experimenting than Kansai and several masters, principally Iizuka Rokansai (1890-1958) and Iizuka Hosai II (1872- 1934) came to be known through large public exhibitions. It was Rokansai who broke


traditional boundaries with his experimental forms and was the instigation for modern and contemporary artists to approach bamboo as material for sculpture. Two of his best-known techniques were ‘bundled-plaiting’ (tabane-ami) and ‘embroidered-plaiting’ (sashi-ami) and are still in popular use today. His son, Iizuka Shokansai (1919- 2004), also in this exhibition, was declared a Living National Treasure in 1982.


basketry which descended from Rokansai and Shono Shounsai is well represented here in the works of the three regions by the contemporary artists, including Honma Hideaki (b 1959), Torii Ippo (1930-2011), Fujitsuka Shosei (b 1949), Nagakura Kenichi (b 1952), Honda Syoryu (b 1951), Kibe Seiho (b 1951), and Shono Tokuzo (b 1942). Tese baskets are contextualised by contemporary lacquers, ceramics, and textiles. All in all, the exhibition is a flight of imagery on how such a simple plant can be transformed into such objects of beauty, each completely different in their own way, thanks to the human abilities to imagine and to create. MARTIN BARNES LORBER


• From 13 June to 4 February 2018, Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, www.metmuseum.org. • 28 June and 25 August, at 11 am, exhibition tours with the curator Monika Bincsik


SHIRANA SHAHBAZI First Things First


THE KINDL is presenting the first thorough retrospective of Iranian photographer Shirana Shahbazi (b Tehran, 1974) in Berlin, highlighting 35 pieces completed over the past 10 years. Shirana Shahbazi is a young talented photographer who studied in Dortmund as the German school was the centre of attention setting new trends in the medium. Developing a very personal language of her own, she has been going about her career on her own terms, not getting caught in the turmoil of a buoyant art market that would dictate the pace of her artistic undertakings. Alternating between still lives, abstract geometrical


Palme (2014) by Shirana Shahbazi, two-coloured lithography on Zerkall Bütten paper, 122 x 94 cm © Shirana Shahbazi


forms, street scenes as well as travel pictures, her photographs are deliberately not aiming at perfection, maintaining a balance between set guidelines, chance and improvisation. Often keeping a grainy quality in her still life photographs, she looks at the world through her own lens, immersing the viewer in her subject matter, cutting short the distance that usually comes with the medium of photography between the viewer and the image. Especially in the featured street scenes - mainly pictures taken upon her trip by car from Switzerland where she now lives to her native Iran – the viewer is immersed in the photograph


capturing the noise, the dust and the life of the street. Te result is an outlook into Shahbazi’s world where perspective, angle, colour, construction, structure, surface and composition drive her pieces. After two comprehensive retrospectives, the present one at the KINDL and the one at the Kunsthalle in Bern, Switzerland, she finds herself at the crossroad towards a new step in her career with a new body of work unquestionably about to be completed in the very near future. OLIVIA SAND


• Until 6 August, KINDL, Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin, www.kindle-berlin.de


Fruit 03 (2007) by Shirana Shahbazi,


from the series: Flowers, Fruits & Portraits © Shirana Shahbazi


ASIAN ART SUMMER QUARTER 2017


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