Asian Art Newspaper | September 2021
New York Gallery Shows
Classical Dignity, Contemporary Beauty
For his first solo exhibition outside of Japan, Itō Hidehito has created uniquely personal vessels and sculptural forms displaying his exceptional skill in craquelure celadon. Through steadfast experimentation, Itō pushed himself to create his largest ever works exclusively for his New York debut at Joan B Mirviss LTD.
The artist has not shied away from tackling the long, storied tradition of celadon, nor from engaging with its daunting array of styles. Earlier in his career, Hidehito experimented with white porcelain (hakuji) and marbleised (nerikomi) porcelain, but his dedicated study of Song-dynasty ceramics has led to his latest body of work that dives into the variety of celadon types using the exceedingly difficult craquelure technique. Pushing his forms even further, some works are fully sculptural and flaunt the craquelure effect in rounded, spherical shapes or sharply pleated monoliths.
This show is the culmination of the gallery's two-year long series featuring the range of ceramics produced in the historic Mino region of Japan that is at the heart of both its longstanding clay tradition and its most innovative interpretations.
