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Ryoji Koie
RYOJI KOJE who was born in Tokoname Japan in Tokoname is a traditional pottery area - one of the Six Ancient Kilns of Japan, with more than 1, years of ceramic heritage – and Ryoji lived there much of his life. From the age of 10 Koie, who was born into a non-potting family, worked as a labourer in a drainage pipe factory, then as a tile maker at another.
At 16, he began producing his own pots, before training at the Tokoname Municipal Ceramics Research Institute.
Biography template free Born in in Tokoname, one of the oldest ceramic centers in Japan, Koie studied ceramics locally but almost immediately developed his iconoclastic style. Rather than labor to preserve tradition, as a young man, he looked to movements in postwar contemporary art such as the abstract expressionist paintings of Jackson Pollock and the found-object ethos of Mono-ha. The gestural application of glazes on his ceramics created dynamic surfaces that reflected this innovative approach. His works can be found in the permanent collections of prominent museums on five continents. Green Oribe-glazed round tsubo vessel with iron-oxide splash patterning and incised decoration.Noted as a ceaseless experimenter he was thoroughly conversant with every precept in the traditional Japanese book of ceramic rules and pushed every one of them as far as was possible and often thoroughly debilitated them. His was an exuberant personality and he lived his life to the full resulting in a reputation as something of a ‘wild man’.
But those who knew him claimed it was simply an impatient lust for life that meant there was much he chose not to be concerned with. He attracted many followers and his extended household and studio seemed always able to accommodate yet another. It was not only Japan but from many countries came his followers and he welcomed all.
Ryoji koie biography template free
In he spent time in the studio of Sebastian Blackie in Farnham preparing a body of fluid work in stoneware for an exhibition at Galerie Besson. In June he spent 3 weeks in residency at the each Pottery St Ives - work from which is on exhibition at the gallery in Sept - Oct Rebecca Peters. He handles it with a naturalness and playfulness which almost belies his skill and knowledge but which produces work of great freshness, sensuality and vigour. He delights in the clay and selects material many potters would reject as unusable, stimulated by its character just as one might respond to an impossible but fascinating person.He did not teach but simply made and they learned and taught others and many today make Koie-like works unintentionally. His spirit remains in numerous works in many countries.
He originally learned his ceramics at high school then in entered the Tokoname Ceramic Art Institute and the following year won the principal award at the Asahi Ceramic Art Exhibition.
He thought at the time that it was strange. “I did not expect it to be so easy“, yet he was already starting to become disillusioned with the way the Japanese ceramic world was structured and thus began his rebellious path.
Ryoji koie biography template pdf The hidden meaning of the pieces is that one can do what they want to, instead of only listening to what someone else is saying. Ryoji Koie might be considered one of Japan's most forward-thinking artists of his time. Born in in Tokoname, Koie studied ceramics from a young age. Still, his bright spirit and curiosity made him a bold and experimental artist while staying true to traditional Japanese ceramic forms. His gestural application of glazes on the surface and the giant x creates a dynamic and innovative approach inspired by postwar contemporary art by artists such as Jackson Pollock.He set up his first studio and proceeded to make work in several genres from tableware in many styles – white works, hikidashi-guro (black), sometsuke (overglazed porcelain), yakishime and oribe through to trail-blazing sculptural expression like the singular series made, at different times, in tribute to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Chernobyl and 9/11 where partial decomposition and disintegration was an element of the planned outcome from the firing part of the process.
He deliberately did not court skill saying that what was more important was what else was present in the work. “The highly skilled I am sorry for – there is no meaning in just creating something. Those with only skill don’t convey feelings in their work.” His work could be provocative, boisterous and intense yet always with a sense of freedom and humanity, from his large installations to small sake cups.
One acknowledged huge influence was the revolutionary, s Sodeisha artists in Kyoto, in particular Yagi and Yamada.
Yet he also said “Everything is my teacher” and wrote that his influences included: “My mother, Yami’s death and my father.
Biography template for professionals: Considered one of Japan's most innovative ceramic artists, his work made him an international leader in ceramics. Koie's art parallels that of 'Sodeisha,' a group of avant-garde ceramic artists founded in by Kazuo Yagi and Osamu Suzuki during the aftermath of the Second World War.
My grandparents’ stories of their travels. The Tomimoto family and music. Fishermen and sea, wind, sun. A slope, the shadow of an overpass. Pottery fragments, the remains of fires, spirits. I can’t write the names of drinking establishments – there is perhaps much one cannot write that has been a teacher or anti-teacher.
Shitara’s water and cold wind.
Various people. My first wife, Yoshiko.”
The Koie style made its major debut in , at his first exhibition of that year, RETURN TO EARTH. Koie had been scheduled to show at an outdoor exhibition at the Modern Art Museum in Nagoya, but the event had to be cancelled due to political interference. Koie, beside himself with anger, showed up at the exhibition site anyway, and created a work there, alone.
Ryoji koie biography template Tokoname is a traditional pottery area - one of the Six Ancient Kilns of Japan, with more than 1, years of ceramic heritage — and Ryoji lived there much of his life. From the age of 10 Koie, who was born into a non-potting family, worked as a labourer in a drainage pipe factory, then as a tile maker at another. At 16, he began producing his own pots, before training at the Tokoname Municipal Ceramics Research Institute. Noted as a ceaseless experimenter he was thoroughly conversant with every precept in the traditional Japanese book of ceramic rules and pushed every one of them as far as was possible and often thoroughly debilitated them. But those who knew him claimed it was simply an impatient lust for life that meant there was much he chose not to be concerned with.For this work, he took the powder of pulverized sanitation equipment (toilet bowls and basins) and formed a series of mounds, then placed on top of each an impression of his face, moulded by means of a mask, which was seen to gradually decompose, from mound to mound, until finally consumed in the final mounds.
This series shocked the art world but many came to see Koie as a great artist who questioned existing beliefs and one who made tremendous discoveries within the stuffy, tradition-bound Japanese ceramic art world of the time.
His main questions back then were, “Who am I? What is living? What is dying?” And he answered “It’s how we live.”
He travelled to many countries exhibiting, giving demonstrations and talking about life and work – for him the two were inextricably mixed and his outgoing personality left an indelible impression wherever he went.
His visit, as a guest artist to the first Gulgong Festival back in the s was unforgettable for those who were there and they recall events with a wide smile.
He returned to Tokonome to build a 20 metre long anagama kiln deliberately designed to fire very unevenly.
He won honours at the prestigious Vallauris Ceramics exhibition in and in was invited into the then influential International Academy of Ceramics. In he became Professor of the Aichi Prefecture University of Fine Arts and in he was gifted the esteemed, Japan Ceramic Society Award.
His work can be found in major museums and galleries around the world from the Smithsonian in Washington to the V+A in London, the Metropolitan in NYC and the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne as well as every significant museum in Japan and Korea.
So when you observe and enjoy work that appears robust and spontaneous, or distorted as though still spinning, or with broken-bread textures and consciously gestural applications of lips, handles and lugs, or gritty, undomesticated surfaces and forms that have moved beyond utility, then think about one of the originators and certainly a master, Ryoji Koie.
Koie found fame through the unconventional energy of his pottery and performances, he passed away in the summer pf at the age of
Images: Ryoji Koie, portrait; portrait (photo Michael Harvey for Apollo Magazine); vase, height 17,2 cm (source MAAK London); large Oribe Tsubo, height 28,8 cm (source MAAK London); teabowl, height 8,8, cm, ca.
(source MAAK London).