cfile.library | How “Localism” Worked in Jun Kaneko’s Favor

We are so grateful for our supporters, including the galleries, museums and publishers that provide us with digital versions of exhibition catalogs and other materials of all kinds. This week we want to thank Sokyo Gallery for contributing eight catalogs to cfile.library for your benefit! The following two catalogs are from Jun Kaneko exhibitions that took place in 2014 and 2016. Both are available today in cfile.library. If you are a member, view the catalogs, otherwise start your free 14-day free membership. The rest of Sokyo’s catalogs will be published in the library over time, so keep an eye out!

Jun Kaneko
Kyoto: Sokyo Gallery, 2016
Shioe, Kōzō; Toru, Enomoto
Japanese, English Translations
63 Pages

Jun Kaneko
Kyoto: Sokyo Gallery, 2016
Karasawa, Masahiro
Japanese, English Translations
64 Pages

When Jun Kaneko immigrated to the United States from Japan in 1963 during what some might call an American golden age of art, he fully intended to study painting and to be a great painter. It was not even a full year in Los Angeles before his disposition shifted; he was introduced to clay and the work of Peter Voulkos (whom he studied under) and Ken Price. Kaneko apparently calls this time his “discovery of clay,” which changed his life.

Kaneko’s transition from paint to clay is significant because working with clay has allowed him to paint, and to chose and make for himself the terrain upon which he paints. It is also odd for a Japanese man to discover clay in America, when clay is such a prominent medium in Japan. However, as Kōzō Shioe pointed out in the 2014 catalog, regardless of the medium Kaneko was working with, in Japan in the 60s his scope would have been hindered by steep Japanese traditions, but especially in clay. In the United States, the artist did not have to exist within any craft parameters, but instead let himself be swayed and transformed by other mediums’ movements, such as abstract expressionism.

“I believe that localism is the basis for ceramics as well as all forms of art. Art is a question of possibility–there are no particular features or objectives that must be pursued in any given genre. Everything depends on the creativity of the artist, and the support system of this creativity is localism. The artist lives in a particular place and the fact that they are producing work in that area emerges naturally in their art…. Needless to say, this is especially true of ceramics, a genre of art in which location is a decisive factor in the type of material, technique, and firing the artist uses. It is important that localism be something that the artist grapples with.” — Enomoto Toru

For Kaneko, there was another huge draw to clay once he arrived in the states. In Japan in the 1960s, kilns were itty bitty, too small for the dreams of Jun Kaneko. They were made for production firing yunomi (tea bowls), kyusu (teapots), and choko (sake cups), among other petite, delicate functional-ware. Encountering large kilns in the United States was pivotal for the artist. In fact, his world famous Omaha Project actually developed because he was introduced to an enormous kiln in Omaha, Nebraska by the kiln’s owner.

The Omaha Project manifested as two XXL forms: the dango (large rounded stones) and large thick slabs. He produced many of these forms, the biggest forms he had ever been free to make, firing them in his enormous Omaha kiln. He “striked“ the surfaces, meaning that he made a distinctly “unclouded” vermillion color by applying deoxidant before his copper oxide glaze had a chance to dry. These giant sculptures were hauled to museums all over the world. Kaneko actually resigned from his professorship at Cranbrook School and moved to Omaha where he has a 3,530 sq. meter studio to make his art. I guess we have to give ourselves SOME kind of limitations!

Kōzō Shioe points out,

“He does not have a particular obsession with the texture of clay skin and calcination, as Voulkos did; rather, Kaneko uses the surface of a large shape as a canvas for painting. His typical design includes stripes, spots, spirals, and squares, which reminds one of artists who were his contemporaries, such as Frank Stella and Yayoi Kusama. However, in the case of Kaneko, these designs have a strong self-assertion on a form that is created with clay in a manner that is different from one in which the elements of beauty in works of that era are expressed in patterns and paintings that conform to the form. This also represents a way in which he is exceptional when considered from the perspective of Asian art.”

These two catalogs from Sokyo, though only two years apart, show huge developments in Jun Kaneko’s career. Both are available today in cfile.library. If you are a member, view the catalogs, otherwise start your 14-day free membership.