okimono;
storage box
- Museum number
- 2018,3009.1
- Title
- Object: Mukei sesshoku 無形接触 (Amorphous Contact)
- Description
-
Sculpture, okimono. Made of cast and polished coloured glass. With paulownia storage box signed by the artist.
- Production date
- 2017
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 20 centimetres
-
Height: 59 centimetres
-
Weight: 38 kilograms
-
Width: 22 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Kano’s approach to glass work is unique. Traditionally, materials such as clay or wax were used for casting glass, but the artist, dissatisfied with this conventional moulding method, developed his own technique of creating blown-glass moulds covered with plaster, thereby using glass exclusively in making his forms, with no extraneous materials. As a result, his 'Amorphous' series shows distinctive forms that are possible only due to this unusual casting method. Kano places pieces of glass into the blown-glass mould, and then fires the mould in a kiln. This results in dynamic layers of different colours and shades of glass melded together into a unified flowing body.
The word ‘Amorphous’ is defined as ‘lacking a crystalline structure’, an apt definition of the materiality of glass. Glass becomes solid when cooled but fluid again when re-heated. It has a concrete form which is at the same time fluid. As is a common thread among traditional art-craft (kôgei) artists in Japan, Kano feels that the process of creation is an integral part of the work. For Kano, that process encapsulates time and space, the universe and the world within, inside his carefully polished forms. He takes as inspiration the sculptures of Brassai, Henry Moore and Jean Arp. In this work, Kano attempts to capture the beauty of the stars within the material form of glass. (NCR, 2018)
- Location
- On display (G94/dc15)
- Acquisition date
- 2018
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 2018,3009.1
