photo: WATANABE Osamu

Style of Dominance

ArtistNAKAMURA Kohei
Year2012
Material/ Techniqueporcelain, wooden frame
Size/ DurationH206 × W298 × D9.5cm
Copyright Notice© NAKAMURA Kohei
Year of acquisition/ donation2013(作品購入年月日:2013/03/25)
DescriptionBorn in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan in 1948. Lives and works there.

After taking ceramics into a contemporary art-like realm in the 1990s, Nakamura Kohei around 2000 expanded his work to large-scale installations and, in 2004, produced "Throne of Idea". After reawakening to the tea ceremony, he then pursued tea conceptually through the production of tea-bowls and tea implements. For the “Art Crafting towards the Future” exhibition at this museum in 2012, he again produced large-scale ceramic works after a long hiatus, employing them in an installation along with "Throne of Idea". He has since returned to creating tea-bowls and – taking an equivocal stance that may be understood as either archaic or critical – engages in “copying.”

Nakamura creates ceramic objects using his mastery of the katamono shaping technique. This decorative wall relief he created using this technique. A pattern relief work with projecting features, rendered in an extremely minimal style, it employs a single pattern that repeats infinitely. It is a large work, the most austere of Nakamura’s ceramic pieces until this time. From creating floor-standing objects in the 1990s, he moved to wall installations in 1999 with "RESURRECTION". This work, "Style of Dominance", is a sequel to "RESURRECTION", a further developed version, we can believe. Its tenaciously repetitive pattern goes beyond beauty to awaken a feeling of fear.

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