Avant-garde Ceramics: Home

"Originally a French term denoting the vanguard of an army, the word ‘avant-garde’ entered the art vocabulary in early 19th-century France to indicate any artist, movement, or artwork that develops experimental concepts, processes, and forms questioning the status quo.
Radical by nature, avant-garde art pushes pre-existing boundaries and pursues unexplored artistic avenues."

" ...At its heart, the Avant-garde movement seeks to push the boundaries of artistic expression by avoiding existing structures and embracing individuality and self-expression ..."

"French for “advanced guard,” originally used to denote the vanguard of an army and first applied to art in France in the early 19th century. In reference to art, the term means any artist, movement, or artwork that breaks with precedent and is regarded as innovative and boundaries-pushing. Because of its radical nature and the fact that it challenges existing ideas, processes, and forms, avant-garde art has often been met with resistance and controversy."

"Italian Futurism emerged in the first decade of this century as a movement of both art historical and political significance. Led by impresario poet and propagandist F T. Marinetti, Futurism inaugurated the avant-gardist attack on the autonomous status of art in modern bourgeois society, the repudiation of tradition, and the emphasis on formal innovation that would characterize modernist movements for decades to follow ... "

" ... It is from Italy that we launch through the world this violently upsetting incendiary manifesto of ours. With it, today, we establish Futurism, because we want to free this land from its smelly gangrene of professors, archaeologists, ciceroni and antiquarians. For too long has Italy been a dealer in second-hand clothes. We mean to free her from the numberless museums that cover her like so many graveyards ... "

" ... Italy lagged Britain, France, Germany, and the United States in the pace of its industrial development. Culturally speaking, the country’s artistic reputation was grounded in Ancient, Renaissance and Baroque art and culture. Simply put, Italy represented the past. In the early 1900s, a group of young and rebellious Italian writers and artists emerged determined to celebrate industrialization ... "

"Futurism was an Italian art movement of the early twentieth century that aimed to capture in art the dynamism and energy of the modern world ... "

"Focusing on progress and modernity, the Futurists sought to sweep away traditional artistic notions and replace them with an energetic celebration of the machine age. Focus was placed on creating a unique and dynamic vision of the future and artists incorporated portrayals of urban landscapes as well as new technologies such as trains, cars, and airplanes into their depictions. Speed, violence, and the working classes were all glorified by the group as ways to advance change and their work covered a wide variety of artforms, including architecture, sculpture, literature, theatre, music, and even food ... "

" ... The goal of this essay is to introduce a quite different development in postwar Japanese ceramics - an avant-garde movement that has been of profound significance to several generations of Japanese ceramic artists and their patrons. The leading figures in this movement were a group of young Kyoto potters who looked not back - to historical models or an ideal of rustic simplicity - but outward across national traditions and boundaries ... "

"Japanese art post the second world war is infinitely fascinating. At a time when the country was under Allied occupation and Japan had paid a high price for the war in the Pacific to end, its artists were revelling in new found freedom ... "

"During the interwar years, the focus of Italian Futurism expanded from the fine arts into a variety of media and mass media that were easily accessible to the wider public. On the one hand, the Futurists were attracted by new forms of communication intended for a wide audience, like the radio and advertising; on the other, they engaged with the large market of commercial items, such as furniture and household objects, that entered the majority of the Italian dwellings. Their intent was a real union between art and everyday life, a total rejection of traditional art hierarchies going beyond the move by the fine artist into the decorative arts, which would become increasingly popular in postwar Italy with artists like Fausto Melotti, Lucio Fontana, and Giacomo Manzù, to mention just a few ... "

"Although traditionally used as a medium for functional or decorative objects, ceramic has become a medium that is increasingly used by contemporary. Here is the work of some important contemporary ceramic artists from around the world!"

"The son of a Buddhist priest who later became a ceramic artist, YAMADA HIKARU was born in Tokyo and raised in the ceramic center of Gifu. It was in Kyoto, however, where he received his professional training and met fellow ceramist Yagi Kazuo (1918-1979) ..."

"Born in Kyoto on July 4, 1918, YAGI KAZUO was the eldest son of ceramist Yagi Issō (1894-73), who excelled at works inspired by Chinese Song Dynasty ceramics. After graduating from the sculpture department of the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts (currently Kyoto City University of Arts), Yagi Kazuo became a student at the Ceramics Research Institute in Kyoto, and in 1946 took part in establishing the Young Pottery-makers’ Collective, which was disbanded in mid-1948. Later that year, he co-founded the avant-garde group Sōdeisha as a vehicle for expanding the expressive possibilities of clay ..."

"The Sodeisha group was founded by the artists Yagi Kazuo, Kano Tetsuo, Yamada Hikaru, Matsui Yoshisuke, and Suzuki Osamu in 1948. While the group’s members came and went over the years, Sodeisha remained at the forefront of Japanese ceramics for a total of 50 years. When considering the period as whole, however, we find that the first half of the group’s activities played a particularly important role in the Japanese ceramic world.

"In 1954 Voulkos became chairman of the new ceramics department at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. His pottery shop soon became the mecca for artists in the area, launching the Los Angeles clay movement, with Voulkos as its leader. Despite the accolades for his work, Voulkos began to feel constrained by the traditional forms of pottery ... "

"Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) was one of the twentieth century’s most important and critically acclaimed sculptors. Through a lifetime of artistic experimentation, he created sculptures, gardens, furniture and lighting designs, ceramics, architecture, landscapes, and set designs. His work, at once subtle and bold, traditional and modern, set a new standard for the reintegration of the arts."

"Our world is rich with visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory and taste sensations. From the feel of the upholstery in your car to the colour of your shoes, there is more than only function. We recognize and express this through our choices of the paraphernalia we acquire and display - from clothing, cars and houses to the objects that fill these larger functioning sculptures ..."