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Journal of Design History 1999 12(2):123-141; doi:10.1093/jdh/12.2.123
© 1999 by Design History Society
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Yagi Kazuo: The Admission of the Nonfunctional Object into the Japanese Pottery World

BERT WINTHER-TAMAKI

University of California Inrine


  Abstract

The nonfunctional ceramic otject is now a well-established fixture of the pottery world of Japan along with the vessel. The genealogy of its admission can be traced from two ends. First, it was innovated by the potter Yap' Kazuo (1918–79) in the 1950s as a means of reforming a oessel-centred practice that seemed in danger of becoming obsolete. In part, Yagi was acting on the fact that pottery had gradually become an object to look at in an exhibition, rather than something to touch and use. Second, signficant links between Yagi's non-vessel and the pottery tradition were explored in texts which canonized him as a member of the pottery world in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Yagi's followers in thegenre ofthe 'kiln-fired objet' affirmed its potential as the dicle for a Japanese aesthetic. Since the pottery world ofJapan wasfrequently negotiated by its proponents as though it m earmir of a unique Japanese sensibility, the admission of the non-vessel ceramic object as a property of this world was a transaction fraught with considerable consequence.

Key Words: ceramics • exhibition • Japan • nationalism • Nihonjinron • Yagi Kazuo


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