Ken Matsuzaki Ceramics Exhibition Walkthrough. Tōkaiseki - GOLDMARK.TV

Welcome back to the Goldmark Gallery and a brand new ceramics exhibition featuring pots by the extraordinary Ken Matsuzaki This is a truly captivating show and marks a deeply significant moment in his career He has now been a potter in Japan for over 50 years firmly established as one of the most revered potters in Mashiko As the title of this exhibition suggests—Tokaiseki a term you may not recognize—this is a showcase of a truly innovative and entirely new kind of artistic expression Today we'll see a few pots here that you might recognize—some familiar shapes some glazes you've seen before but also a completely new approach to work that Matsuzaki has embraced over the past two or three years You'll also notice as we move through this exhibition some exquisite flower arrangements We've been fortunate to have the talented Rie Day here a master of Ikebana flower arranging She's done an outstanding job bringing this exhibition to life So be sure to keep an eye out for those stunning arrangements as we move through the space Tokaiseki a term unfamiliar to us and one that most Japanese people wouldn't recognize either because it's a term Matsuzaki has coined for this new body of work he's been developing over the past few years It's a word that essentially breaks down into three parts Clay or pottery Kai a term that can mean something like a lump or mass akin to a hunk of something And seki stone Those three characters reveal what Matsuzaki is seeking in this work Because much of his work is no longer thrown on the wheel as was common in the past but instead constructed using large slabs of clay Truly Tokaiseki for Matsuzaki is about getting as close as possible to the energy of the natural world seeking some form of expression for what real stone what a landscape truly ancient—centuries even millennia old—actually looks like You can see from this beautiful piece— one of the standout works in the exhibition I think— that the approach to the clay is extremely simple and utterly direct What Matsuzaki seeks in his Tokaiseki creations are three essential elements Roughness smoothness and sharpness—three qualities you might encounter in the natural world around us And he's been very selective about the clays he uses and the way he approaches them o create pots that reflect the natural world and capture some of its essence You can see a few different surface textures on this pot These smooth areas are where the clay has been sliced with a knife You have this beautiful wave-like pattern on the surface of the clay here where other sections have been cut away using a wire And then there are some of the rougher textures here where the clay has been pried apart and torn using sticks and other blunt tools his hands and a combination of various instruments and techniques to highlight the inherent qualities of the clay's natural form Now if you come with me to the next few performances here we can see even more of this exquisite Tokaiseki art And you'll see that it's a world apart from what Matsuzaki has often produced in the past from the exquisite green Oribe glaze which we'll see in this exhibition From the ashes of his Johan work Here we have black and white This is where Tokaiseki began for Matsuzaki Two or three years ago held a joint exhibition with another Japanese potter Taizo Kuroda whose theme was black and white Kuroda is a porcelain potter who supplied the white pots Matsuzaki was assigned to create the black ones And from that moment the seed of this idea took root Many of the Tokaiseki pieces featured in this exhibition are in black and white in fact the colors are ones Matsuzaki has personally named The black he calls yugen—a term that combines a character for black with one for clay This is not a true black not pitch black It's a black that Matsuzaki has created using clay enriched with oxidized minerals It produces a stunning range of colors You'll notice on some of these pots a sort of purplish hue almost like licorice within the black Occasionally you catch subtle hints—tiny streaks of an almost impossibly deep blue Some of the hues bring to mind the darkness found in a pool of water or a puddle after it rains in Japan They receive as much rainfall as we do here in the UK We also have this exquisite hakuji this white porcelain piece The term hakuji uses ancient form of kanji for the color white The porcelain pots you'll see in this exhibition might not be what you'd expect when you think of porcelain Often we think of porcelain as being incredibly smooth immaculately clean perfectly neat and distinctly glossy and shiny As I mentioned earlier Matsuzaki at Tokaiseki is striving to return the clay to as close to its original state as possible—just as it is when first extracted from the earth Striving to achieve that delicate balance between something artistic and expressive something unmistakably his something that carries his unique mark But also something that carries that kind of mysterious primal essence—the sense that it’s been shaped just enough to reveal the touch of a human hand Yet it still carries that essence of something vital something alive with energy that profound sense of real power the natural world can possess A key part of Matsuzaki's drive to discover something new and create this innovative Tokaiseki style stems from his reflections on his own growth as a potter and his evolution in the craft So in this show though we'll encounter many shapes forms glazes and surfaces that are familiar These lovely almost gourd-shaped vases here feature exquisite pooling natural ash tones and a particularly graceful arrangement in the central piece We noticed in a few of those pots just now some pieces that were nearly entirely unglazed where the clay was truly given full voice That also reflects in how Matsuzaki handles the clay Most potters knead their clay before working it to ensure uniformity and eliminate those troublesome air and water bubbles The clay Matsuzaki uses to create this Tokaiseki piece isn't worked the same way it's been roughly handled but still retains some of its natural characteristics Often this means the piece will crack as it forms and elements that would typically trouble potters become part of the intended effect the desired aesthetic for this work We see here some additional Tokaiseki pieces most of which are glazed with natural ash There is also some Shino ware present here as well Much of Matsuzaki's Tokaiseki cuisine is cooked over wood fire introducing a wholly new element—a completely new presence—into the process You'll see this stunning white porcelain down here where ash has begun to accumulate on the surface creating areas of carbon trapping There's a striking shift in color These remarkable greens that have emerged from the ash forming a glaze on the surface of this pottery This extraordinary darkening of the surface here And then on some of the Shino pieces these remarkable surface qualities This is a charming little tea caddy here complete with a lid The Shino you can see here has a beautiful lustrous surface In a moment I'm going to explain exactly what Johan means to Matsuzaki It's a term that literally means kiln change A deceptively simple phrase that encompasses an extraordinarily wide range of effects that can occur inside the kiln The effects of the atmosphere the fuel he's using and the materials he's adding to the kiln to create a highly reducing environment This highlights some of the stunning colors in this Shino piece We can also see just while we're here how some of this Tokaiseki cuisine is prepared A large lump of clay is brought to Matsuzaki and initially must be hollowed out That's accomplished by inserting a stick through the center of the lump The clay is pulled down over the stick creating a hollow channel through the center He can then place it on his wheel and begin working the clay starting to cut to peel away layers breaking off pieces Gently guiding that surface to achieve the desired results The piece must then be entirely hollowed out from the inside before the neck is finally shaped It's wonderful to watch him at work truly fascinating to see him operate in such a completely different way But in reality there's a lot of similarity between the way Matsuzaki throws and the way he creates these Tokaiseki pieces There's a subtle movement in the way he's looking at the clay as if he's discovering the form before him for the first time If you've ever seen our videos of Ken hurling Chawan off the hump that large lump of clay in front of him you'll see just how much he allows the bowl to emerge in front of him and how certain things might unfold The way he shapes the bowl is guided and influenced by certain rhythms as it spins in front of him That’s much the same with this Tokaiseki piece I believe The way he's scraping off the clay exposing the surface beneath and perhaps revealing things he hadn't quite noticed before The clay surface has imperfections or maybe the tool didn't quite carve the shape he intended It's those subtle shifts not quite accidents those tiny fluctuations in rhythm that give much of this work its true vitality You'll notice how the wirework especially imparts a beautiful fluidity to the pieces We'll see that in a few of the Aribe works in just a moment Much of what makes Matsuzaki's Tokaiseki work challenging lies in its simplicity—specifically the way he allows the clay to do much of the talking You'll notice among this pair of shells several Tokaiseki vases interspersed with other forms for which he is especially renowned And a truly beautiful range of natural ash movement on some of these pieces Features that truly highlight the eight-day firing in his anagama kiln Yet the simplicity of Tokaiseki makes it challenging How do you truly make a statement How do you prove this is work that is unmistakably yours Especially when others are crafting pots in a similar manner Much of it boils down to the firing process Matsuzaki has said that much of his Tokaiseki work revolves around its harmony with Johan Johan as I mentioned a moment ago involves a kiln change You can especially see this in some of these pots featuring the stunning Shino glaze The same Shino that can produce an extraordinary range of colors and surface textures depending on the kiln's atmosphere Matsuzaki fires for eight days That's an incredibly long time to maintain the kiln's temperature keep the firewood burning and sustain the fuel And constantly observing and listening to the flame’s path the color of the flame within Regarding the placement of the pots how to manipulate their reduced atmospheres to achieve some of these remarkable surface qualities He describes Johan and firing his kiln in general as something akin to an exchange a dialogue He says the most important thing is conveying to the kiln over that long period of time exactly what he wants from it What he expects and even more so what he dreams of The things he can't necessarily count on the ones he has no hope of reaching—when they happen those are the beautiful pieces that end up in exhibitions like this You'll notice on some of the surface qualities of the Shinos this beautiful kind of luster—especially on pieces like this one an incense burner You can see the hollowed-out lid here designed to let fumes and smoke escape And this small incense box here where the Shino once again displays that beautiful lustrous golden surface finish This is the kind of surface Matsuzaki refers to as his keen Shino or what we call golden Shino And it's an effect he can't design for He can set the atmosphere for it but it's not something he can control In a gas kiln or an electric kiln he can But since he works with wood he's constantly dealing with the unpredictable shifts and variations of that material It's partly due to his preparation but also down to luck It's an effect that demands an extremely profoundly intensely reduced atmosphere inside the kiln That condition is achieved by repeatedly pumping large quantities of charcoal into the kiln o maintain an extremely low-oxygen environment in the kiln effectively suffocating it with smoke Once that's done and the pots are removed he has no idea whether the effect worked or not The pots that emerge with that stunning luster a kind of sheen that’s almost the opposite of the atmosphere needed to create them—the suffocating smoky fiery environment that produces the most valued pots And it's an effect that because it can't be designed for or simply calculated is precisely the kind of thing that's truly valued I think when he pulls these pots out of the kiln and discovers the gift he’s been given Firing over those eight days gives Ken the time to truly communicate to his kiln what he wants to bring some of the ideas he's been pondering to life But it also means that over that period of time there is an expected average level of work and an achievable average number of pots What Ken is hoping for goes beyond the ordinary—it's the unexpected possibilities he never could have imagined pots like this extraordinary large dish that's in front of me This is an example of a combination of applied glaze and Johan at work—an extraordinary piece of work that for it to have emerged intact from an eight-day firing is nothing short of remarkable with this stunning almost koi pond-like effect here featuring large Shino brushstrokes and a gorgeous ash glaze pooling in the center This is the kind of work we mean when Ken talks about something that surpasses his expectations and emotions —work he could only have dreamed of Masazaki believes his shokai-seki work might be the final major innovation he’ll ever produce Now 50 years a potter over that period of time He has done what his master Tatsuzou Shimaoka did before him—breaking away from the styles of his own teacher Hamada definitively building his own reputation establishing himself and finding his own voice—part of the work Masazaki focused on before toke-se These were types of pottery reminiscent of the Momoyama period such as the Shino ware we've seen as well as this exquisite copper-green aribe It's a truly beautiful fluid glaze the copper lending it that green hue often combined with this iron brushwork very delicately applied And it's a decorative style that can be as intricate or as straightforward as you prefer So on a sake bottle or a mizusashi like this one here We have that beautiful combination of calligraphy and glaze But then also on some of these other pots in particular this beautiful toke-seki vase here just the fluid quality of that color bringing out all the variation the intricate patterns in the clay's surface the tiny pits and scars There's a stunning photograph of some of this ware taken in Japan in the rain perfectly capturing how harmoniously much of this pottery blends with its surroundings with that kind of natural environment surrounding Ken's studio Pottery at its core is a numbers game and for Ken Matsuzaki those numbers matter deeply We're talking an eight-day firing at peak temperatures of around 1250 degrees centigrade We're talking 900 pots per firing That's nearly half a year's earnings We're talking 50 sacks of charcoal 2 500 bundles of split chestnut and pine firewood But at the same time The firing in Ken's kiln is an atmosphere of great fluctuation It's truly in Ken's pottery that we see the beautiful marriage of precision and the imprecise e ordered chemical and physical aspects of the process and the chaos of the kiln No matter how the pots are arranged the fire's path will always vary even if they' re placed in precisely the same position the flame's course changes with every firing Over that long period of time the flame will always follow different paths and the atmosphere inside the kiln will always develop in slightly different ways And the pots that come out will never look alike That ultimately is why we love pottery It is the fundamental most essential aspect of pottery It is the moment when chemistry transforms into alchemy when minerals and materials when clay silica feldspar copper wood ash and firewood unite to create something beyond words That’s the true essence of what Ken has achieved in this exhibition not only in the stunning new Toho Keiseki pieces but also in the other works we’ve seen here today I'd love to spend more time going through them with you Please do come visit this exhibition enjoy some of these pieces handle them yourself and see what Ken has been up to They're pots that are quiet and need time I think they deserve that kind of intimacy so please do come take a look We’re sure to show you even more in the weeks ahead I hope you’ve enjoyed this exhibition and we’ll leave you with some of Ken’s stunning Toho Keiseki pieces