Rago, Wright, and LAMA present “A Quiet Revolution: The Ceramics of Toshiko Takaezu,” today, featuring more than 60 works by the singular artist.
Gathered over the course of two decades by dedicated collectors in Takaezu’s home state of Hawaii, the collection is comprised predominantly of Takaezu’s famed “closed forms,” vessel-like works that Takaezu created throughout her career and ranging in size from the palm-sized to the monumental.
As interest in Takaezu and her legacy has continued to grow, “A Quiet Revolution” celebrates her enduring vision and ability to harmonize multiple influences into uniquely empowered forms.
Takaezu emerged at mid-century as a leading voice in the ceramics discipline, providing a unique counter to the disruptive and often aggressive gestures of contemporaries like Peter Voulkos and John Mason.
By the late 1950s, she had arrived at the form that would captivate her, and many others, for decades to come: the vessel of vastly varying proportions – impossibly bulbous or resolutely stout, imposing and monumental or nearly miniature – with a relatively imperceptible opening at the top.
Takaezu would often put small bits of clay inside these forms before firing them, creating invisible “rattles” that allow her works to extend into the auditory realm; this aspect of Takaezu’s practice is amply represented throughout “A Quiet Revolution.”
The entire collection featured in “A Quiet Revolution” is open to the public at New York’s High Line Nine in a special preview exhibition until April 13, and is accompanied by a full-color catalog. The live auction will take place at Rago, 333 N. Main St., Lambertville, N.J., at 11 a.m. today, and accommodates advanced bids, telephone bidding, and live online bidding. It will be immediately followed by Rago, Wright, and LAMA’s inaugural Post War Ceramics auction, at noon.
Visit Rago Arts online for information.
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