Critical Fieldwork 31

On ‘reproduction’ – The tea bowls of Kohei Nakamura (Part 2)


Kohei Nakamura – Red Raku tea bowl (2012)

Kazuo Yagi wrote an interesting essay on the subject of “reproduction”:

On Kiyomizu-zaka there was an artist skilled in “reproduction.” His pure white Kohiki sake bottles in particular were thoroughly Korean. As I stood admiring the way the comical shapes were distorted, I couldn’t help commenting on how clever I thought the pieces were.
“We call them nibanshi (second maker), people who produce that sort of thing.”
So explained my father when he heard I was interested in what I thought were clever pieces. It was a curious name. Something told me it had a nuance that was out of the ordinary. It seemed to refer to something other than simply a ceramicist who made reproductions.
Until then I had thought what an easy job it must have been to work with originals and copies, but as I looked at those pieces, which included reproductions of Shonzui, Ninsei and Kenzan ware, I realized that this wasn’t the case at all, and from that moment on I understood that reproductions were not mere copies but interpretations. In other words, it wasn’t a matter of physically copying the original technique as accurately as possible, but rather ensuring that the sentiment that governs the perceiving eye and point of view that precede technique gradually rises to the surface from the depths of “reproductions,” which look identical to the originals. In this sense, one could say that fine “reproductions” are pieces that exhibit a subtle, close mutual involvement between the individuality of the artist and the character of the original. Perhaps this is why “reproductions” will always remain “reproductions,” and will never feel the urge to turn into originals. (1)

Yagi sees “interpretation” based on a critical “eye” as among the essential qualities of “reproductions,” and even appears to recognize the existence of “fine ‘reproductions.'” The term nibanshi, however, is a derogatory one:

It’s a matter of whether or not they have a “natural voice.” A nibanshi doesn’t have this. To say that they come close (to an art object loved and handed down) may sound nice, but this is no better than saying they are good mimics. Regardless of how much pride they have in their skill, and regardless of how much this may astonish people, the realization that skill is only skill, and that interpretation can never be anything more than interpretation, only fills me with a sense of futility. (Words in parentheses added.) (2)

Yagi concludes by emphasizing the contrast between himself as an artist with his own natural voice and the nibanshi who does no more than mimic different tones of voice. This is comparable to the dualism in the world of contemporary ceramics between objets (ceramics as art) and vessels (ceramics as craft). One could go further and point out that there are even those who distinguish between objets as the self-expression (the natural voice!) of the artist and vessels that are subject to the constraints of historically and socially prescribed “use.” (3) Regardless of how one looks at it, however, this is actually similar to the antagonism between abstract painting and representational painting in that it is a fuzzy antagonism, so that in the same way that one tries to find facial forms, for example, in abstract painting, one can liken an objet to a vase, for example. Because an objet, originally a surrealist concept, is “something of no consequence,” something beyond the bounds of existing systems of meaning or interpretation that “denies designation,” it is unrelated to self-expression, and its “use,” too – and this is particularly the case with the tea ceremony – is not prescribed in advance by the maker, but rather freely determined by the master of the tea ceremony. Remember how Korai tea bowls came into existence. These tea bowls were sundry vessels from Korea that were dissociated from the systems of meaning and use of their place of origin (ie, they were deemed “objets”) and assigned a new use (ie, as tea bowls). To make a “tea bowl” was to reconcile the opposites in the dualism outlined above, or in other words to nullify them. Tea bowls are objets, and by deeming them objets they become vessels. As the ultimate “vessel” they are the most representational thing imaginable, but to the extent that they embody the ideal of “abandoning artifice and being oneself” (not making) they are also the most abstract thing imaginable.


Kohei Nakamura – Left: White Raku tea bowl (2012). Right: Ido tea bowl (2012)

At the same time, Yagi was able to state that “tea bowls, too, are objets” because he was relying on the dualistic oppositional schema mentioned above. In other words, for him ceramics presupposes a dualism of objet and vessels, and by insisting that the perfect objet is a vessel and that the perfect vessel is an objet he is continually crossing this boundary line, or rather, because he says “tea bowls, too,” he is pushing every vessel over this line into the side of objet. However, something that has been pushed over the line from vessel to objet, or from objet to vessel, is no longer a tea bowl.

In trying to push the tea bowl over the line to objet, Yagi failed to appreciate the true nature of the tea bowl, ie, the nullification of dualism. (4) Let us call this the tea bowl trap. Given that Kazuo Yagi (and contemporary tea bowl art since) fell into this trap, Kohei Nakamura is right in venturing to embark on “reproduction” as a nibanshi. However, to the extent that, having dissociated objets and tea bowls in the tradition of Yagi, he does not adopt the boundary-crossing position of declaring “tea bowls, too, are objets,” one should perhaps say that Nakamura’s objets are the ones that lack the requirement of being ceramic art. As a conceptual “ceramic artist,” and as a 21st-century nibanshi, Nakamura seems intent on throwing off the disdain of Yagi and the Kyoto ceramic art world that is even now under his influence, and restoring the creative critical spirit – the “vessels for thought” – of “reproduction.” Let me quote two passages by the artist:

“Reproductions” are sometimes criticized as lacking an awareness of creativity and originality, and they may well occupy a lowly position among tea bowls. Today, “reproduced” tea bowls, where the emphasis is on technique, may find it difficult to escape this criticism. Yet despite this, as an artist who asserts that today more than ever making “reproductions” one’s theme is something new, I have adopted as my method for making tea bowls, that is to say my method for reproducing tea bowls, a method similar to that used by Korokke to do impersonations. Yes, I mean the famous Japanese impersonator Korokke. His appearance resulted in impersonations that relied on technique alone being laughed off, and completely changed the world of impersonations, and I think my own “reproductions,” which are impersonations rich in expression made by absorbing inside of me the characteristics of the original maker and presenting them arranged in my own fashion, are something that would not be out of place in Korokke’s repertoire. (“Reproduction and Korokke” (5))


Kohei Nakamura – Left: Hakeme tea bowl (2012). Right: Mishima tea bowl (2012)

I’m experimenting with these kinds of Raku tea bowls at the moment, and for now at least I think I can say that for a professional like me to venture to make a clumsily shaped tea bowl is neither a long way from true clumsiness, nor does it capture the real “beauty of the unfinished.” However, could not this intentional contradiction impart to the viewer the fact that this is an attempt to bring to tea bowls the concept of creative expression? After all, don’t the times we live in allow for vessels for thought born out of a single idea that neither emphasize technique and materials alone nor play with unrestrained contemporary modeling? (Hono geijutsu (Fire art), winter 2012, emphasis added)


Kohei Nakamura – Irabo tea bowl (2012).

So an artist who became conscious of the limitations of the so-called contemporary ceramics and decorative objet born out of the pursuit of “self-expression” (ie, one’s “natural voice”) in the several decades after Kazuo Yagi has detected a creative impasse in the restoration of the critical creativity of “reproduction.” At this stage, this is translated into practice through the method of repeating (ie, “reproducing”) the “intentional contradiction” (ie, “perversion”) of Raku/Korai tea bowls by making “tea bowls that are not made.” The tea bowls that arise as a result of this process are referred to as “vessels for thought.” The artist’s concept is clear.

If we were to ask ourselves, however, whether Nakamura’s tea bowls are really creative “reproductions” in the same manner as Gould’s Bach or Korokke’s Hiroshi Itsuki, at this stage the answer would probably be no. This is because, as seen in his Juko celadon, Ido, Kohiki, Hakeme and Katade ware, his “reproductions” are extremely skilful, which is to say they convey hardly any sense at all of the perversion of producing from modern-day kilns tea bowls with the austere elegance born out of the passing of hundreds of years – in a sense, “giving birth” to “old men” – as if they do so as the reverse of exhibiting the naturalness of something handed down from generation to generation. There is no other way to describe “reproductions” that do no more than recreate the predilections of masters of the tea ceremony, or the good taste of “having seen plenty of fine things handed down from generation to generation,” than reactionary. Indeed, the kind of taste preferred by nearly every ceramics devotee has great appeal precisely because it defies description and analysis. If one is satisfied with this, however, there is no role for “vessels for thought.” Because whether now (Morihiro Hosokawa) or in the past (Tokuro Kato), there has never been a lack of makers of “fine tea bowls.” Or perhaps the artist in question knows this and is simply faithfully playing the role of the nibanshi because he has yet to reach the stage of “presenting them arranged in my own fashion.”

In any event, judging by Tomio Koyama’s essays and so on, a good many contemporary art insiders, myself included, enjoy antiques/ceramics, but this is not because we want to see some craft version of contemporary art but because it is in pure craft more than anything that we see something in common with contemporary art. In this sense we need to keep an eye hereafter on Kohei Nakamura’s progress.

  1. “Nibanshi” from Kazuo Yagi, “Watashi no tojishi” (My ceramics record) in Kokukoku no hono (Constant fire), (1981, Totodo), p. 51.

  2. Ibid, p. 52.

  3. Kazuo Yagi’s “natural voice” is different, however, from “self-expression.” For details of his view on the essence of “making objet,” see Minoru Shimizu, “Togei no ikioi ni tsuite – Koie Ryoji ron” (On the power of ceramics – A commentary on Ryoji Koie). Minoru Shimizu, Pururamon – Tansu ni shite fukusu no sonzai (Pluramonity – on the existence of plurality in the mono), (Gendai Shicho Shinsha, 2011), p. 212.

  4. To avoid misunderstanding, let me add that this relates to Kazuo Yagi’s views on tea bowls, and is not a criticism of the tea bowls he actually made.

  5. Text included in the catalog for Nakamura’s 2011 exhibition at Mitsukoshi Department Store, Nihonbashi, Tokyo.

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