~RAKU: The Cosmos in a Tea Bowl / LA

RAKU: The Cosmos in a Tea Bowl
LACMA / Los Angeles County Museum of Art
thru JUNE 7, 2015

of course, as soon as I start TRASH-TALKIN’ LA / LOS ANGELES !!
there’s where I want to be !!
there’s two shows going on down there, that I would totally, totally love to see.

the first . . is a museum show on Raku pottery, the history of, and the unique design qualities of. in other words, magic, science, craft, form, function, design & ritual – all the things we’ve been talking about – in a nutshell / tea bowl. (More about the second – next week.)

with the current fascination here in NYC on anything artisanal, but esp fashioned by hand from clay, porcelain, you name it . . you’d also have this in-depth article on the show, appearing in the Wall Street Journal, back in April 23, 2015 – at top of your desk, for weeks. too. well, if you are LUCKY !! enough to be in drought-land USA, LA !! – you have just a few more weeks to catch it.

and why isn’t this show – coming here ?
that’s why most everybody, I know at least, is bitching about the museum scene.
just because you come from an institutional mind-set, does that mean you have to be so out of touch with the beat of the city, and more importantly its trending, beating heart ?
the last museum show I saw with glee – was the JACK GOLDSTEIN retrospective at the The Jewish Museum, and that was quite awhile ago, about 2 years to the day actually. that’s not a very good statistic for such a with-it, arts-loving city with many many museums, and even many many more always hungry culture vultures !!
but esp the ones loving anything – clay !!


ARTS IN REVIEW, WALL STREET JOURNAL. THURSDAY APRIL 23, 2015

I’m giving you the link to the WSJ review by DAVID MERMELSTEIN, so you can read it for yourself, because it is excellent.
it starts off:
“For 15 generations, just one family (!!) has crafted the hand-sculpted (rather than wheel-thrown) Japanese pottery known as Raku, which uses a low-fire technique to produce ceramic objects that bear an unmistakable variegated glaze.”

and continues . . . “Now some 90 of them – dating from the late 1500s to the present – have been assembled . . ”

see: A DYNASTY BUILT OF CLAY – WSJ

http://www.wsj.com/articles/raku-the-cosmos-in-a-tea-bowl-reviewnow-on-view-at-the-los-angeles-county-museum-of-art-1429738016


CHOJIRO (RAKU I) (!!) Tea Bowl named ‘Tarobo’, 16th C, Red Raku ware; glazed ceramic, Urasenke Foundation.
Photo: Masayuki Miyahara via LACMA/Raku: The Cosmos in a Tea Bowl

see: Los Angeles County Museum of Art – Raku: The Cosmos in a Tea Bowl

does one really need to say more, thatis a Raku tea bowl by the first Raku master, Chojiro – 16th C – !!
that’s a long time ago. the US was only born 200 years ago.
cosmos in a tea bowl ? – yep !!

so again.
talking about the cosmos, masters of the museum universe that run this city, why isn’t this show coming here, aren’t we supposed to be the capital of cool, or what ?