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“White” is not a book about colors. It is rather Kenya Haras attempt to explore the essence of “White,” which he sees as being closely related to the origin of Japanese aesthetics – symbolizing simplicity and subtlety. The central concepts discussed by Kenya Hara in this publication are emptiness and the absolute void. Kenya Hara also sees his work as a designer as a form of communication. Good communication has the distinction of being able to listen to each other, rather than to press one’s opinion onto the opponent. Kenya Hara compares this form of communication with an “empty container”. In visual communication, there are equally signals whose signification is limited, as well as signals or symbols such as the cross or the red circle on the Japanese flag, which – like an “empty container” – permit every signification and do not limit imagination. Not alone the fact that the Japanese character for white forms a radical of the character for emptiness has prompted him the closely associate the color white with emptiness.

The Keramikos book presents front-and-back photographic records of 300
painted pieces that artists Matthew Lutz-Kinoy and Natsuko Uchino
produced since 2010 – including plates, bowls, pitchers and oil jars.
Some objects are accompanied by narrative descriptions that present
aspects of the duo’s vast and complex research exploring notions of
society, religion, politics, style and technique through the long
history of ceramic production motifs from Hispano-Moresque, Byzantine,
Islamic and Korean ceramics. Each plate is printed on the recto side
with its reverse shown in the same position on the verso side of the
same page. An extensive index completes the book as well as an interview
with the artist and curator Nicolas Trembley.

This volume presents Aldridge’s recent and older works, and features an interview and three original essays about her practice.

“For me it is about the conversation between materials and approaches, allowing the work to discuss and emphasise strategies of making and reception through different choices. The push and pull between dualities such as synthetic versus natural, object versus subject, inside versus outside runs throughout my practice and prevents the meaning of an artwork [from] becoming prescriptive. This way of working allows for a kind of language of comparison. It affords me space to articulate my interests in a way that doesn’t pin down the work or explain it away; rather, it provides me with a framework to take risks with the practice. It’s not so easy to be able to say what something is doing while you are doing it, but as long as I am inside that tension you’re speaking of, I know I am onto something.” —Laura Aldridge

The Journey of Things by Magdalene Odundo has been published alongside the exhibition of the same name presented at The Hepworth Wakefield in Spring 2019. The book features 44 of Odundo’s vessels alongside a large selection of museological and contemporary objects that reveal the wide range of global references that have informed her practice. The book object comprises a series of interleaved sections presenting an organic flow of content which pairs and juxtaposes the historic and the contemporary, featuring works by Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Lucie Rie, Jean Arp, as well as ancient vessels from Greece and Egypt, historic ceramics from Africa, Asia and Central America, and ritual objects from across the African continent.

Makoto Kagoshima, based in the southern island of Japan, illustrates whimsical and heart-warming motifs on clay making each ceramic a unique, one-of-a-kind work of art. As an avid gardener, motifs such as pansies and roses appear throughout his designs with occasional appearances of butterflies and other fantastical creatures.

After moving to Yatsugatake, the time Kimura spent creating furniture from used construction wood was merely 11 years—from the start of Trax to his passing—yet he produced a multitude of aspiring furniture and objects in that short period of time. On the other hand, his architectural involvement, including Starnet in Mashiko, are rather unrecognized despite the remaining unique buildings. This publication is a summary of the immense amount of photographs and documentation of his furniture, objects, and space-making centered around Trax that Kimura had left behind. Most of the included pictures were taken at Trax, as a space in itself. In addition to text written by Kyohei Sakaguchi, Elein Fleiss, and Tohru Matsushita (SIDE CORE), all of whom are associated with Trax, the book also includes sketches and drawings by Kimura, as well as photographs of the garden and Jomon culture that served as inspiration. Even twenty years after his death, many of Kimura’s works remain timeless, preserved mainly in Trax. This book is a study of Jiro Kimura’s creative journey with Trax, as a gallery and a piece of art.

Gallery Trax started in 1993, at the foot of Yatsugatake in Hokuto City, Yamanashi. Founded by interior designer Jiro Kimura and designer Etsuko Miyoshi, this building used to be a nursery of a closed town school on the grounds of Shounji Temple. It was renovated by Kimura himself, and furniture and objects he created composed the space. Trax is distinctive not only for its location or atmosphere, but also for being an exhibition space for artists such as Jun Tsunoda, Tomoo Gokita, Katsumi Omori, Rinko Kawauchi, Yayoi Deki, and others since their early career. With the wind blowing through and light shining in, the gallery is not a so-called White Cube. The room and the works seem to breathe here; the space itself is a work of art which has embraced numerous art pieces over the years. Since Kimura passed away in 2004, Miyoshi has maintained the place as a gallery, and the number of visitors to Trax, a place where the spirit of Kimura still resides, sees no end.

Richard Batterham (1936-2021) was one of the most revered potters of his time, working for over 60 years from his pottery in Durweston, Dorset, UK. Over the decades, Batterham kept back some of his most successful pots – those that captured some special quality that he valued and wanted to refer to again – building up a personal archive spanning his career. As a collection, it documents a unique life of work and making. With specially commissioned photographs of representative pieces, personally selected by Batterham, and contributions from a group of writers with a deep understanding of his work and its broader significance, this book is an important monograph of the renowned studio potter.

“We could look at Ronan Bouroullec’s ceramic bas-reliefs and see traces of a language we recognize: the silhouettes of familiar objects, the contours of known landscapes. We might be tempted to look at the work as an alphabet of mere things, think of the pieces “objectively.” But as tableaux, the reliefs are not quite right: one has an edge that goes too far, another a circle that’s off-center and about to roll, and still another, a pinkish mass that could topple over.

Bouroullec’s work is most rewarding if we listen as it asks for a new language altogether. Languages have always been born from clay (one thinks of cuneiform seals); it’s easy to believe that Bouroullec is developing his own. At the very least, these pieces – somewhere at the intersection between painting, sculpture, and design – demand new verbs, words like “bevel” and “disintegrate.” (And it’s possible, the works say, that there is nothing so lovely as a beveled edge: the way they taper is like a caress. The way they dissolve onto a background feels digital and also deeply analogue. These effects are both visual and tactile, as in: we see them and we want to touch them.)”

Josh Ascherman

The relationship between Seiichi Furuya and Christine Gössler unfolds through 150 pairs of images taken over seven years, where their gazes meet and respond to each other.

In 1973, Seiichi Furuya left Japan for Europe on board of the Trans-Siberian train. He arrived in Austria where he first settled in Vienna, before moving to Graz where he met Christine Gössler in 1978. From this day forward, he started photographing her, in the intimacy of their home in Graz but also during their travels abroad — to Germany, England, Italy…and Japan, their most distant destination. Christine studied art history and worked for the radio, making documentary programs. After the birth of their son in 1981, she became increasingly involved in the world of theatre. As she was devoting herself to her acting lessons, she started to show signs of schizophrenia. Christine committed suicide in East Berlin in 1985.

Since Christine’s disappearance, Furuya has never stopped revisiting his archive. This initiative was presented in a series of five books entitled Mémoires, published between 1989 and 2010. In 2018, Seiichi Furuya sorted all photos taken by Christine with a pocket camera and 35mm camera for the first time in chronological order. When processing this newfound material, he noticed that Christine took a lot of portraits of him, at about the same time that he was photographing her.  “It’s Face to Face“, realised the photographer. This new series is composed of 150 photographs, presented as pairs, taken over seven years  — from the couple’s encounter to Christine’s death. Furuya considers this latest project to be the final act which will put an end to the Mémoires, the work of a lifetime.

Colours & Shapes is a playful introduction to the practice of Belgian ceramic artist Sigrid Volders. Edited and with photographs by Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck, including sketches and diary outtakes from Sigrid Volders.

Active as a ceramic artist since 2013, Sigrid Volders’ practice is composed of hand-built and more academically thrown pieces. Through the palette existing in her body of works, Sigrid demonstrates an ability to execute instant techniques, freedom, and detachment, which translates in her pieces by a distinct and immediate feeling of honesty and intimacy.

Takuro Kuwata is a radical potter who nevertheless describes his work as firmly grounded within the traditions of ceramics. His focus is to push the potential of his materials, while referencing traditional forms and making functional objects. He is known for a number of experimental procedures, including adding stones to his clay mix so that when fired, they burst or puncture the clay structure, or using needles to catch the glaze of a vessel so that it creates a bumpy texture when fired. He thus leaves the final form of the work to chance, but is careful to ensure that each piece is still functional. Kuwata’s works are also known for their saturated and intense color combinations. The artist tends to favor red, blue, and metallic gold and silver.

Élaboré par l’association Figlinae, ce livre conte des histoires de ceux et celles qui ont travaillé et pour certains travaillent encore la terre du côté de Roussillon.

Ornaments are omnipresent – they can be found on buildings, fabrics, jewelry, tiles, ceramics and wallpaper. Scorned at the beginning of the modern age, ornament has long since returned to architecture and influences design drafts as much as tattoo motifs.
In New Grammar of Ornament, Thomas Weil compares current ornamental objects with the results of archaeological research on ornamental artifacts and concludes that there is an anthropological constant. From the recurring arrangements of stripes, rectangles, triangles and dots and the frequency of the forms of floral ornaments used, he derives a new “grammar of ornament.”
More than 160 years after Owen Jones’ influential publication, New Grammar of Ornament is a new standard work. It categorizes the variety of ornamental forms used worldwide and for the first time places them in a major art and cultural-historical context.

The pieces shown in this book are from the personal collection of Hideyuki Oka (1905–1995), a master of Japanese graphic design and advertising. Traditional Japanese packaging, known as ‘tsutsumu’, uses natural materials like bamboo, rice straw, hemp twine, paper, ceramics, and leaves. The familiar Japanese aesthetic sense and its resonance through traditional culture infuses even these everyday objects, all of which seemingly transcend their obvious function. The simple beauty and craftsmanship on display is remarkable, from bright green candies in a hand-hewn pine box to a ceramic orange designed to hold citrus miso.