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Story One : Budgets and Beauty

www.kondo-kyoto.com

Oil & Water 2007 (pictured above)
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Petroleum ash on fleece, stainless steel with silver mist glaze
31.5 × 98.7 × 2 inches
80 × 250.8 × 5 cm
Price on Application : Contact Gallery

‘Beauty’ is not a four letter word, but ‘lust’ is, and an undesirable, if not sinful, human trait. I confess to unbridled passion and lust, and the envy of possession, as the motivation for acquiring Takahiro Kondo’s beautiful artwork ‘Oil and Water’, now gracing the walls of Presence II, The Art in Artist.

First seen at Barry Friedman’s eponymous New York gallery, I was overcome with the passion that great art inspires. Both intellectual and sensual, it aroused inexplicable longing and the accompanying frustration of being unable to own it…beyond my budget: Yes, gallerists, like collectors, have budgetary constraints.

Reduce this work to its components- raw fleece, crude oil waste, steel and a ceramic glaze that looks like drops of water – and it will seem incongruous that these can so inspire. Yet that is the magnetic pull and awe of art. Serendipity allowed me to purchase the work at a later date.

Oil and water are incompatible, they separate: water molecules are attracted to each other more than to oil molecules. Is this incompatibility a metaphor for something else? Does the artist have a message? How is that expressed? Does the manifestation of the message override the beauty of the artwork? Can one be appreciated without the other? Is there a journey of discovery beyond the physical? This is the challenge and the addictive attraction of a great work of art, to be addressed in its Presence.

Takahiro Kondō, has a special place in the history of Lesley Kehoe Galleries and its move to the gallery at 101 Collins. Internationally renowned Takahiro’s first solo show in Australia was in the grand foyer of 101 Collins. Searching for a permanent gallery space at the time and on the verge of transferring overseas, this was a serendipitous association with no thought of a home in the prestigious Melbourne icon. Kondō’s monumental ceramic and glass monoliths from the Orkney series added stature and grace to the foyer’s golden ponds, with smaller works in an intriguing circular installation following the marble spiral of the central floor. A near sell-out exhibition, two of the monoliths entered the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, a smaller version the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, and two works joined the significant collection of contemporary Japanese ceramics at Hamilton Art Gallery in regional Victoria, with many private collections numbering amongst the acquisitions. Each of the works in this exhibition featured Kondō's unique ceramic glaze ‘gintekisai’, ‘silver mist/water drawn from fire’ now daringly applied to steel in the Oil and Water work currently on exhibition. Kondō’s works also feature in major international museums, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Met NY, LACMA and Sao Paolo to name a few.

When I think of Takahiro Kondō, I think of table tennis, mandarin ducks, and an intense desire to understand the intrinsic nature of ‘fine art’. Takahiro was a graduate of literature and an international table tennis champion before adopting the family tradition of ceramics. The mandarin ducks greet one when visiting the studio in Kyoto, his Living National Treasure grandfather’s home (Kondō Yūzo (1902-1985). The ‘Oil and Water’ connection was initiated during a studio visit seeing the floor covered with cans of dark black viscous ‘stuff’. Takahiro identified the crude oil waste, saying he felt obliged to address prevailing environmental issues.

I am a connoisseur not an artist, constantly delighted and challenged by the creativity of the artists with whom we have the privilege to interact. Takahiro’s ceramic practice has transcended the commonly accepted parameters of the world of ceramics. Along with other contemporary Japanese ceramics, it has entered the realms of sculpture, and in something that would please the artist, the world of fine art. With strong roots in tradition that are at the basis of his mastery, Takahiro is currently experimenting with the age old Japanese ceramic traditions of Oribe, Shino and Iga: whither to - we await with lustful anticipation.

Incense Burner

Kondō Takahiro (b.1958)

2004
Ceramic, mist glaze, glass
3.4 x 2 x 6 inches
8.5 x 5 x 15 cm

$8700 AUD + Shipping + GST (Australian residents only)
Purchase

Lesley Kehoe Galleries

Ground Floor, 101 Collins St
Melbourne, Victoria
Australia
+61 3 9671 4311
kehoe.com.au
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