Full Description
Jun Kaneko, born in Nagoya, Japan,
in 1942 and based in Omaha, Nebraska, since 1986, is revered for his
role in establishing modern ceramic art, yet he has been equally
prolific in a range of other media. This book offers an entirely new and
detailed survey and analysis of nearly six decades of Kaneko's work in
ceramics, drawing, painting, installation art, and opera design. Tracing
the career of this dynamic artist from his early training and
subsequent association with the pivotal California Clay Movement to his
important public commissions and philanthropic concerns of the present,
it focuses in particular on the past 20 years, which have previously not
been the subject of a comprehensive volume.
Drawing extensively
on interviews he has conducted with Jun Kaneko since 2002, Glen R. Brown
reflects on the principal concepts that have shaped Kaneko's art,
situating them in the space between a Japanese Shinto ethos and the
aesthetic tenets of Western Art Informel and Post-Painterly Abstraction.
He discusses in-depth Kaneko's art, from the colossal glazed-ceramic
Dangos to the sensitive colouristic stage and costume designs for
operas. The book provides fascinating insights into Kaneko's unique,
relentlessly self-sustaining creative process and the multiple
conceptions of space that inform it. Featuring more than 200 colour
illustrations and substantial information not previously available in
published form, this book offers an up-to-date definitive critical
survey of this important artist's life and work.
