Clay container for mummified newspapers thumbnail 1
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 142, The Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Gallery

Clay container for mummified newspapers

Sculpture
1991 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Nishimura Yohei is is an artist whose primary concern is less with clay than with the process of firing and the way in which it affects different kinds of objects and materials. He interprets yakimono, the Japanese term for 'ceramics', in the broader and more literal sense of 'burned things'. Given his use of metal, stone, wood, paper and other substances, often without the inclusion of clay, his position in the world of Japanese ceramics is somewhat anomalous. The interests he has pursued since graduating as a student of sculpture from Tokyo University of Education have led some critics to call him a conceptual rather than a ceramic artist. He is, nevertheless, closely involved in the use of clay as a result of teaching ceramics at a school for visually impaired children in Chiba Prefecture to the east of Tokyo.
By subjecting everyday articles to the heat of the kiln Nishimura transfigures them into strange, other-worldly objects that play on our perceptions of time and physical reality. Much of his recent work revolves around the firing of books, newspapers and magazines so that they are rendered into fossil-like objects whose essential structures remain but whose meanings, embodies in the words and images they bear, have been largely or totally obliterated.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleClay container for mummified newspapers (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Carbon-impregnated earthenware and fired newspaper
Brief description
'Clay container for mummified newspapers', sculpture by Nishimura Yohei, Japan, 1990-91.
Physical description
Egg-shaped vessel of black earthenware with a roll of burnt newspaper protruding from the opening
Dimensions
  • Width: 31.0cm
  • Depth: 29cm
  • Height: 33cm
Style
Production
made in Yotsukaido
Summary
Nishimura Yohei is is an artist whose primary concern is less with clay than with the process of firing and the way in which it affects different kinds of objects and materials. He interprets yakimono, the Japanese term for 'ceramics', in the broader and more literal sense of 'burned things'. Given his use of metal, stone, wood, paper and other substances, often without the inclusion of clay, his position in the world of Japanese ceramics is somewhat anomalous. The interests he has pursued since graduating as a student of sculpture from Tokyo University of Education have led some critics to call him a conceptual rather than a ceramic artist. He is, nevertheless, closely involved in the use of clay as a result of teaching ceramics at a school for visually impaired children in Chiba Prefecture to the east of Tokyo.
By subjecting everyday articles to the heat of the kiln Nishimura transfigures them into strange, other-worldly objects that play on our perceptions of time and physical reality. Much of his recent work revolves around the firing of books, newspapers and magazines so that they are rendered into fossil-like objects whose essential structures remain but whose meanings, embodies in the words and images they bear, have been largely or totally obliterated.
Collection
Accession number
FE.562-1992

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Record createdJune 12, 2009
Record URL
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