The Japan Folk Crafts Museum will host the third special exhibition celebrating its 80th anniversary, "Muneyoshi Yanagi: A Trajectory of Collecting," from September 1 to November 23. The Japan Folk Crafts Museum was founded in 1936 as the headquarters of the Mingei movement by Yanagi Muneyoshi, known for discovering the beauty of "mingei" (folk crafts), everyday crafts made by unknown artisans. This third special exhibition commemorating the museum's 80th anniversary focuses not on Yanagi Muneyoshi as the founder of the Mingei movement, but on Yanagi Muneyoshi as a collector who continued to pursue "faith and beauty" throughout his life. It will showcase works from Yanagi's collection in Japan, with a clear collection history. This exhibition marks the first attempt to organize the works in chronological order, displaying the works of Muneyoshi Yanagi, whose collection spanned an extremely wide range of genres for a single individual. From 1910 to 1923, Yanagi Soetsu was heavily involved in selecting Western art illustrations for the magazine Shirakaba, which he helped found at the age of 21. He also developed an interest in Eastern art, particularly Chinese and Korean ceramics. In 1914, he was deeply impressed by the "Blue and White Vase with Autumn Grass Design (gourd-shaped bottle part)" that Asakawa Noriyoshi brought back as a gift from the Korean Peninsula, and began to actively collect Korean crafts, including ceramics that were not highly valued at the time. From 1924 to 1931, he also turned his attention to "miscellaneous utensils," a provincial craft of meticulous practicality, and in 1926 drafted the "Prospectus for the Establishment of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum." This exhibition will feature a number of crafts collected in preparation for the establishment of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, along with his close friends, ceramic artists Kanjiro Kawai and Shoji Hamada. Furthermore, from 1916 to 1926, the exhibition will focus on Otsu-e, a style of art sold to travelers near Otsu during the Edo period. Among the Otsu-e works in the museum's collection, the exhibition will showcase "Early Otsu-e," collected during the Taisho period. Next, the exhibition will feature the magazine "Kogei," first published in 1931, which featured a series of crafts discovered by Yanagi Soetsu and others, as well as various crafts featured in the magazine, works featured in Issue 70, the commemorative issue for the opening of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, and prewar collections, as evidenced by exhibition photographs from the time. Along with the masterpiece "Japan Folk Crafts Map," created for the 1941 "Japan Contemporary Folk Crafts Exhibition," the exhibition will also showcase new crafts still in circulation across the country at the time. Also on display will be old Tamba ware collected by Yanagi Soetsu during the last decade of his life. Furthermore, since Yanagi Muneyoshi, in his later years, focused on the primitive abstract patterns seen in the sculptures of indigenous peoples and the "unconventional" forms seen in the flaws and distortions that have been featured in the history of Japanese art appreciation, the exhibition will introduce "abstract" and "unconventional" forms, focusing on the illustrations featured in the "Abstract Crests Special Feature" in 1958. Finally, there will be an exhibition of Buddhist paintings, sutras and prints, focusing on the forms of the Pure Land sect, which had a major influence on the formation of Yanagi Muneyoshi's thought.
【Exhibition Information】
"Yanagi Soetsu: The Path of Collecting"
Venue: Japan Folk Crafts Museum
Address: 4-3-33 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo
Dates: September 1st - November 23rd
Hours: 10:00-17:00 (last entry at 16:30)
Admission: 1,100 yen for adults, 600 yen for high school and university students, 200 yen for elementary and junior high school students
Closed: Mondays (however, the museum will be open on public holidays and closed the following day)