Series: Japan Society Series | Publication Date: October 28, 2008
While woven bamboo containers have been common in Asia for thousands of years, it is only in the past 150 years that basketry has become widely regarded as an art form. This stunning book celebrates contemporary Japanese bamboo masters whose breathtakingly beautiful and imaginative new works are changing the definition of basketry.
Focusing on contemporary bamboo artists working in sculptural forms, the book is based on recent interviews and critical analysis. In his compelling and accessible text, Joe Earle argues that today’s bamboo sculpture reaches beyond its craft roots to abandon functionality, while maintaining meticulous attention to the rigorous technical skill on which Japanese basketry was founded. Poised between traditional and contemporary art and drawing inspiration from both, Japanese bamboo art sheds new light on the complex relationship between past and present cultures.
This review is from: New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters (Japan Society Series) (Hardcover)
Amazing sculptures live on in full-color photos. A Japan Society exhibit celebrated cunningly crafted shapes. If you love basketry, sculpture, or even applied mathematics you will be wowed by the ways bamboo can be warped in space. These are not your useful vessels, but a range of light to compressed structures, twisting the linear bamboo into amazing curvatures. How often can you examine perfection, page after page? The artists' skills are phenomenal. Commentaries on the artists are focused and not at all bombastic because this book is about working magic with a humble material.
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