Transcendent Clay: The Kondō Family’s Path of Porcelain Innovations

Thursday, March 27
1:00–3:00 p.m. PT
Speaker: Andreas Marks, PhD, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art and Director of the Clark Center for Japanese Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art
Virtual Event

The legacy of porcelain making in Kyoto’s Kondō family was started by Kondō Yūzō (1902–1985) in the 1930s. His sons Yutaka (1932–1983) and Hiroshi (1936–2012) continued what their father had achieved. Ultimately it was the grandson Takahiro (born 1958) who emerged as the family’s greatest innovator by developing the secret technique of applying a “silver mist” (gintekisai) of metallic droplets to his modern forms and using glass in his works. This talk will discuss these four artists in connection with Transcendent Clay, an exhibition largely of works from the collection of Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz, that is on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, March 1–September 7, 2025.
 
Speaker Bio: Andreas Marks oversees the renowned collection of Japanese and Korean art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia). He came to Mia from the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture, in California, where he was the director and chief curator for five years starting in 2008. Andreas has a PhD from Leiden University in the Netherlands and a master’s degree in East Asian Art History from the University of Bonn, Germany. With more than 20 years of experience in the field of Japanese art, Marks has curated more than 60 exhibitions at 38 institutions in the world, including the Birmingham Museum of Art; Detroit Institute of Arts; the Honolulu Museum of Art; San Antonio Museum of Art; and the Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan, some of which have been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Marks has lectured at 43 institutions in the US, Europe, and Asia, and is an award-winning author of 24 books and countless essays about various aspects of Japanese art. In 2024, he was awarded the commendation of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for his contributions to the promotion of Japanese culture.

Please note, this session will be conducted virtually via Zoom.

Save your spot. All participants will be sent the Zoom link via confirmation email with instructions once you secure your place.

Sponsored by the Asian Arts Council.

Featured: Kondō Takahiro, Reduction I (detail), 2013. Molded and cast porcelain with cobalt blue and green under clear glaze and “Silver Mist.” Minneapolis Institute of Art, The P.D. McMillan Memorial Fund (2014.64).