When asked "What kind of ware do you make?," ceramic artist Kimpei Nakamura's tongue-in-cheek response is "Tokyo yaki (Tokyo Ware)." It's a label of his own invention that pokes fun at the traditional system of classifying ceramics by their ties to ancient kiln sites that existed long before the city of Tokyo was even a concept.
Such remarks have made Nakamura a controversial figure in Japanese ceramics, but then again, he never really felt comfortable working within a traditional framework. Instead, he has established himself as the de facto defender of a modern style of clay work that was ignored for decades.
Next week at Spiral Garden in Tokyo, the battle that was Nakamura's career will be shown in a collective retrospective titled "Clay Connection By Freeter" featuring the works of Nakamura and 21 of his former students. The exhibition marks Nakumura's retirement from his professorship at Tama Art University (Tamabi), where he created an avant-garde program that changed the face of ceramic art in Japan.