MORIGAMI JIN JIN MORIGAMI
Happy Child, 2014, 13.25 × 25.75 × 14 inches
When I arrived at TAI Gallery for my job interview eighteen years ago, my only experience of Japanese bamboo art was through looking at the gallery’s website. What I saw on the computer screen amazed me, but that feeling soon evolved to awe as I walked into the gallery itself. Positioned around a restful viewing room, which overlooked a garden along the Santa Fe River, were eight or so pedestals each holding a different artist’s work. I immediately walked across the room to look at a basket I would soon learn was from Morigami Jin’s Quiet Ocean series. I remember appreciating how the basket’s patterning wonderfully reflected the view just out the window, a scene of leafladen boughs stretching across swirling water. Morigami Jin descends from several generations of Beppu bamboo-craft families on both his parent’s sides. He could not be more deeply entwined in his region’s tradition of bamboo baskets that, in his words, tend toward a “dark, heavy, and rough” style. Surrounded by this tradition, the young Morigami was inspired to try an opposite approach. Morigami’s signature style of wavelike nawame-ami (twining or rope plaiting) was first seen in 1988, in his submission to that year’s Nitten ( Japan Fine Arts Exhibition). The extraordinary fineness and delicacy of the cut bamboo, the hypnotic undulations of the plaiting, and the relaxed form were indisputably the work of a master. Morigami’s reputation was made essentially overnight. If one word could sum up an artist’s style, I think translucency is the word for Morigami. His works both catch and transmit light. While his sinuous, rippled twining might resemble lines drawn with a pencil, in the round they create a shimmering veil, enriched by the moiré effect of looking through the basket. And then there are the shadows! Over a dozen years ago, Morigami began weaving in another traditional pattern, hexagonal plaiting, to create closed sculptural forms much different in appearance than his vessels. These too are translucent, and their folded surfaces create shapes within shapes that shift and modulate as the viewer moves around the sculpture.
Inspired by the opportunity to have a solo exhibition at TAI Modern, his first in the United States, Morigami has been immensely creative over the last two years, surprising us here at the gallery with artworks of unusual scale and a completely new use of color. While employing different colors of pre-dyed bamboo is a common refinement for many plaiting styles, I had never seen anyone use multiple colored strips in twining until Morigami began doing this in 2016. Like an ikat textile, Morigami’s patterns seem to appear as if by magic, belying the artist’s careful planning and arrangement of dyed strips. Remnant of Autumn’s shifts in color resemble the sfumato of a Renaissance painting. In some lights, the gradation of dark to light looks like a shadow cast upon the basket. In fact, Morigami has twisted individual colored strips in ochre and black to make a flickering pattern, much like light filtering to the dark forest floor through golden leaves. This artwork reminds me of how the weight of an approaching winter heightens my appreciation of autumn’s last mildness. Bold and jazzy, the plaid-covered Happy Child certainly lives up to its name. Morigami is not the first to incorporate multiple colors into hexagonal plaiting, but the free form surface shaping of this piece is complex and asymmetrical, and a regular color pattern cannot be maintained by traditional means. The artist has come up with an ingenious solution. When he has an orange strip but needs it to be black, he inserts a new strip of the appropriate color, placing it precisely on top of the existing piece of bamboo and completely hiding the original color. The result is very natural looking and allows him to control the flow and pattern of color. This year marks thirty years since Morigami’s first big surprise to the world of bamboo art, and he is still full of surprises today. n Steven Halvorsen, 2018
Remnant of Autumn, 2017, 15 × 15.5 × 11.5 inches
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ARTIST STATEMENT
It has been over 40 years since I started working with bamboo professionally. Bamboo was always around me as a child, as both my parents and grandparents worked with it. I remember making my own bamboo toys and playing with them when I was young. Perhaps that fun experience of playing with bamboo led me to decide to become a professional bamboo artist. At age nineteen, while still assisting with my parents’ bamboo business, I entered the Oita Prefectural Bamboo Technical Training Center. Since the beginning, I have been attracted to baskets with delicate beauty and fine craftsmanship. I worked at splitting bamboo as finely as I could and designed a number of flower baskets that were light and open. The type of baskets I made were quite different from the traditional bamboo baskets of Oita, which were very ornate and heavy. In my early twenties, I showed my art pieces at regional and national competitions and won several prizes to kick off my artistic career smoothly. The exhibition pieces did not sell in Japan, so I concentrated on making new designs for flower baskets that were suited for modern houses and apartments. Fortunately, these works sold very well at Japanese department stores for ten years or so. In early 1998, Mr. Coffland, a founder and previous owner of TAI Gallery, came to visit me. He took my work to the US and placed it into the well-known bamboo art collection of Mr. Lloyd Cotsen. Ever since, I have created many art pieces and shown them through TAI Modern. I now make art pieces for the Western market and design contemporary flower baskets, which my assistants make, for the domestic Japanese market. In bamboo art, to materialize your
Sway, 2017, 15.5 × 17 × 17 inches
vision you have to keep working with the medium for many years and acquire fine skills through experience. When I start a project, I have a rough idea in mind, but it really is a joint venture between the bamboo and myself. It could be a friendly partnership, or it could be a battle. Whichever the case may be, dialogue with the material and constant adjustments by the artist are essential to every part of the process. That is what makes bamboo art so interesting to me. I had to postpone this show twice due to health issues. My appreciation goes to the current gallery owner Margo and her staff, who have patiently waited and supported me. This show is finally happening, and I am looking forward to meeting the American audience and hearing what they think of my new body of work. n Morigami Jin, 2018
One of the most artistically gifted Japanese bamboo artists of his generation, Morigami Jin is credited with introducing a new style of basketry to his region. Morigami was born in 1955 in Beppu, a small city in Oita Prefecture known for its bamboo handicrafts. In 1988, as a young artist, he submitted his work to Nitten (the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition) and, in a highly unusual occurrence, was accepted without having to advance through the interim stages. Morigami has enjoyed professional success in Japan and abroad. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Woven Colors, 2017, 23 Ă— 13.5 Ă— 13.5 inches
Snail, 2014, 5.5 × 28.5 × 5.25 inches
Expansion (long), 2017 8.75 × 19.75 × 15 inches Expansion (short ), 2017 10.25 × 18 × 13.75 inches
Bravery, 1988, 6 × 21.25 × 21.25 inches
Fusion IV, 2017, 12 × 19 × 13.75 inches
Pure Current, 2017, 16.25 × 15 × 15 inches Opposite: Infinite Sea, 2017, 24.75 × 24.75 × 24.5 inches
Twist, 2017, 12.25 × 13.75 × 15 inches Spiral, 2017, 13.75 × 15.75 × 7.5 inches
Endless Cycle, 2016 19.25 × 21.75 × 19.75 inches
From left to right: Pure Current, Still Water, Endless Cycle, Dance, Gentle Current, Infinite Sea
Galaxy II, 2014, 10.5 × 11 × 9.5 inches
Warp and Weft, 2017, 27.75 × 14.25 × 14.25 inches
Trailing Clouds, 2017, 16.5 × 7.25 × 7.25 inches
1601 Paseo de Peralta Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 505.984.1387 taimodern.com
From left to right: Mass II, 2017, 12 × 21.75 × 13.75 inches; Mass I, 2017, 13.25 × 18 × 9.25 inches; Mass III, 2017, 18.25 × 17 × 13.5 inches. Photography by Gary Mankus.