ABE M OT OSHI
Ocean, 1987, 5.5 × 15.5 × 13.5 inches
ABE MOTOSHI Abe Motoshi is a man of extremes and contrasts. He is aggressively humble and astoundingly ambitious. He reveres his teacher, the legendary Shono Shounsai, and has actively and purposefully devoted himself to making work that looks nothing like his teacher’s. He describes creating a bamboo basket as “joyful” and “satisfying,” and in the next sentence, assures me that the process is “really arduous.” There are baskets in the Shosoin treasure house that have survived for over a thousand years. When Abe makes a basket, that’s how long he intends it to last. He is painstaking with his calculations of each strip’s width and depth (it took him two months to do the math for Light Adornment ). This allows him to plait the bamboo together very tightly, increasing the strength and solidity of the final form. There is a Shosoin basket, hexagonally- plaited, that suffered damage at some point over the course of the last 1200 years. For that reason, Abe does not use hexagonal plaiting in his work. What defines Abe’s work above all is pattern and texture. Abe’s style tends toward simple vessel shapes showcasing extraordinary complexity of design, often in plaiting patterns invented or modified by the artist himself. As Abe explained to me, he is not interested in creating new plaiting patterns as such, he just has a clear vision in his mind that is not achievable with the techniques that already exist. Abe rarely uses more than one or two colors in his works, so his remarkable patterns are achieved largely by changing the intervals at which horizontal and vertical strips of bamboo cross each other. A favorite technique, ichiraku, employs multiple layers of vertical strips, allowing Abe to utilize all three dimensions to achieve the expression he desires.
Waiting for Spring, 2011, 21.75 × 12 × 12 inches
The works in this exhibition range in date from 1979 to 2019 and come from Abe’s personal collection of his landmark works. Abe is from a bamboo craft family in Beppu, and many of his flower baskets are true to the regional tradition of solid jar shapes. Most baskets eschew handles, while most trays feature them. Abe’s forms are guided by the artist’s strong sense of proportion and sensitivity to the relationship between the work’s form and the pattern of its weave. There is often a feeling of restless energy as plaiting patterns pulse around the basket body and push outward from the center of tray bottoms. Once, as he was driving us to the train station, I asked Abe - sensei if he had any hobbies. He has none. Pressing further, I asked what he enjoys doing that is not related to bamboo. After several minutes thought, he ventured that he likes driving. n Margo Thoma
Reverse Pine Needle Basket, 2014,13.25 × 11 × 11 inches
Kuryo, 2018,11.75 × 17.75 × 16 inches
Treasure Ship,1933, 8.25 × 16.75 × 11.5 inches Undulation, 1984, 6.75 × 12.5 × 12.5 inches
Spring Dawn, 1995,10 × 14.25 × 14.25 inches
Ocean Current, 2010, 9.5 × 11.5 × 11.5 inches
Light Adornment, 2019, 11 × 13 × 13 inches
Cloud Dragon, 1979,12 × 10.25 × 10.25 inches
Wave, 1987, 3 × 16.25 × 11 inches
Swirling Ring, 1984/2014, 5.5 Ă— 15.5 Ă— 15.5 inches
Deep Mountains, 2000, 8.75 Ă— 11.5 Ă— 11.5 inches
Evening Sun,1998,10.75 × 13.5 × 12.25 inches
The Meeting of Wings, 2005,10 × 19 × 14 inches
ABE MOTOSHI b. 1942 Beppu City, Oita Prefecture, Japan E D U C AT I O N 1960 Graduated Oita Prefecture Midorigaoka High School in Bamboo Crafts Apprenticed to Shono Shounsai 1963 Joined his father’s bamboo basket business 1976 Inherited his father’s business E X HIB I T I O N S + AC C O L ADES 1976 Admitted to the Japan Traditional Craft Arts Exhibition for the first time (thereafter admitted 23 times) 1977 Award winner at the Japan Traditional Craft Arts Exhibition, Western Division (thereafter received 6 awards) 1979 Award winner at the Japan Flower and Tea Ceremony Articles Craft Arts Exhibition (thereafter received 8 awards) 1980 Became full member of Japan Craft Artists Association 1982 Asahi Newspaper Award at the 29th Japan Traditional Craft Arts Exhibition 1983 Thirty Year History of Traditional Craft Arts, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo 1985 Modern Bamboo Craft Arts: Development in Modern Times, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo Received award at The 2nd Japan Traditional Craft Arts Wood and Bamboo Exhibition (thereafter received two additional awards) 1987 Solo Exhibition, Tokiwa Department Store, Oita City 1992 Became Secretary of Japan Traditional Craft Arts Association, Western Division 1993 Three-Person Exhibition, Gallery Mochimaru, Yufuin 1994 Japan Traditional Craft Arts Association Five Members Exhibition, Oita City 1995 Became a Director of Beppu Art Association, Craft Arts Division 1996 Solo Exhibition, Asakura Fumio Memorial Hall, Bungoono 1997 Beauty of Wood and Bamboo World Fair, sponsored by Asahi Newspaper and Japan Traditional Craft Arts Association Western Division 1998 Judge at 8th Japan Traditional Craft Arts Wood and Bamboo Exhibition Solo Exhibition, Iwataya Art Gallery, Fukuoka City 1999 Judge at 34th Japan Traditional Craft Arts Exhibition, Western Division 2003 The Classic Japanese Basket, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2004 2006 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2020
Exhibited at The Hand Workshop Art Center, Richmond, VA Demonstration at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA Power & Delicacy: Master Works of Japanese Bamboo Art, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Hin: The Quiet Beauty of Japanese Art, Grinnell College, IA Hin: The Quiet Beauty of Japanese Art, Chicago Cultural Center, IL Beyond Basketry: Japanese Bamboo Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, M A Legacy of Inspiration: Shono Shounsai and His Students, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Oita’s Art Movement, in partnership with the Oita Prefectural Government, TAI Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Oita’s Art Moment, Japanese American Cultural Community Center, Los Angeles, CA Japanese Bamboo and the World Expo: A Century of Discovery, Japanese Friendship Garden, San Diego, CA Discovering Japanese Bamboo Art: The Rusty & Ann Harrison Collection, Herron School of Art & Design, Indianapolis, IN Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Masterpieces of Japanese Bamboo Art, TAI Modern at Joan B. Mirivss LTD, New York, NY Group Exhibition, TAI Modern at Asia Week New York, NY Solo Exhibition, Beppu City Art Museum, Beppu Abe Motoshi, TAI Modern at Asia Week New York, NY
MUSEUM C O L L E C T I ON S Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA Beppu City Museum of Art, Japan Oita City Museum of Art, Japan Nikaido Museum of Art, Japan Japanese Agency of Cultural Affairs Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN Photographs by Gary Mankus
1601 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.984.1387
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