Beauty in All Things: Japanese Art and Design

Beauty in All Things: Japanese Art and Design demonstrated how Japanese artists and designers conjure beauty in such everyday objects as a vessel and a chair. Whether by maintaining the tradition of outstanding craftsmanship or pushing age-old techniques in new directions, all of the featured makers have produced objects that possess the timeless elegance and allure that is quintessential to Japanese art and design.

Beauty in All Things included pieces from MAD’s distinctive holdings, supplemented by important works that had never been shown in a museum before. Notable among the displayed works was Takayuki Sakiyama’s “Choto: Listening to the Waves” (2006). Harumi Nakashima’s “Struggling Form” (1997) and Shihoku Fukumoto’s “Indigo Cube—Mist” (1991). The dynamism and ingenuity of contemporary Japanese design were poetically expressed in Nendo Design Studio’s “Cabbage Chair Prototype” (2008); commissioned by Issey Miyake, who wanted something to do with the rolls of pleated paper left over from his Pleats Please line, Nendo developed the chair in a simple but elegant solution by peeling back layers of the rolls to form a seat.

Beauty in All Things is made possible through the generosity of Betty Saks and Bart Kavanaugh and the Collector's Circle, a leadership Museum support group.