EXHIBITION CLOSING SOON
KAWANO SHOKO
July 31 – August 22, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, July 31, 5-7pm
Artist Demonstration: Saturday, August 1 at 2pm
We are pleased to present Kawano Shoko, the gallery’s second solo exhibition of work by Japanese bamboo artist Kawano Shoko, on view from July 31 through August 22. This exhibition arrives ten years after the artists first show at TAI Modern and follows upon his being awarded Japan’s Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2024.
Constructed from finely prepared bamboo strips, woven with the artist’s signature sukashi-ajiro (open twill plaiting), Kawano’s works emphasize organic form, openness, and the natural flexibility of bamboo. Space and rhythm are integral to each composition. Kawano frequently adds an exterior layer of carved, parallel bamboo plates to an open twill-plaited form, based on a technique learned from Hayakawa Shōkōsai V during the Living National Treasure workshops he led in 2006–07. Ten years after Kawano’s first solo presentation at TAI Modern, Kawano Shoko brings together a body of work grounded in centuries of craftsmanship while continuing to evolve its vocabulary into contemporary expression.
Originally aspiring to become a sculptor, Kawano found in bamboo the expressive possibilities of three-dimensional form while embracing the discipline and technical rigor of the Beppu bamboo tradition. Over the past thirty-eight years, he has developed a distinctive sculptural language that balances structural precision with remarkable lightness and fluidity.
Now, at sixty-eight, Kawano reflects on his practice from a new vantage point. As opportunities to teach and mentor younger artists have become an increasingly important part of his life, the transmission of knowledge has emerged alongside artistic production as a central concern. “I feel a sense of responsibility to pass on the skills I have cultivated over many years,” Kawano said. “I am touched by their pure passion and sensibility toward craftsmanship, and they provide me with fresh and valuable inspiration that cannot be replaced by technical skill alone.”
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UPCOMING AUTUMN ASIA WEEK NEW YORK EXHIBITION
Sencha to Sculpture: The Evolution of Japanese Bamboo Art to the 1960s
August 28 – October 10, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, August 28, 5-7pm
Speaker Series:
Bamboo Objects in Japanese Tea Ceremony (Chanoyu) | Presented by: Sara Klingenstein, PhD on Saturday, Aug 29 at 2pm
Bamboo Objects in Japanese Tea Ceremony (Senchado)| Presented by: Patricia Graham, PhD on Saturday, Sept 5 at 2pm
We are pleased to pleased to present Sencha to Sculpture: The Evolution of Japanese Bamboo Art to the 1960s, an exhibition following the transformation of Japanese bamboo art from tea ceremony utensils to sculptural form. This first installment of a planned three-part series brings together nearly 50 bamboo works and introduces pieces from the Minminsai lineage, including a signed basket by Kobayashi Minminsai I (d. 1791). This basket predates the work of Hayakawa Shokosai I (1815-1897), who has long been credited as the first Japanese bamboo artist to sign his work, identifying Minminsai I, rather than Hayakawa, as the earliest confirmed signer in the history of the medium.
The origins of Japanese bamboo art are inseparable from the culture of tea ceremony. Bamboo flower baskets became more than functional vessels; they emerged as expressions of aesthetic philosophy, intellectual refinement, and spiritual contemplation. Imported Chinese baskets in particular were prized by tea practitioners. In the mid-Edo period, Japanese artists began to ask what a distinctly Japanese basket might look like. The exhibition opens with this question, following the earliest documented bamboo artist, Kobayashi Minminsai I, whose signed baskets marked a turning point: for the first time, a basket maker’s name, not anonymity, accompanied the piece. His work, together with that of successive generations of the Minminsai lineage, elucidates the close relationship between bamboo artistry and the flourishing tea culture.
The story continues through Osaka, the mercantile heart of Edo-period Japan and the epicenter of the sencha tea movement, where in the mid-1800s, in opposition to the prevailing taste for heavily lacquered and ornate Chinese baskets, the samurai-turned-artist Hayakawa Shokosai I developed a new unmistakably Japanese style of bamboo art. He pioneered new techniques of preparing and dyeing bamboo, invented new forms, and incorporated Japanese artistic concepts, such as rustic simplicity, understated grace, and sensitivity to the natural world. His work would go on to win awards at international expositions and enter foreign collections, early evidence of the medium’s global reach.
The exhibition demonstrates how successive generations pushed the medium further: the radical “ice-cracking” weave of Hayakawa Shokosai III (1864–1922) upended the very logic of woven form; Tanabe Chikuunsai I (1877-1937) and Maeda Chikubosai I (1872-1950) forged a distinctly Japanese literati aesthetic in Osaka; and Iizuka Rokansai (1890-1958) established Tokyo as a rival art center and drove the modernization of the art form. By the 1950s, artists such as Shono Shounsai (1904-1974) had begun to break the concept of the basket open entirely, abandoning functionality in pursuit of pure sculptural expression. This exhibition showcases the shift through basket-form work by Shounsai, alongside a transitional sculptural piece from the 1950s-60s by Ishikawa Shoun (1895-1973).
Sencha to Sculpture: The Evolution of Japanese Bamboo Art to the 1960s opens on Friday, August 28 with an opening reception from 5-7pm. A speaker series is planned for the two Saturdays following the opening, further diving in to the use of bamboo objects in tea ceremony.
To learn more, click here.
About the Gallery
TAI Gallery was created by Robert T. Coffland, a leading expert in Japanese bamboo arts in the West, who began sourcing works from contemporary masters in Japan. The gallery moved from the founder’s home to a gallery space on Canyon Road, then to its current location in the Santa Fe Railyard in 2006.
Margo Thoma purchased the gallery in 2014 and merged it with her contemporary American art gallery, Eight Modern. Rebranded as TAI Modern, Thoma and renowned bamboo expert, Koichiro Okada, continue Coffland’s mission of building museum-quality collections.
Thoma supports and promotes bamboo art in the West by serving as an advisor to Western collectors and institutions, facilitating public demonstrations, and curating bamboo art exhibitions. She is a tireless collaborator and ally with and for senior artists across Japan, and sponsors aspiring bamboo artists to participate in national competitions. She has written essays for exhibition catalogs both in the U.S. and Japan and is a frequent public speaker on bamboo art.
Works by TAI Modern artists have been placed in some of the country’s most prestigious institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Mint Museum of North Carolina; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Denver Art Museum; Museum of Art and Design; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.