Jihei Murase, Gold Melon-Shaped Water Container 金彩阿古陀水指, lacquer, h:6 3/4 x w:10 1/4 x d:10 1/4 in

Light and Abundance: Gold in Japanese Art
March 13 – April 17, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 13, 5-8pm
35 N. Moore Street

Ippodo Gallery cordially invites you to join the inaugural opening of their new downtown flagship gallery in TriBeCa, which comes after 12 years on Manhattan’s Upper East Side during this season’s Asia Week New York!

Light and Abundance: Gold in Japanese Art is a group exhibition highlighting the rich use of gold in traditional mediums. These unique works by distinguished artists in lacquer, metal, Nihonga painting, and ceramics are contemporary masterpieces showing the class and elegance of gold.

The pure material, never to tarnish nor rust, is the object of fascination and admiration for more than a thousand years in Japan. Gold represents divinity, the eternal, and symbolizes spiritual enlightenment since ancient times, serving to cover statues of Buddha, temples like Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, and the feudal lord Hideyoshi Toyotomi’s famous Gold Tea Room. ‘Zipangu, the Land of Gold’ as Marco Polo named the archipelago more than five-hundred years ago, reminds how the country was once the foremost global producer of gold, which empowered the development of a distinct Japanese visual culture. While modern minimalist and wabisabi philosophies rise, flamboyance remains a quintessential element of Japanese aesthetics.

Be sure to discover twenty-four top emerging Japanese artists in contemporary kogei for whom gold persists as a medium of innovation and virtue next month!

To learn more, click here.