Tradition and Innovation: Tanabe Chikuunsai IV and Apprentices
July 26 – August 31, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, July 26, 5-7pm
Artist Gallery Walkthrough: Saturday, July 27, 2pm
We are delighted to present Tradition and Innovation: Tanabe Chikuunsai IV and Apprentices. Led by master artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, this exhibition invites the viewer to glimpse the future of Japanese bamboo art. Driven to carry on the tradition of apprenticeship in Japan, Tanabe Chikuunsai IV’s studio currently hosts 10 apprentices, seven of whom have been invited to show at TAI Modern for the first time. They are Tashima Shiun, Nakamura Emika, Honda Yoko, Sano Kayoko, Hayashi Junpei, Ichikawa Yona, and Shimizu Yuki. As bamboo is always a family affair for the Tanabe family, Tradition and Innovation also features the work of Tanabe Mitsuko, Chikuunsai’s mother and bamboo master in her own right.
The Tanabe Chikuunsai lineage is the only surviving lineage of the great lineages in Japanese bamboo art, with a studio just outside of Osaka that is currently training its fifth generation. It is a lasting commitment to tradition paired with innovation that has allowed the Tanabe family to foster the next generation of bamboo artists. And, in the art world, it is hard to miss Tanabe Chikuunsai IV. From his colossal installations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at TAI Modern in 2019, to recent international exhibitions and an ongoing collaboration with the fine fashion house Loewe, Tanabe has emerged as a leader and representative for a younger generation of bamboo artists.
The exhibition promises to be a debut of the highest caliber, with the artists expressing ideas and feelings about childhood, time, and the visceral sense of being aware of one’s own organs. The experience of the self as one with the natural world is a common theme throughout. Tanabe’s Decayed Bamboo series will make its first US appearance. In these works, the bamboo twists and tangles with a feral energy, crowned with an abstracted handle made from a withered section of felled bamboo.
“Each generation of Chikuunsai has enjoyed taking on new challenges while carrying on the tradition. Innovating tradition while carrying on tradition is a contradiction of terms and a very difficult task,” Tanabe states. “However, I believe that friendly competition with the younger generation and the discovery of new concepts will lead bamboo art to a new future.”
We are happy to host Tanabe Chikuunsai IV and apprentices Hayashi Junpei, Ichikawa Yona, and Nakamura Emika at the opening at 1601 Paseo de Peralta on Friday, July 26 from 5–7pm, with an artists’ walkthrough on Saturday, July 27, beginning at 2pm. We hope you will be able to join us for this celebration of the future of bamboo art.
To learn more, click here.
RECENTLY CLOSED SUMMER EXHIBITION
Nagakura Kenichi: A Retrospective
June 28 – July 20, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, June 28, 5-7pm
Nagakura visited Santa Fe every other year for nearly two decades, meeting art lovers and collectors at the openings for his nine solo shows at TAI Modern. He and his wife Kayoko made many friends in the process. His tenth solo show would have opened in the summer of 2018 if not for his untimely death that year. Since then, we have looked forward to mounting a retrospective exhibition to honor Nagakura’s creative genius, and to also, in a sense, bring him back to his friends in Santa Fe. This June, we can finally give him his tenth solo exhibition.
Nagakura lived a life of profound experimentation, incorporating unconventional materials like bamboo roots, washi paper, and driftwood collected from local shores on daily walks, as well as inventing new techniques that evoked the patina and texture of centuries-old bamboo, bronze, rock, wood, cloth and natural phenomena like nests, webs, and cocoons. First and foremost, he was an artist, and it was through his connection to bamboo that he could express that creative drive.
Showing with the gallery since the very start of our focus on Japanese bamboo in 1997, Nagakura was the first recipient of the Cotsen Bamboo Prize in 2000 and exhibited internationally throughout his career in numerous solo and group shows in Japan, France, Belgium, and the United States. He is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among many others. This retrospective also marks the first time that Nagakura’s paintings will be exhibited to the public.
To view our online exhibition catalog, click here.
To learn more about the exhibit, 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.