SEATTLE, WA.- The Henry Art Gallery opens the exhibit Akio Takamori: The Laughing Monks through October 22. In February 2007 the Henry Art Gallery will mark its 80th anniversary. Leading up to this momentous occasion, the museum has begun a series of creative explorations of its collections. In last year’s exhibition 150 Works of Art, artists Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo devised a wholly new way to install over a century and a half of pictorial works. This summer, the Henry has invited Akio Takamori to help reexamine three-dimensional objects. The artist has created a pair of installations combining objects from the collections with his own sculptures. Head of ceramics at the University of Washington School of Art, Takamori has developed a practice of representational sculpture built out of clay. His distinctive figures incorporate elements from several aesthetic traditions, including American west coast funk, traditional Asian calligraphy, Japanese folk ceramics, and Edo period ink drawings. In dialogue with his exploration of the museum’s collections, Takamori has moved from juxtaposing vessels and figural ceramics to examining pairs of things, exploring symmetry and mirror reversals. His installation in the North Galleries will incorporate various aspects of the ceramics collections, including vessels and figures made in Asia and the U.S., as well as photographs,
costumes and textiles.

Both halves of Takamori’s installation feature a pair of new sculptures based on the laughing (or mad) monks of Zen Buddhist iconography, Kanzan and Jittoku. Their presence is at once subtly layered and playfully engaging. Although the pairing of these figures with the objects explores aspects of how these legendary figures signify states of mind and philosophical attitudes, at the same time they simply populate the galleries like viewers do. Their attitudes help suggest ways for visitors to consider diverse selections from the Henry Art Gallery collections.

This exhibition is one of an occasional series where artists with varied perspectives explore the resources of the Henry Art Gallery collections. At the same time it complements Takamori’s mid-career survey at the Tacoma Art Museum, Between Clouds of Memory: The Ceramic Art of Akio Takamori, which runs from June 10 through October 8, 2006.