Kazuo Yagi

Kazuo Yagi (八木 一夫, Yagi Kazuo, 1918–1979) was a Japanese potter and ceramic artist best known for spearheading the introduction of nonfunctional ceramic vessels to the Japanese pottery world.

With an innovative ceramicist as his father, Yagi was sent to art school to study sculpture, instead of pottery.

Yagi was born in Kyoto on July 4, 1918.

He was the first son of the potter Issō Yagi, whose workshop was in the Gojōzaka neighborhood of Kyoto, the traditional center for kyōyaki (Kyoto ceramic wares).

Issō was an early reformer of pottery, asserting the potential of ceramics to be a form of art.

Perhaps for this reason, Yagi was sent to take classes in sculpture.

After graduating from university, Yagi became a trainee at the Kokuritsu Tōjiki Jikenjō (National Ceramic Research Institute), which had been run by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce since 1920.

He joined the Nihon Tōchō Kyōkai (Japan Ceramic Sculpture Association) at the invitation of its founder, the ceramic sculptor Ichiga Numata.

Numata was trained at the French porcelain manufactory in Sèvres and spent time in Auguste Rodin’s studio, learning the art of ceramic sculpture.

Numata created sculptures of animals in coarse red clay, which inspired Yagi to try creating similar works.

Yagi also worked at Numata's studio.

After graduating in 1937, he continued to train in the progressive circles, such as the National Ceramic Research Institute and the Japan Ceramic Sculpture Association.

In 1937 he graduated from the sculpture program at Kyoto Shiritsu Bijutsu Kōgei Gakkō (Kyoto City School of Art and Craft, today Kyoto Shiritsu Geijutsu Daigaku or Kyoto City University of the Arts).

Following a short period of military service in 1939 and through the early postwar years, he was involved in a series of collectives that sought to transcend the traditional aesthetic values in not just ceramics but also in a range of visual media.

In 1939, he was conscripted into the army and sent to China for military service, but was released the following year due to illness.

Upon his return, he joined the avant-garde nihonga exhibition society Rekitei Bijutsu Kyōkai (Progress Art Association). Working against traditional aesthetics, the group explored avant-garde European trends in painting by Wassily Kandinsky, Surrealist artists, and the Bauhaus.

In addition to paintings, the society showed works of ceramics, photography, ikebana, and embroidery in its exhibitions.

Through this exhibition society Yagi became familiar with European avant-garde artworks.

However, after the society disbanded due to World War II, Yagi temporarily stopped working in ceramics and became a teacher for the duration of the war.

With the end of World War II, Yagi left his teaching job and devoted himself again to ceramics.

His works were exhibited at the second and third Nihon Bijutsu Tenrankai ("Nitten", the government-sponsored salon exhibition).

He also exhibited works at the annual Kyoto Municipal Exhibition ("Kyōten"), winning an award for his work Kinkanshoku ("Annual Eclipse"), and at exhibitions of the Pan-Real Art Association.

He participated in the establishment of the Seinen Sakutōka Shudan (Young Pottery-makers’ Collective) in 1946, a group that sought to establish new expressions in pottery appropriate to postwar society.

It was not until 1948 that Yagi established his own ceramics collective, Sōdeisha, a group which rejected extant models of pottery and deliberately sought to blur the line between pottery and sculpture.

The collective organized three group exhibitions before disbanding in 1948.

In 1948, Yagi and his colleagues Osamu Suzuki, Hikaru Yamada, Yoshisuke Matsui, and Tetsuo Kano from the Seinen Sakutōka Shudan established the Sōdeisha ("Crawling through Mud Association"), an avant-garde ceramic arts group.

Their manifesto drew from Surrealist language to declare its radical goals for ceramics, proclaiming: "We are united not to provide a 'warm bed of dreams', but to come to terms with our existence in broad daylight."

As a group, they vowed to stop referencing older models of pottery, and to stop submitting their works to the NItten and other salon exhibitions.

Rather, they launched their own independent annual group exhibitions.

Unlike juried salons, Sōdeisha exhibitions did not distinguish between fine art and pottery, blurring the boundary as reflected in their works.

Inspired in part by Isamu Noguchi’s work in Japan in the early 1950s, which used ceramic materials to create modern abstract forms, Yagi and other members debuted so-called obuje-yaki ("kiln-fired objet "), or pottery with no functional purpose.

The introduction of obuje-yaki was considered extremely radical at the time, because it questioned the very basis of ceramic objects.

Yagi also introduced other experimental ceramic methods later in his career, such as burnishing his pottery objects black (so-called kokutō).

Through his ceramic works, Yagi questioned the boundary between pottery and sculpture.

However, his steadfast dedication to ceramics ultimately resulted in the nonfunctional ceramic vessel becoming an accepted type within Japanese pottery practice today.

His legacy was felt through Sōdeisha, which continued even after his death, and his teaching at Kyoto City University of Arts.

In 1950, Yagi received early international acclaim when several of his works were included in an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Japanese Household Objects. The works were purchased by Antonin Raymond and Noémi Raymond at the request of Philip Johnson, then the Architecture & Design curator at MoMA.

Yagi and Sōdeisha members continued to experiment with new expressions in pottery.

Yagi was also involved in avant-garde art activities outside of pottery and ceramics – for example, he was a founding member of the Gendai Bijutsu Kondankai (Contemporary Art Discussion Group) in 1952.

Sōdeisha continued to be active past Yagi’s death in 1979, and eventually disbanded in 1998.