Sokyo is pleased to present a two-person exhibition featuring Ōtagaki Rengetsu and Claudine Monchaussé, curated by Joël Riff. This exhibition marks the first presentation of Claudine Monchaussé’s work in Japan. We warmly invite you to take this opportunity to view the exhibition.
"Nigori mo nagere te wa" notices a metamorphosis. So has the earth changed. Through the silt of a river washed by its own current, clarity now emerges. It takes time. The water is limpid once more. The clay reveals itself anew. It has endured all that was necessary to reach this point, at times, even turbidity. Thus, from chaos to meaning, from line to word, from mud to beauty, there it stands, striking, powerful, simply present.
Claudine Monchaussé ceaselessly builds wood-fired stoneware in central France. With the assurance of being exactly where you have to, she shapes statures of undeniable balance, standing on their stems, commingling complementary motifs within a ever-fertile dynamic. Her sculptures are the fruit of contrasting forces, with the artist acting as their conduit. A universal alphabet quietly surfaces. It speaks for her.
Ōtagaki Rengetsu writes. Her body of work employs a multitude of mediums to give form to her thoughts. She composes and records, on clay and paper alike, using negative space just as ink, through what she hollows out or adds. A staggering humility emanates from her tableware, pottery that can appear almost clumsy, and from her tanzaku, simple strips of fibers, which nonetheless radiate astonishing power. Her hand is everywhere.
"Nigori mo nagere te wa" is an excerpt from a poem by one, that might totally appear pinned up in the other's studio. It is a small fragment drawn from the immeasurable flow. And just like that, the two artists are united across a century and a half and the two thousand leagues separating them. It is evidence amidst the vastness. Their works share much, perhaps most notably an irresistible upward momentum. Each escapes hell, whether a tragic biography or a unwanted kiln area.
Ōtagaki Rengetsu reinvented herself as an artist in her forties, alone. Born in Kyoto in 1791 to a samurai and a geisha, the future nun grew up in an adoptive family that provided her with a refined education. She rose above the worst to achieve immense popularity through the gesture, whether the potter's or calligrapher's, always servicing poetry. A figure of influence, she funded the construction of a bridge over the Kamo River, saying how she revolutionized all that flows. She died in 1875.
Claudine Monchaussé forges her statuary, solitary. Born in the countryside east of Paris in 1936, she first touched clay in the village of La Borne, legendary for its ceramic tradition, where she remains based today. For seven decades, she has found there the means to fuel her passionate drive to reconcile contradictions. These might take the form of motherhood and bulls, expressed in countless variations. She will soon be firing the latest combinations of these themes.
"Nigori mo nagere te wa" embodies an impulse to rise up. The exhibition celebrates a moving verticality. So from a small hill to a blossoming moon, we grow. The frontal refusal to sink compels a renewal, constantly refreshed by the waves. It is up to our gaze, then, to cleanse itself, ensuring immediate, unblemished access to a sharpness regained. Fluid, it transforms us. (Joël Riff)
