The Past and Future of Kogei: Talk, Reception & Pop Up Exhibition

This is a free event. RSVP for free admission to this talk, reception and exhibition. This event is part of Japan Society’s annual Living Traditions event series, focused on celebrating Japan’s traditional arts.

Artisans, especially those who engage in kogei (traditional crafts), construct the essence of Japanese culture. Kogei are handmade, regional products produced from raw materials collected according to traditional practices and manufactured using traditional techniques which play an important role in daily life. However, with changing lifestyles and technologies, it is getting difficult to maintain kogei culture and the skilled artists who have dedicated their lives to it, and the recent Noto Peninsula Earthquake further deeply impacted many kogei artists.

This event will discuss kogei and its history, evolution and future through a 60-minute in-depth discussion with noted kogei experts and a rare in-person visit from a kogei artist from Japan. After the discussion, it will feature a reception in which attendees are encouraged to interact with our panelists and view a pop up exhibition which will feature examples of kogei arts, including kogei from regions affected by the Noto Earthquake.

Featuring

Keiji Onihira is an urushi (lacquer) artist who was born in 1973 in Wajima City, Ishikawa Prefecture. He is a member of the Japan Kogei Association and Wajima Lacquerware Techniques Preservation Society, an organization dedicated to preserving Important Intangible Cultural Properties. At the age of 18, Onihira began his apprenticeship under the renowned maki-e (a technique focused on applying metallic powder to wet lacquer) master Sadahisa Kumano. After completing the maki-e course at the Ishikawa Prefectural Wajima Lacquer Arts Training Institute, Onihira’s work has been selected multiple times for exhibitions such as the Exhibition of Japanese Traditional Urushi Works and the Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition. Onihira has also taken part in cultural human resource development initiatives organized by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, particularly in the field of maki-e production. In 2023, he became a member of the Wajima Lacquerware Techniques Preservation Society, where he continues to work towards preserving the traditional techniques of maki-e. He has received the Asahi Shimbun Prize at the Exhibition of Japanese Traditional Urushi Works, the Mayor of Kanazawa Award at the Ishikawa Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition, the Public Recognition Prize at the Ishikawa Prefecture Culture Awards and more.

Dr. Monika Bincsik is Diane and Arthur Abbey Curator for Japanese Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She has organized numerous exhibitions for the museum, notably Kimono Style: The John C. Weber Collection (2022); Kyoto: Capital of Artistic Imagination (2019); Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection (2017); and Discovering Japanese Art: American Collectors and the Met (2015). She has published extensively on Japanese decorative arts and collecting history, recently in Kimono Style: Edo Traditions to Modern Design (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2022) and The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2019).

Daniella Ohad, Ph.D. is a design historian, connoisseur, educator, curator and writer, whose  commitment to modern design history includes extensive work in the fields of design culture, history and theory, interiors, material culture and connoisseurship in the decorative arts. Her writings and critiques have been published in magazines and peer-review journals, helping to raise awareness and support to the significance of design. In recent years, she has been conducting a study on the way in which Japanese kogei artists have been considering and participating in the global world of cross-disciplinary contemporary art and design.

Moderated by: Dr. Michele Bambling, Senior Director of Japan Society Gallery, holds Ph.D., M.Phil. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University in art history, specializing in Japanese art. She received a post-doctorate Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship from the Metropolitan Museum of Art where she also worked as a researcher in the Department of Asian Art. Dr. Bambling was an Associate Professor of Art History at Zayed University and New York University Abu Dhabi before joining Japan Society. Bambling brings more than three decades of expertise with Japanese art as well as extensive international curatorial experience to the role, including curator of the National Pavilion UAE at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2014) and co-curator of the UAE Pavilion at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (2022).

Timed around Japan Society’s event, Kogei USA, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting traditional Japanese crafts, will stage a longer exhibition titled The Spirit of Noto: Urushi Artists of Wajima. Opening on October 3 and on view through October 25, it will feature works from 15 Japanese artists all working with urushi who were impacted by the Noto Earthquake. This exhibition will take place at Onishi Gallery (16 East 79th Street).