Dorcas Maphakela was one of a new generation of black art students graduating from Witwatersrand Technicon in Johannesburg, 2003. Seeking to expand her knowledge of the arts, she saved money to spend a year as an intern at Craft Victoria. She has since picked up the pen and is starting to write exhibition reviews. So here’s a South African perspective on a Melbourne exhibition of Japanese ceramics.

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Otagaki Rengetsu: Black Robe White Mist
RMIT Gallery, Melbourne
June – July 2008
Images courtesy of RMIT Gallery

Born in 1791 into the world of poverty and having survived the hardships of womanhood, Rengetsu’s immaculate pieces tell a story of self contentment. This I believe is a story not only women can relate to but anyone who is able to take a moment in time to reflect on their travelled path and the one ahead. She held Todo as natural family name; became a Buddhist nun and adopted the name Rengetsu, translated “Lotus Moon.”

Rengetsu married between the tender ages of 7 to 16 during her time at Kameoka castle where she earned a living as a Lady in waiting. Her husband passed on in 1823. She also lost all her children to illness. Following this turning point in her life she found solace in nunnery. Subsequent to relocating from one temple to another, Rengetsu finally settled at the Jinko-in where she lived her days to the last. She died peacefully at the age of eighty-five in the tea room.

This was a well accomplished woman in her art form. Not only did she learn the Classical Japanese poetry of Waka, but her achievements included dance, pottery and calligraphy. Having being brought up in a Samurai family, Rengetsu had also acquired skills in Martial Art. This relationship is evident in the manner in which her collaborative works (gassaku) compliment each artist’s individual style. With her vast acquired expertise Rengetsu was able to achieve flawless depiction through the treatment of line. In the hanging scroll In this world,in a gassaku with Tomioka Tessai, her delicate calligraphy floats in a complimentary fashion to the paper and imagery that completes the composition, this indicates that she was a well spirited person of graceful gestures. Although loose in form, her technique captured the assurance, the strength and decisiveness of the artist. The lightness of the pieces-almost fading into its own surface draws the viewer closer to the work creating a personal viewpoint which digs deep into the persona and thus finding that point of relation to the observer.

Rengetsu engaged in a lot of gassaku. These are collaborations to observe friendship and special occasions. Her main connections were with such people as Tessai Tomioka, Wada Gozam and Kuroda Koryo who later gained the title of Rengetsu II. Rengetsu did what it took to help put her friends’ work on the map, e.g. she would inscribe her poetry in their works or even allow them to sign her name on their works. This demonstrated that her comfort did not lie in material items such as fame and fortune. Kuroda continued to sign as Rengetsu after her passing.

When I walked into the exhibition I was immediately drawn into what laid before me. I couldn’t wait to get closer to the pieces. For me, presentation of art (visual, performance, word and so on) has the power to make or break the intended story. I must say the RIMT Gallery captured the essence of the show and as one slowly moves from one piece to the other, one gets transported through an amazing journey of tranquility and places full of peace. From the traces of her hands on the pottery to the playful yet strong significance of her poetry the entire body of work was such a marvel.

In Japanese culture tea and sake ceremonies are great social occasions for celebrations such as friendships, weddings, business partnerships, etc. By choosing to engage in collaborations (gassaku) with her friends, the results convey the enjoyment of the making process which gives a sense of shared experiences and sheer social bliss which the end user can definitely appreciate while employing her objects during tea/sake ceremony. The textural finish visible in works like This gentleman, sencha tea set, demonstrates the depth of personal engagement with her work as well as the lengthy quiet moments she shared with each piece.

This show was in great contrast to the fact that the gallery is situated smack amidst Melbourne CBD on Swanston Street with a tram stop just outside the entrance.

Black Rope White Mist truly succeeds in diverting the viewer’s attention and I’m happy to report that I was taken on a voyage from the moment I laid eyes on the first gassaku. I commend the curators and the RMIT gallery staff for being able to showcase this remarkable piece of Japanese history. I had no idea what would be ahead but I can assure you Rengetsu’s poetry stroke a chord in me and I believe I experienced some degree of healing from within.

Dorcas Maphakela

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Images

Ōtagaki Rengetsu (1791–1875) and Tomioka Tessai (1836–1924), Kyoto, Japan, In this world, hanging scroll [kakemono], 1867, ink on paper; calligraphy, painting, 92.0 x 20.0 cm. National Gallery of Australia, 2005

Ōtagaki Rengetsu (1791–1875), Kyoto, Japan, This gentleman, sencha tea set, 1830–75, glazed stoneware; incised calligraphy, various sizes. Private collection, Switzerland. This poem is on the water cooler, other poems illegible.

I’m currently visiting the Ceramics Department at the Canberra School of Art. As usual, there’s plenty of new ideas and things around. And the ‘Brindabella biter’ that blows in from the west keeps everyone on their toes.

Last week I gave talk on ‘relational ceramics’, which developed partly out of a paper that I wrote for the Jewellers Metalsmiths Group of Australia. The issue was how to judge work that emerges from the relational paradigm in craft. Here’s how I framed it for jewellery:

As relational jewellery becomes more familiar, we are less likely to credit it as good in itself. The fact that jewellery involves others in its production is not per se worthwhile. To support the contribution of relational jewellery to the field as a whole, we need to develop a critical framework for judging its worth. To lay out some basic parameters for criticism, I have identified a number of key qualities that might contribute to meaningful relational jewellery. These parameters are based on the experience of participating in the kinds of gatekeeping discussions that occur regularly throughout the craft sector. This will evolve over time, but here’s a set of qualities to begin:

Originality

While craft as an art form draws more than others on the stock of traditional techniques, it’s institutionalisation in the 20^th century has tied it to the tiger of modernism. As such, for a work to succeed as contemporary craft it must demonstrate its originality. In the context of relational jewellery, we would look for evidence of innovation not in the production of an object but in the way a group has been constituted to participate in the work.

Craftedness

Given the significance of broad participation in relational jewellery, we expect that the required skill levels are pitched at the lowest common denominator. Given this, traditional qualities of beauty in jewellery are difficult to translate to the relational domain. However, craftedness is not necessarily made redundant by this collectivisation. Our assessment of how well-made the work is extends from the final product to the process of production. How well has does the participatory method allow for individual expression while maintaining a consistency of form? There is still residual craftedness in the final production, such as printing and displaying of materials such as photographs.

Democracy

Relational art is prey to fake forms of involvement. An artist who coerces others to contributing to their great masterpiece is not seen to be empowering the group in the process. We can often find empirical evidence of this in the documentation or our own witness of the experience of participation. The value of creative agency implies that the participant must have the power to be able to affect the outcome in some way. For obvious reasons, this is quite a challenge to traditional concepts of craftsmanship.

Body

Finally, there is the contentious matter of the work’s relation to jewellery as an adornment of the body. To what extent does the work cause us to reconsider the position of the body in the world? How much does it help to reveal an aspect of the body that has hitherto been overlooked? The question of the body in jewellery has usually been seen as a matter of support: how the ornament sits or hangs on the human form. Relational jewellery opens this up to the question of how the body exists in space, among other bodies.

While much of this could be directly translated to ceramics, the issue of body needed some more thought. Because ceramics is not worn, the relationship to the body is more in the realm of phenomenology.

But I was pleased that someone from the audience suggested that the conceptual basis of the work should also figure in this list of qualities. While that might be located in the criterion of ‘originality’, thinking about it further, it did seem worthwhile to consider that a work needs some kind of argument or story to frame its presence. This doesn’t mean that the work is reduced to the concept, but that it makes a difference in the world. Note that this is specific to the artistic value of ceramics, and is not relevant so much to its use in everyday life.

So an attempt to develop criteria for relational craft has been assisted by participation – how relational!