Folk Craft Exhibition 'Mingei: The Beauty of Everyday Things'

The Setagaya Art Museum is holding an exhibition titled, Mingei: The Beauty of Everyday Things, through June 30. Previously shown in Osaka, Iwaki, and Hiroshima, it will move on to Toyama and Nagoya after the Tokyo term concludes. 

In present-day Japan, there is a mingei boom. Mingei is a combination of the Japanese characters 民 (min), meaning "the masses" or "the people", and 藝 (gei), meaning craft. Its most common English translation is "folk craft." 

The term was first used by art critic and philosopher Soetsu Yanagi (1889-1961) when he issued a "Prospectus for the Establishment of the Japanese Craft Museum" in 1926. It was coined to create a movement that would lead to the foundation of the museum. The approach proved successful. The Japan Folk Crafts Museum was established in 1936 in Tokyo's present-day Meguro ward.  

The 1920s were an era of rapid Westernization and industrialization. Yanagi feared that traditional folk crafts would be condemned to back recesses of the nation’s storage rooms. He roamed the Japanese countryside searching for the best examples of handmade objects that ordinary people use in their daily lives. 

A Pre-war Exhibition Revisited

The present exhibition is divided into three parts. First is The 1941 "Life Exhibition": A Lifestyle Proposal by Soetsu Yanagi. It is followed by Mingei in Daily Life: Beautiful Design. Finally, those are followed by Expanding Mingei: Past, Present, and Future. In all, the exhibition contains over 150 objects. 

The 1941 "Life Exhibition": A Lifestyle Proposal by Soetsu Yanagi is a re-creation of a March 1941 exhibition at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. In that exhibition, Yanagi sought to arrange the museum artifacts into a living environment. He recognized that when an object is placed within a museum, it tends to forgo its sense of practical application. The 1941 exhibition sought to remind us that the utility of a piece of mingei was as important as craftsmanship and beautiful design. 

Yanagi’s display was a form of table coordination/room design re-created from photos of the 1941 exhibition. The pieces were easy to obtain ー all had safely resided in the museum for the past 83 years. 

Exceptional Museum Pieces

The second section of the exhibition, Mingei in Daily Life: Beautiful Design, highlights individual pieces of folk craft. A particularly striking piece is an example of slipware. This is pottery in which semiliquid clay, or slip, is placed onto the semi-hardened clay body surface before firing. The stunning square dish dates back more than two hundred years, to the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. 

Another notable item is one of several kimono-shaped comforters displayed in the exhibition. This one features a wave and crane pattern. Other comforters on display have been selected for their designs that are characteristic of specific regions of Japan, including Okinawa and Hokkaido. 

Regional 'Mingei' Hotspots and a Look Into the Future

In the third section, Expanding Mingei: Past, Present, and Future, the approach is primarily educational. It visits mingei production areas, including Torigoe in Iwate prefecture, famous for bamboo crafts, the Yatsuo Japanese paper region of Toyama prefecture, and Kurashiki glass production in Okayama prefecture. 

The exhibition ends as it started, with an example of room design, curated by the husband and wife team of Terry Ellis and Keiko Kitamura. It seeks to present a broader view of the future of mingei—"a future mingei style that can be integrated into modern life." An unlikely feature of this room is a piece of cardboard art depicting a sukajan (retro Japanese bomber jacket), created by Gima Tomotatsu, a contemporary Okinawan artist.

A Trip to Koenji

Ellis and Kitamura are the owners and managers of Mogi Folk Art, a mingei shop, and Mogi & Mogi gallery. Both are located in the inner West Tokyo suburb of Koenji, famous for its alternative subcultures, second-hand shops, and cheap eats. They are described by the exhibition catalog as a "driving force" behind contemporary mingei. 

A feature of the exhibition is its gift shop. Unsurprisingly, it is full of quality mingei items supplied by Mogi Folk Art and a handful of other mingei retail outlets. 

Soetsu Yanagi saw mingei as standing in "contrast to the aristocratic fine arts." In establishing a museum, however, he implicitly began the transition in which the best examples of mingei sit not on tables or within kitchen cabinets, but as collector pieces in display cabinets and on shelves. The mingei purists may well complain about this developing trend, but artists need to eat. 

During a visit by JAPAN Forward to his gallery, Ellis expressed optimism about the future of mingei as collectible art. However, he noted that the rise in the number of creators is not being matched by a similar rise in those of a mind to collect.

Pricing Collectibles

One wonders, nevertheless, whether the Japanese public is fully aware of the opportunities presented by mingei. A collector of paintings would generally expect a starting price of around ￥500,000 JPY (about $3175 USD) to ￥1,000,000 (~$6,350) for a significant piece — a price that is generally out of reach of middle-class Japan. 

What sort of figure would get one started with mingei collectibles? Would ￥100,000 suffice? Ellis picked out several pieces at his gallery which could be bought for such a price. The smallest of his gallery items, he noted, would go for less. 

As a form of art in which most collectible pieces do not take up the limited wall space of Japanese homes, mingei certainly seems well suited to contemporary Japan. Ellis also sees potential in overseas collectors, and the opportunities presented by the tourism boom. "Japan has a long history of influencing Western art," he says. 

A Flourishing Art Form

Both the growth and influence of Japanese mingei is likely to be strong in the coming years. In that light, a visit to  Mingei: The Beauty of Everyday Things, is a valuable opportunity to gain an appreciation of an artistic trend. 

For a collector of mingei, a practitioner, or simply an admirer of beauty, it is also an inspiration. But please come prepared with cash or cards in hand. The temptations of the gift shop are many and varied. It is hard to get through without being severely tempted to spend more than you had planned. 

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Author: Paul de Vries
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