{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1597888"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1597888/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2021MX7810/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2021MX7810/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2021MX7810","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021MX7811","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021MX7812","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021MX7813","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021MX7814","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021MX7827","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021MX7828","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021MX7829","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1597888","accessionNumber":"FE.61-2021","objectType":"Sculpture","titles":[{"title":"Crystals and memories N-2019","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"One of Japan’s most celebrated ceramicists, Ogawa Machiko has long been fascinated by mineralogy and the effects of extreme pressure and heat on clay. She made this recent work through a complicated process of sculpting and firing clay into a fissured, crag-like form, onto which a pinnacle of glass was then fused. Its raw and elemental appearance suggests it has risen from the depths of the earth. \n\nOgawa began her career as a ceramic artist relatively late, holding her first solo exhibition in 1985. This launched her to almost immediate stardom, a position she has enjoyed ever since. The V&amp;A acquired a black tea bowl made by her in 2014 (accession number FE.30-2017). This larger and even more elemental piece of work is a powerful example from a series on the theme of mineralogy she has worked on for a number of years. Her work in this vein is eloquently described in the press release to her 2018 solo exhibition<i> Into the Earth</i> at Joan B. Mirviss in New York.\r\n\r\n‘A longtime collector of rocks and minerals as a result of her extensive international travels, Ogawa Machiko (b. 1946) equates the joy she feels from her creative process to that of a miner, who after years of excavating, at long last discovers a vein of ore. Her mineralogy series pays tribute to such discoveries with each fragmented rocklike sculpture seemingly hewn from the depths of the earth and embedded with crystals in its matrix. In fact, they are created through patient sculpting and multiple firings using different clays, varied forms of glass, and added minerals.’\r\n\r\nIn a booklet entitled ‘Forms Pre-exist’ published by INAX in 1992, Ogawa wrote:\r\n\r\n‘I often feel that rather my being the active agent, it is the clay that does the creating. It is less my expressing myself than finding what is already there. It is to make manifest forms by eliminating everything extraneous. I exist as part of a primordial totality and thus the forms to which I give shape already exist within me.’\n\r\nHaving cited this statement in the catalogue to the solo exhibition in which this work from 2019 was shown  (<i>Time Unearthed III,</i> Nakacho Konishi, Tokyo, 10-22 July 2020), she wrote of ‘the act of creation’ as perhaps being ‘a prayer to the forces that give rise to our existence’ and that during ‘the many years I have worked with clay, my belief in the concept of forms that pre-exist has never faded.'\r\n\n","physicalDescription":"","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Ogawa, Machiko","id":"AUTH343398"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"Porcelain","id":"AAT10662"},{"text":"Glass","id":"AAT10797"}],"techniques":[{"text":"Sculpted","id":"x30774"},{"text":"Cast","id":"x32615"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"","categories":[{"text":"Studio Pottery","id":"THES48889"},{"text":"Porcelain","id":"THES48907"},{"text":"Glass","id":"THES48946"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"EAS","id":"THES48596"},"images":["2021MX7810","2021MX7811","2021MX7812","2021MX7813","2021MX7814","2021MX7827","2021MX7828","2021MX7829"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"002","id":"THES398871"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Sculpture","id":"AAT47090"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Yugawara","id":"THES287676"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"2019","earliest":"2019-01-01","latest":"2019-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Purchase funded by Christopher Gorman-Evans","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"435","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"350","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"290","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Sculpture, 'Crystals and memories N-2019', porcelain and glass, 2019, by Ogawa Machiko (1946-), Yugawara, Kanagawa prefecture; Japan, modern crafts, studio, ceramics","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"2. ‘Crystals and Memories N-2019’\r\n2019\r\n\r\nOne of Japan’s most celebrated woman ceramicists, Ogawa Machiko has long been fascinated by mineralogy and the effects of extreme pressure and heat on clay. This recent work was made by a complicated process of sculpting and firing clay into a fissured, crag-like form onto which a pinnacle of glass was then fused. Its raw and elemental appearance suggests it has risen from the depths of the earth.\r\n68 words\r\n\r\nOgawa Machiko (born 1946)\r\nYugawara, Kanagawa prefecture\r\n\r\nPorcelain and glass\r\n\r\nPurchase funded by Christopher Gorman-Evans\r\nMuseum no. FE.61-2021\r\n","date":{"text":"03/04/2021","earliest":"2021-04-03","latest":"2021-04-03"}}],"partNumbers":["FE.61-2021"],"accessionNumberNum":"61","accessionNumberPrefix":"FE","accessionYear":2021,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-02-21","recordCreationDate":"2021-03-22","availableToBook":true}}