Two views: Japanese Kōgei

K?gei, an exhibition label explained, means ‘artisan crafts’ and the word was invented in the late 19th century to meet Western needs for categorisation – the Japanese themselves had gotten along happily for millennia without prying apart art and craft. The artists in this exhibition, curated by Y?ji Akimoto, director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, use materials and methods of traditional crafts, but the imagery is shaped by contemporary culture, including manga, anime and Western art. The exhibition is nearly all ceramics, to the extent that the two lacquer artists and a dollmaker (not discussed here) seem like an afterthought, although their mediums are highly respected in Japan.