Contemporary Art

Guide Training Package for Kondo Exhibition

Transcendent Clay: The Kondō Family’s Path of Porcelain Innovations

Mar. 1–Sep. 7, 2025; Galleries 251–253

 

Spanning almost a century of creativity, “Transcendent Clay” offers the opportunity to explore the interplay of tradition and innovation in Japanese ceramics through the achievements of the Kondō family in Kyoto. The legacy of porcelain-making began with Kondō Yūzō (1902–1985) in the 1930s and continued with his sons Yutaka (1932–1983) and Hiroshi (1936–2012), who broke free to pursue original, individual expressions. Ultimately it was the grandson Takahiro (born 1958) who emerged as the family’s greatest innovator by developing the secret technique of applying a “silver mist” (gintekisai) of metallic droplets to his modern forms.

This exhibition is based on Transcendent Clay/Kondo: A Century of Japanese Ceramic Art, originally presented by the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, guest curated by Joe Earle. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz, whose generosity and passion brought this exhibition to life.

The Curatorial Department has created a training package that includes images and background information on the artwork featured in this exhibition. Please see the link below!

Kondō exhibition 2025 – Docent training package

Norman Akers, Interference and a Tiny Spot of Hope, 2019

Here are some resources to learn more about Norman Akers and his work:

There is some good information in the label, to at least discuss the elk’s presence:
Interference and a Tiny Spot of Hope is a presentation of the past, present, and future. Akers combines flat imagery with illusionistic space to provide an immersive and yet open-ended experience into personal, historical, and cultural issues, such as identity, disruption, dislocation, and belonging. In his paintings, Akers uses Osage stories as metaphors over illustrations, and complexity over a singular, fixed interpretation. The most prominent figure in the painting, the suspended or falling elk, is an important figure in Osage cosmology and becomes a symbol to represent ideas of being between two worlds (Osage and non-Osage), and the precarious place of being between the earth and sky, a fundamental Osage principle of balance in the world. Wind turbines found within the painting and within Osage homelands disrupt the spatial order and space between the earth and sky, and according to Akers, “obscure[d] the horizon….and the blades cut into the earth”. Other features within the painting, including tree stumps and skeletal remains along the riverbed, reference the environmental and cultural disruptions within Osage landscapes.

And here is an article about the artist:
https://www.kansan.com/arts_and_culture/theme-of-lost-identities-within-boundaries-ingrained-in-art-professor-norman-akerss-exhibit-contested-territories/article_93fade32-5e4d-11e5-864f-fb3c6c82acc4.html

And there is this video, and a painting that seems to have some similar themes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MCaPpLxTCI

Mapping Black Identities training and resource page

Mapping Black Identities Rotation 2 Material 2020 – Artist information

Here is a link to the recorded training session by the Contemporary curatorial staff on Mapping Black Identities,on February 7, 2019:

Mapping Black Identities

Please note that at the start, the sound quality is poor. If you are able to listen to it with headphones, turned to the highest, you should be able to hear it.

Here is the lecture PowerPoint:

Mapping Black Identities Presentation_training pdf

Here is the updated checklist of objects in the exhibition:

Mapping Black Identities Checklist

Here are the labels for the objects:

Mapping Black Identities Labels PDF – Press

Here are resources on the films showing in the Black Box:

Mapping Black Identities- 3 Films Presentation Notes and Resources

This is a MPR story on the exhibition:

Black Identities exhibit marks cultural shift for Mia

From our curatorial staff comes a wealth of research documents on the artists represented in the exhibition, linked here below:

Charles Gaines Supporting Docs

Deana Lawson Supporting Docs

Delita Martin Supporting Docs

Elizabeth Catlett Supporting Docs

Emma Amos Supporting Docs

Frank Bowling Supporting Docs

Igshaan Adams Supporting Docs

J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere Supporting Docs

Joe Overstreet Supporting Docs

Julie Mehretu Supporting Docs

Kerry James Marshall Supporting Docs

Kevin Beasley Additional Supporting Doc_ Black Relief

Kevin Beasley Supporting Docs

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Supporting Docs

MBI Presentation Training Research Content

Museums are now clamoring for Frank Bowling’s work

From your colleague Jean London, an article on Frank Bowling’s work:

Non-Synchronous Cartographies: Frank Bowling’s Map Paintings

Please note there is a separate post for the rotation, with a video of that gallery training on January 30, 2020. Here is a link to that page.

 

 

Contemporary Art training, February 22, 2018

Here is the video of the training session with Gabe Ritter, on the rotations in the Contemporary Art galleries:

Contemporary Art Rotations 2.22.18

Also, here are additional materials and articles Gabe has sent to us, connected to his lecture:

Emma Amos Prose Bio

Amos Selected Press (Compressed)

Lorna Simpson

Martin Wong_Human Instamatic_v2

LONNIE HOLLEY Summary Packet 2017 (2)

Renee Stout Crossroads (extended)

Portia Zvavahera I’m With You

PressPack_Smith_20171017 (1) (1)

Takashi Murakami video

From your colleague Kathleen Steiger, here’s a video interview with Takashi Murakami, including “Great Manga shots and a wonderful interview with the artist and shots of his workshop.” The video was uploaded by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

Takashi Murakami video interview