2019: The Year According to Tetsuya Yamada
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Visual Arts

2019: The Year According to Tetsuya Yamada

To commemorate the year that was, we invited an array of artists, writers, filmmakers, designers, and performers to share a list of the most noteworthy ideas, events, and objects they encountered in 2019.

In 1991, Tetsuya Yamada saw an exhibition of Isamu Noguchi at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, where was studying ceramics, that energized him, inspiring him to travel to the US to study art. Currently a professor in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota, his ceramics practice is a metaphyscal one, blurring categories of art, science, religion, and medicine. Recipient of McKnight Artist Fellowships for Visual Artists in 2014 and 2019 and the 2001 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, he has participated in residency programs at Kohler Arts/Industry (2002, 2009), the Fabric Workshop and Museum (2004), and at the European Ceramic Work Center in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands (2010).


1.
HEARTS OF OUR PEOPLE

Christi Belcourt (Michif), The Wisdom of the Universe, 2014; Acrylic on canvas; 67 5/16 × 111 in.; Collection Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Purchased with funds donated by Greg Latremoille, 2014; 2014/6; © Christi Belcourt

Hearts of Our People: Native Woman Artists at Mia (the Minneapolis Institute of Art) told important stories by people often under-represented in art, women and Native Americans, but what was equally impressive was the technical ability and intense labor that went into many of these works. Hours and hours devoted to intricate handwork using everything from porcupine quills and paint to seashells to glass beads. I’m glad to see their stories told.

2.
JAY ADAMS CRUISER

“Open the box and get ready to slay the streets.” I started skating in Tokyo in the ’80s, inspired by graphic design and colors of the products. Today, Z-Flex’s Jay Adams Cruiser feels more my speed: classic styling and soft wheels for a smooth ride—perfect for an easy trip to pick up groceries at the Seward co-op.

3.
THE FORM WILL FIND ITS WAY


The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts’ annual conference brought some 5,000 ceramicists to the University of Minnesota, where I teach. Its accompanying exhibition, The Form Will Find Its Way: Contemporary Ceramic Sculptural Abstraction, curated by Betsy Carpenter, filled the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, offering a compelling look at the diversity of international ceramics practices today, as well as an installation by Dutch artist Alexandra Engelfriet.

4.
GRETA THUNBERG AT THE UN CLIMATE SUMMIT

“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.” Sharp words for adult politicians from a teenager, who warns that the biggest criticisms for today’s leaders will come from the future.

5.
RADICALISM IN THE WILDERNESS

GUN, Event to Change the Image of Snow, 1970. Photo: Geijutsu Seikatsu-sha; photograph: © Hanaga Mitsutoshi, Iso Toshikazu and Horikawa Michio

I didn’t know the work of many of the postwar Japanese artists featured in Radicalism in the Wilderness Japanese Artists in the Global 1960s at Japan Society in New York, and it was a fascinating experience learning about them—postwar artists from my home country working before I was born—while so far away from home.

6.
SIMPLE MILLS MIXES

I’m not 100-percent gluten free (I cheat a lot), but these almond bread and pancake mixes are the best I’ve found.

7.
AUTOPHAGY

All I’ll say about about autophagy—the subject of cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi’s 2016 Nobel Prize—is: this is information that economically driven industries and institutions may not want us to know.

8.
BLACK FLAG IN TOKYO

One of my favorite bands growing up, Black Flag finally made it to my home country—and I wasn’t there to see it. Bonus: the band’s fifth vocalist is Mike Vallely, creator of Street Plant Brand (“100 % Independent Skateboarding for Love, for Fun. No Rules, no divisions, no schools. Just a Skateboard as a Paintbrush and the World as an Empty Canvas.”)It’s completely relied on themselves….

9.
3330 E. 25th ST. TEMPORARY

An out-of-service laundromat in Minneapolis’s Seward neighborhood hosted my self-generated independent exhibition for three days in July (special thanks to Birchwood Cafe and Big River Yoga). A temporary jungle, the project melded the metaphor of laundry with the cleansing power of plants, and included activations by poet Juliet Patterson, a bamboo flute performance by Douglas Ewart, and a plant sale by The Greenery Minneapolis.

10.
A NEW COACH

My wife, Renee, is from Green Bay, so you could say I married into the Packers, and this year the publicly owned nonprofit team entered a new era with the naming of coach Matt LaFleur… and promptly clinched a spot in the playoffs.

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