This was made in 1978, during the final year of Yagi Kazuo’s life. For a solo exhibition held to commemorate turning sixty, Yagi selected five key works from each period of his career. He then created five new works based around the same themes and displayed them alongside their predecessors. Like the present work, these five new pieces were all black pottery with highly-simplified forms. This seems to be the style Yagi finally alighted on at the end of his career.

Yagi has written “Shin-sei (Nova)” on the object’s box. Indeed, with a shape resembling a couple of five- or six-pronged stars joined together diagonally, the work conveys a sense of newborn stars shooting out into the universe. The object is almost entirely composed of straight lines. The only rounded sections are located at the ends of the central opening. Our attention is thus drawn to this space. However, a glance at the sides also reveals grey squares bisected by black lines on each of the small flat surfaces formed by the prongs. Yagi has painted thin borders along the outline of the surfaces and then added color within. This technique is also on display in other works created in 1978, including Many-sided and Omen. As these titles suggest, it seems Yagi wanted to create works filled with fresh discoveries, where totally different aspects emerge from each viewpoint.

Yagi Kazuo (ceramist; 1918−1979)
Kyoto-born ceramist. Initiated and led an avant-garde ceramist group Sodei-sha with Suzuki Osamu, Yamada Hikaru, and others; pioneered the revolution in Japan’s ceramic field. Exhibited intensively in and out of Japan. Awarded the Grand Prize at the second and the third International Ceramic Exhibition.