Tōhen 「陶片」

Onishi Gallery is proud to announce an off-site exhibition Tōhen 「陶片」, co-curated and hosted by Galleria Barbara Paci, opening in Pietrasanta, Italy on May 31st, 2026. 

 

In the exhibition Tōhen, Japanese ceramic artists Yoshita Minori and Tokuda Yasokichi III—both designated Living National Treasures—present works grounded in ceramic forms and techniques passed down through centuries of tradition. Within the lineage of Japanese ceramic practice, artists undergo rigorous apprenticeship training in inherited skills and formal vocabularies before attaining artistic mastery. From this foundation, they create contemporary works that remain deeply rooted in history while resisting reduction to mere relics of the past.

 

The dialogue between contemporary Japanese ceramics and Agostino Rocco’s contemporary Italian paintings unfolds through the concept of lineage—understood not as nostalgia, but as a living material condition. Ceramic, pattern, gesture, and surface become vessels of memory, carrying traces of knowledge transmitted across generations. Rather than reproducing tradition, these works reinterpret lineage as a contemporary language shaped by fragmentation, personal history, and the instability of the present moment.

 

Tōhen invites us to trace these connections across distance and difference—between ceramic and pigment, between Japanese and Italian traditions, between the weight of inherited form and the freedom of contemporary expression. In this convergence, fragments do not simply coexist; they generate something new.