The weather has been so promising here recently, so we spent a great day the other weekend in Kensington Gardens, and visited the David Hockney and Cecily Brown exhibitions at the Serpentine Galleries.
The Serpentine is such a memorable place for me as I was invited to run some Japanese Tea Ceremony workshops at their Summer Pavilion there in 2022. You probably know that every year the Serpentine commissions a world-renowned architect to design them a new temporary pavilion for the summer. The first one, by Zaha Hadid, was in 2000. In 2022 it was the American artist / musician Theaster Gates – the first non-architect to be asked. The result was what he called The Black Chapel, and he kindly asked me, alongside various musicians, potters and actors, to join him in celebrating the space.
It was a fascinating opportunity to perform the Tea Ceremony in such a dramatic location, surrounded by fantastic architecture, which included large ceramic panels from Japan. It also meant being invited to the exclusive Serpentine Gallery Summer Party, which was packed with interesting people including some old friends. It was a chance to catch up with Edmund du Vaal, who is so inspired by Japanese ceramics. He is a really interesting artist, and I remember seeing some of his very early pots when going to an event at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation a few years ago. Those were bold pieces, quite different from his famous small white pots.
Meeting Theaster Gates was a marvellous thing, and he has been such a good and fascinating friend, opening doors of contemporary art for me as well as being such a great believer in Mingei (people’s art) - the Japanese art movement. He often calls his own art Afro Mingei.
Although Theaster is now a famous contemporary artist, in 1997 he was a ceramic studio apprentice in Tokoname in Japan. He still has those strong ties to Tokoname, visiting it frequently to create new ceramic projects. Since the Black Chapel project, he and I have exchanged lots of ideas about Japanese ceramics, particularly about how to support local potters and the ceramic industry while Japan’s society ages.
Right now it is Milan Design Week time, and Theaster has been involved in creating an interesting ceramics installation there with Prada. Some of Tokoname’s artists have been joining in with this installation too. Theaster is a wonderful communicator about Chawan (tea bowls), and I am very pleased that he has been able to use his fame and connections to promote Japanese artists on the world stage.
Here are some of his ideas from the current installation:
“The Chawan cabinet is like my love story to ceramics. It’s an opportunity to think about the rituals of daily life, and to think about the utensils that help us be human.
… [The] cup holds a set of memories that I’ve attributed to the cup. The idea that home is the place where you practice everyday, sacred things. [The] work … wants you to touch it. It wants you to hold it. It wants you to drink from it. … Mingei also represents a commitment to hand making …”
This is fascinating for me as I promote my own Japanese ceramic artists in my own way in London, and I hope for the opportunity in the future when my and Theaster’s work might intersect.
Theaster and I both have a common friend in Japan. One of the artists we have here - Tomoo Hamada – also works with Theaster from time to time. Tomoo, I am happy to say, is also a great supporter of my London gallery, and he is currently in Sweden involved in an exhibition of his grandfather’s work at the national museum in Stockholm. Later on this year, in October 2026, we have invited him to create an exhibition here at 120 Talbot Road, alongside his fellow Mashiko artist Kan Matsuzaki. What a great event that will be. We have also just received a number of new pieces by Tomoo Hamada which are now on display in the galley.
I totally agree with Theaster, Chawan – tea bowls – give us the opportunity to think about the rituals of daily life, and to think about the utensils that help us be human. And the bowl can hold a set of memories that we attribute to the bowl. I have my own black matcha tea bowl made by Tomoo. It works in all sorts of ways, and carries many ideas and personal memories. And yes, it makes me want to touch, to hold it, and to use and drink a special cup of matcha tea from it. It is a remarkable object.