Craft Trend Fair is a craft business fair that is garnering international attention in recent years for its dedication to showcasing leading Asian crafts from both artistic and industrial perspectives. In its 19th edition in 2024, the fair was led by Artistic Director Jaeyoung Kang, who was previously the Artistic Director of the 2023 Cheongju Craft Biennale and a speaker at the Go for Kogei 2023 International Symposium. Go for Kogei’s special exhibition for the fair received wide acclaim: it was presented under the theme “Expression Lives in the Details,” featuring works by Irisawa Taku, Niisato Akio and Hashimoto Masaya, who were previously featured in GO FOR KOGEI 2022’s Special Exhibition.


［Theme］Expression Lives in the Details
The theme of this exhibition is “Expression Lives in the Details.” It features the works of past Go for Kogei artists Irisawa Taku, Niisato Akio and Hashimoto Masaya.

Irisawa Taku is a professional woodworker who creates mesmerizing installation art using his own original wedge-joint technique. Thinly cut pieces of wood are joined together to build everything from simple sculptures and reliefs to enormous works that fill entire exhibition spaces. Once created, his works have endless potential for proliferation and expansion. The appeal of Irisawa’s art lies in this playfulness, combining scalability and freeform manipulation. Regardless of size, all his works are supported by small structures. This exhibition highlights the relationship between the works as a whole and their fine details, exploring how variations in form are created through successive wedge joints.

The ceramist Niisato Akio has attracted international attention for his signature “luminescent vessels.” To make them, he perforates his clay with delicate holes and coats them in a clear glaze before firing to produce intricate patterns. While the vessels can be used for everyday purposes, they also act as containers for light, capturing the brightness that passes through the meticulously drilled holes. The perforated designs cover the entire surface, seemingly as decoration, but can also be seen as passages between the inside and outside spaces inherent to the vessel. In recent years, Niisato has introduced cracks into his work, further deconstructing the symmetry of inside and outside. His art echoes the work of earlier painters who slashed and stabbed canvases to break free from the closed spaces of their paintings.

Finally, Hashimoto Masaya sculpts extraordinarily lifelike flowers from deer antler, bone, and more recently, wood and clay. Whatever the material, his works consistently juxtapose a rational clarity regarding the life and existence of each motif with an exploratory physicality as he attempts to shape them. For example, even flowers in full bloom show subtle signs of aging, like faint wrinkles and withering petals, reminding the viewer that life is trapped in a losing battle with time. The unique reality in Hashimoto’s art resides in these fine details. In the past, his works have been lauded for their technical precision, but he seems to use this same precision as a means of confronting the nature of life on an individual level.

The key to understanding different forms of expression is found in the details. This is especially true in the field of craft, where development of details and their respective techniques are particularly important. The three artists in this exhibition each have their own approaches to developing detail, but zooming in on these parts alone does not allow one to understand the true meaning of their work. The importance is only understood when the details are integrated with the whole, like the interplay between form and structure in Irisawa's installations, inside and outside in Niisato's vessels, and visible and invisible in Hashimoto's sculptures. Though only a small selection is on view, their works are striking examples of the rich worlds of expression that live in the details.

Irisawa Taku, Niisato Akio, Hashimoto Masaya

• Dates December 12–December 15, 2024
• Venues Coex Hall C
• Organizer NPO Syuto Kanazawa
• Support Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan; Japan Arts Council

https://www.crafttrendfair.com