Clay Corpus

Clay Corpus explores the power, dignity, and humanity of everyday objects through the practices of two master craftsmen: the late Japanese potter Yoshihiro Koide and Italian designer Ettore Sottsass. In 2004, Theaster Gates studied ceramics in Tokoname, an ancient Japanese pottery town once celebrated for the production and export of ceramic sewage pipes. Two decades later, committed to preserving the stories of Mingei and Tokoname-yaki, Gates became the steward of nearly 60,000 wares made by Yoshihiro Koide. Wrapping Sottsass’s Casa Lana with Koide’s clay corpus, Gates echoes the architecture of Tokoname’s Sanpomichi path, a hill that connected the studios of potters for generations, making visible the ancestral practices of those who adorn the exterior of their homes with their wares, allowing them to weather. This study of the Koide Collection presents humble wares as miniatures and key figures in the life of design. For Gates, the material traces of Koide’s life intimately reflect Sottsass’ meditations on the ability of Eastern craftsmen to load humble materials, like clay, with cosmic power. This mediated cultural exchange between Koide and Sottsass elevates the material traces of their practices to archives of achievement and monuments to craft.