Breaking Tradition: The Avant-Garde in Japanese Ceramics, 1948 to 1990

Breaking Tradition: The Avant-Garde in Japanese Ceramics, 1948 to 1990 opens at the Minneapolis Institute of Art on October 24, 2026, and runs through February 7, 2027. You'll find it in the Mary Griggs Burke Gallery of Japanese Art, rooms 251-253, at 2400 Third Avenue South.

The exhibition looks at the shift in Japanese ceramics after World War II, when a lot of artists stepped away from the centuries-old emphasis on continuity and took a more radical path. Instead of making functional objects, they started making sculptures. In 1948, five ceramicists—among them Yagi Kazuo (1918-1979), Yamada Hikaru (1923-2001), and Suzuki Osamu (1926-2001)—founded Sōdeisha, the 'Crawling through Mud Association,' which stayed active until 1998. More than 60 artists were associated with the group at some point, though many, like Kawamoto Gorō (1919-1986) and Morino Taimei (born 1934), preferred to work independently. That individualism remains a defining characteristic of contemporary Japanese ceramics.

The show brings together works by both Sōdeisha members and independent artists created before 1990. One of the pieces on view is Clay Figurine (1962) by Suzuki Osamu, a glazed stoneware sculpture that fits right into that shift from the functional to the sculptural. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue written by art historian Andreas Marks.

It's a free exhibition, so you can drop in whenever you're near the museum. It runs from October 24, 2026, through February 7, 2027, in the Mary Griggs Burke Gallery of Japanese Art, rooms 251-253, at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2400 Third Avenue South.