Sizing up Jun Kaneko's giant art

By Lennie Bennett, Times Art Critic
In print: Thursday, March 27, 2008

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ADVERTISEMENT [Images from the Arts Center] Above, Jun Kaneko, Untitled, 1999, acrylic on canvas, 86 by 66 by 2 1/4 inches. Left, Jun Kaneko, Untitled, 2005, glazed ceramic, 62 by 55 by 13 inches.

ST. PETERSBURG — Even if your only hands-on experience with clay was that elementary school project decades ago, you will appreciate the magnitude of Jun Kaneko's ceramics in an exhibition at the Arts Center.

And magnitude is the word. The Japanese-born artist seems fearless in testing the limits of clay's material properties.

How high? How heavy?

How dramatic!

Kaneko, 66, works successfully in many mediums but his massive ceramic sculptures are the ones people tend to remember, the abstract shapes with geometrically glazed surfaces. They can measure as tall as 13 feet and weigh several tons.

Do you remember, back in that art class, how you had to wait maybe a week for your masterpiece to dry, then another day to fire it in a kiln?

Kaneko's larger works take years to dry and weeks, sometimes months, to fire. When he opens the kiln, he is prepared that only one or two sculptures out of 10 will have survived the process. They would get major points just for standing in a gallery.

But this isn't stunt art or macho swagger.

It's contemplative. Most are Dangos, a series named for the Japanese word meaning dumpling. They're rounded shapes that can be conical or wedgelike, horizontal
sometimes but typically vertical. From a distance, they look like inflatables. Up close, they have a delicacy despite their massive size, their actual volume belying the way they inhabit their spaces.

Kaneko builds them from slabs, taking one as high as it will go, then attaching another to make it higher. Because the drying process is so lengthy, he can go back over time and refine the shape and surface.

Kaneko was a painter before learning ceramics, and still paints, so the glazes are applied with abstract designs and geometric forms.

The exhibit also has numerous examples of his smaller ceramic sculptures, both free-standing and wall slabs. The "Chunks," as Kaneko calls some of them, have equally refined finishes but often with a quirky aberration. The solid form will be excised by a cutout zig-zag or an unglazed, ragged edge that looks as if it had been accidentally broken.

The artist is less restrained in his treatment of the wall slabs in which he uses his glazes more for painterly effect than as sculptural markings. He takes a certain idea and exaggerates it, letting glazes drip with abandon, changing the gentle curls on the larger Dangos into tight springforms, emphasizing a single dot as a solo performance rather than as part of an ensemble.

They and the paintings are probably needed respites from the intensity and time commitments of the monumental art. He has a brighter palette for the acrylics, but they are closely related to the ceramics. The primary red, blue and yellow he favors, painted as slender threads stretched across the canvas, could represent the stages of his clay in the kiln going from cold to hot and cooling back down. Or they could simply be a spontaneous and intuitive exploration of color. They are hypnotic in their own way, as the lines merge in optical illusion like a color wheel.

Then there's the serene blue head, taller than most people and far wider. It's the only representational work here. Everything about it is relaxed. Eyes closed, mouth without tension and the face untroubled by worry lines. He could be dreaming, praying or meditating. I would like to ask him, but I don't want to disturb him.

Lennie Bennett can be reached at (727) 893-8293 or lennie@sptimes.com.