Tetsuya Yamada: Listening

This exhibition surveys the work of Minneapolis–based artist Tetsuya Yamada (Japan, b. 1968), whose interdisciplinary practice amplifies the poetry found in the everyday. From exquisitely crafted ceramic sculptures to delicate drawings to documentation of the artist’s self-organized installations in surprising sites around the Twin Cities, the featured works highlight Yamada’s engagement with the connections between life and art.

Yamada’s artistic influences include the ancient Japanese forms of Noh theater and the traditional tea ceremony; the punk rock and skateboarding cultures of his youth in Tokyo; the modernism of Constantin Brancusi and Isamu Noguchi; and the democracy of the “readymade” object espoused by Marcel Duchamp. Many of Yamada’s pieces include found materials, such as sawhorses, plywood, shards of glass from his own backyard, or natural elements, in combination with his ceramic objects. His wide-ranging artistic practice is guided by sensitive material attention, a practice of “listening” to the behavior of substances, objects, and spaces.

The exhibition, the first US museum presentation of Yamada’s work, features more than 50 works from 2001 to the present, including sculptures in ceramic, wood, and metal; paintings; drawings; photographs; video; and a site-specific installation in Cargill Lounge.