The inaugural exhibition at Ippodo Gallery’s new TriBeCa location is devoted to gold in its many craft and aesthetic possibilities. Tea bowls by Noriyuki Furutani have golden “oil spot” glazes dripping down their sides like chocolate; an eight-sided black bronze vase by Koji Hatakeyama has a secretly gilded interior; and hand-hammered brass ginkgo leaves by Shota Suzuki are coated in powdered gold.
Of the many wooden boxes and containers that Jihei Murase has painted with urushi lacquer and covered in still more of this most beautiful of precious commodities, his “Gold Melon-Shaped Water Jar,” with its pockmarked texture and homey bulges, is a particular delight. Only a reflective black lid, tucked away on top, is there to remind you just how glamorous an object it really is.
For my money, though, the most impressive metal in the show is copper, as it appears in a pair of hand-forged vases by Hirotomi Maeda. Called “Clouded Skyscraper” and “Skyscraper Gale,” they’re flat ovals that descend from broad, flat shoulders to narrow feet.
On the first, a pattern of primordial, bright-green spirals stands out against a slate-colored background that somehow looks both slippery and matte; the second is wrapped in wide turquoise lines. In each, the gold around the vase’s neck is completely shown up, turning a yellowish-beige color that evokes millet porridge.
–WILL HEINRICH