Design
Curator’s Eye
WE ASKED CURATORS OF LEADING TWENTIETH-CENTURY AND CONTEMPORARY DESIGN COLLECTIONS TO DISCUSS ONE OBJECT THAT THEY FEEL IS PARTICULARLY NOTEWORTHY. HERE IS A GALLERY OF THEIR CHOICES.
TOSHIKO TAKAEZU, REMEMBRANCE, Bronze, 2000
This bell of remembrance, cast 2000, was erected in Princeton University’s Memorial Garden in 2003, along with thirteen metal stars set in the ground in memory of thirteen Princeton alumni who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on September 11,2001. Sound has always been a hidden characteristic of Toshiko Tazaezu’s art, whether in bronze or clay. best known as a potter who taught at Princeton for twenty-five years, Takaezu was at the forefront of a movement that turned ceramics from craft into an art form. She transformed ordinary clay bowls and pots by closing their forms, taking away their practical function and turning them into pure structure- and yet Takaezu often left a clay rattle inside the closed forms, causing each pot to ring like a bell. That Takaezu also worked in bronze is not surprising, as bronze casting is essentially a ceramic art. This bell was first molded as a clay model with high-relief ribs of dripped glaze to create a richly textured surface.
CARY LIU
Curator of Asian Art
Princeton University Art Museum
