Special to Independent Newsmedia
This fall Phoenix Art Museum will present Radical Clay: Contemporary Women Artists from Japan, organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz Collection.
The exhibition is a chance for viewers to discover the technical achievements and creativity of leading women ceramicists from post-war Japan, highlighting their discovery of new possibilities for clay and its potential as a medium, the museum notes.
It will be on view from Wednesday, Sept. 24 through August 2026.
“This exhibition highlights an incredible selection of innovative artists who have expanded the creative boundaries of ceramics as a medium,” Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO, shared in a press release. “This is a rare opportunity to experience the technical advancement and innovation in contemporary Japanese art and complements the Museum’s historical works in the institution’s Asian Art Collection.”
Radical Clay celebrates the originality and virtuosity of 36 women artists from Japan who have explored sculptural expression outside the traditional field of Japanese studio ceramics since the 1970s. The exhibition’s 40 avant-garde works are drawn from the Horvitz Collection, a leading collection of Japanese contemporary ceramics outside of Japan, and explore wide-ranging content and motifs, including the human body, geology, flora, and fantastical abstract forms.
“Visitors will see a wide sweep of sculptures in Radical Clay: Contemporary Women Artists from Japan, from the innovative to the expressive to the mysterious,” Colin Pearson, curator of Asian Art at Phoenix Art Museum, stated.
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue published by the Art Institute of Chicago. It features contributions by Hollis Goodall, former curator of Japanese Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Janice Katz, Roger L. Weston Associate Curator of Japanese Art.