Luxurious Essentials

March 21 - April 28, 2003

Gallery & Web Exhibition

If the most basic human desire has been to tend first and foremost to one’s essential needs, the second most important goal, on the basis of extant physical evidence would be the elevation of material goods by means of adornment. Kaikodo is pleased to present its 30th exhibition “Luxurious Essentials” which explores the means and modes by which utilitarian objects from a period of more than two millennia were transformed into works of art.

The exhibition included 30 painted fans from the collection of Jean-Pierre Dubosc, a set of painted lacquer pillows and boxes dating to the Song dynasty, a group of textiles, aesthetically elevated by their sumptuous patterns and techniques, and a fine selection of ceramics dating from the Neolithic period through the 17th century, a sequence in which ordinary shapes and forms were routinely embellished with surface decoration ranging from complex painted designs to the color and texture of the glaze itself.