Painter and sculptor Tetsuya Yamada creates oil paintings and ceramic wall and floor works that reference iconic Modernist sculptors and architects such as Frank Gehry, Vladimir Tatlin, and Richard Serra. Yamada’s installation Morice (2007) consists of 45 ceramic sculptures that pay homage to Brancusi and Duchamp, and makes titular reference to the term of endearment shared between the two artists, who were close friends. The sculptures include ceramic objects, many of which resemble phalluses, evoking Duchamp’s found urinal; they sit atop plywood stands and wooden kitchen stools—references to Brancusi’s Endless Column and Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel. In Yamada’s minimalist oil-on-canvas paintings, large, colorful abstract forms inhabit gray or white fields.
Tetsuya Yamada
Knots, 2019
Handmade ceramic object with metallic glaze
6 x 6 x 6 inches