Title unknown [still life with foreign pots]

This 1960s still-life with foreign pots — untitled in the records — presents a grouping of vessels of distinctly non-Japanese character: pots, jars, or containers whose forms mark them as products of other ceramic traditions, whether Chinese, Korean, or Western. Kawakami's interest in objects as carriers of cultural identity makes the "foreign pot" a resonant subject: objects that have traveled, that carry in their forms the aesthetics of their places of origin, that become visible evidence of exchange. The ink-only medium gives the composition a restrained elegance.