It would be easy for me as the creator of this blog to write many wonderful things about Min Young Ki and his teabowls. For this introduction it seems more appropriate to turn to a renowned tea bowl connoisseur for the introductory statement on Mr. Min.
Hayashiya Seijo the former director of the Tokyo National Museum has experienced many tea bowls during his illustrious career. He published the following statement on the tea bowls of Min Young Ki.
Keeping Mr. Min’s Tea Bowl Close
To My Side
To My Side
By Hayashiya Seijo (Former Director of Tokyo National Museum)
Mr. Min from Sancheongyo, South Korea, is to hold his third exhibition of tea bowls in Japan.
Although Min’s Korean tea bowls have already and always been highly appreciated by tea-devotees, I visited Min’s workplace in Sancheongyo with Akanuma Kaga (Manager of Mitsui Museum), wanting to see for myself how his current creation process was going.
Along with Mr. Chung Yang-mo (former head of Korea National Museum), who came from Seoul, the three of us selected Mr.Min's tea bowls to be exhibited in this occasion, among several hundreds of art pieces.
In my view, his Dodoya tea bowl appears to have a deeper sense of perfection compared to his artworks that were exhibited and introduced in Japan earlier on.
Seeing from various shapes and sizes of his tea bowls, I could understand how the artist was continuing to devote himself in a free, liberal manner to the creation process.
I saw, among them, a small but exquisite tea bowl, and was deeply moved to find out that it was a product of countless attempts.
The artist has been tirelessly challenging himself to create a traditional Ido tea bowl and has succeeded in creating a bowl with a traditional loquat color, which is a typical aspect of the traditional Ido tea bowl.
Mr. Min told me he hopes to create, in the near future, an art piece that comes close to the quality of the old Ido Tea Bowl.
From his Dodoya tea bowl to Ido tea bowl and Korea tea bowl, I, personally, have never seen a tea bowl that exceeds the quality of Min’s own creations.
I want to keep his tea bowl close to my side as a tea-devotee myself.
