akiko at maak

Akiko Harai moon jar ,£38,000 at MAAK today.

With add-ons that's over £50,000 and you could buy a fair amount of decent pots for that kind of money. I wonder why some people with money buy crap?

She doesn't do a lot for me either, i have been waiting to see her develop further but she seems happy just to make these jars to order.

Not crap.

NaomiM wrote:Not crap.

Emperor's New Clothes then.

Nope. I've handled her pots at the fairs over the years and she was steadily making a name for herself with these statement pieces. I'm not surprised her career has suddenly taken off. But I know there's a certain amount of sour grapes amongst other potters who think they're making the same type of pottery. They're not.

croker wrote:She doesn't do a lot for me either,  i have been waiting to see her develop further but she seems happy just to make these jars to order.

When I went to visit her on several occasions years ago with the intention of offering her an exhibition, I was always too embarrassed to speak to her because I thought it just a poor pastiche of real Japanese inspired studio pottery. I went on several occasions because I thought it might improve enough but it never did.

These Moon Jars with stuff thrown at them were a rip off of the work that Gareth Mason was doing at the time she first made them. I suppose if they make these kind of prices then she is going to keep making the crap.

NaomiM wrote:Nope. I've handled her pots at the fairs over the years and she was steadily making a name for herself with these statement pieces. I'm not surprised her career has suddenly taken off. But I know there's a certain amount of sour grapes amongst other potters who think they're making the same type of pottery. They're not.

I have not spoken with any potters about her work but of all of the collectors that I have spoken with, none have used the term "statement piece" for any of her things. When I speak to these collectors, I am always careful not to say what I think before they give an opinion but all, to date, don't care for her work, especially these things with stuff thrown at them.

Regarding comments by potters about any other potter's work, it is always easy to regard it as "sour grapes" but I can honestly say that from my experience it is rarely the case.

Crap of course is purely personal taste You detest Edmond De Waal Studio and he equally commands high sums at auction. Personally I quite like them.
£50,000 to a lot of people is peanuts. When people are spending a great deal more than that on NFT's (Non Fungible Tokens) then anything in the Art Market is possible. There is a gigantic pool of new wealth that does not know what to do with its money,

Is it good? Yes. 
Is it worth £50K? Immaterial, imo.

Well, for a start, Akiko Hirai can probably ask a good deal more for work. This will also he regarded as a yardstick value for anything else coming up foe auction.
Unfortunately in the Great Cruel Crass Art world the higher the price the greater the artistic value that is put on a practitioner's Art.

philpot wrote:Crap of course is purely  personal taste You detest Edmond De Waal Studio and he equally commands high sums at auction. Personally I quite like them.
             £50,000 to a lot of people is peanuts. When people are spending a great deal more than that on NFT's (Non Fungible Tokens) then anything in the Art Market is possible.  There is a gigantic pool of new wealth that does not know what to do with its money,

You are correct that crap is my personal taste but it is based on me liking things that her work is pretending to be and so I think is a valid judgement. However, that doesn't mean that I object to anyone disagreeing with me. I wouldn't make such a statement about the type of ceramic work that I don't care for generally, such as Western raku, for example. I also wouldn't make it about someone, including her, at a time when the potter was trying to make their way. However, if people are paying this kind of money then I feel that I ought to comment, as someone who has been involved in the studio pottery world for over 20 years.

I don't care for Edmund de Waal's pots either but I don't detest them. I think most are not very good or pretty ordinary. It is de Waal as a person that I detest for his behaviour to other potters both living and dead. Potters themselves or certain people that write about ceramics wouldn't comment on de Waal in this way for fear of being accused of "sour grapes" or a fear of it having a negative effect on their own careers. However, I know of dozens of pottery people around the world that think the same and have stories of their personal interactions with the man, as to why they feel this way.

Thanks for that Studio.