mitate and readymade

Talk Session: Sugimoto Hiroshi x Sen So-oku

"Sen Rikyu and Marcel Duchamp: Alchemy of Ideas"

If Marcel Duchamp was the man who placed mass-produced objects on pedestals and thereby upended the notion that artworks must possess sophistication and uniqueness, then 16th century tea master Sen Rikyu was the man who introduced similarly innovative values to the world of the tea ceremony. He did this by producing simple raku tea bowls instead of imported precious ones and also by bringing bamboo vases into teahouses that had once been centered on bronze and Song Dynasty celadon porcelain vases. In this discussion, self-proclaimed "Duchampian," Sugimoto Hiroshi, and the future grand tea master of the Mushakoji-Senke, Sen So-oku, make fascinating discoveries as they investigate how the idea of the "readymade" informed the thought of both Sen Rikyu and Duchamp.

(MORI ART MUSEUM: http://www.mori.art.museum/english/contents/french_window/public/index.html)