Cup (yunomi) c. early 21th century

Curator: Oh, I love this. The rough texture, the warm tones... It feels incredibly grounding. Editor: It certainly has a primitive feel. What we are looking at is a piece titled "Cup (yunomi)", attributed to Matsuzaki Ken, dating from the early 21st century. You can find it here at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It appears to be made primarily of earthenware. Curator: Earthenware suits it perfectly. It feels almost like it was pulled straight from the earth. There’s something beautifully imperfect about it. Like finding a treasured object washed up on the shore, burnished by sun and salt. Editor: That ties into the function of yunomi cups within Japanese tea culture—a culture deeply connected to concepts of Wabi-Sabi that values the imperfect and impermanent. Its earthy texture speaks to broader aesthetic philosophies connected to the marginalisation of standardised beauty and encourages alternative value systems. Curator: Yes, there’s such an acceptance here, an inherent acknowledgement of transience. The way the glaze pools and cracks… like a tiny, self-contained landscape weathering before our eyes. I love how the abstract form is a deliberate break away from Western functional conventions. Editor: Definitely. Cups have long been important social and political objects, signalling cultural and community rituals. What seems simple here, and stripped back to "raw" materials is loaded with significance. I'm fascinated by what seems to be a limited color palette of ochre, rust, and black that simultaneously creates an ambience that evokes a primal yet modern landscape. Curator: The colours work together to almost mimic erosion. The cup feels like an archeological fragment containing multitudes. You could spend hours just turning it over and over, seeing something new each time. Editor: Indeed. This yunomi cup can act as a provocation – an entry point into the interconnected nature of art and lived experience that transcends geographical and cultural limitations. The everyday is suddenly a philosophical terrain of art practices. Curator: Precisely. What initially presents as just a simple cup transforms into a meditation on presence, impermanence, and the interconnectedness of everything. It’s strangely liberating. Editor: Ultimately, this "Cup (yunomi)" embodies the potential for ordinary objects to embody complex social, historical, and artistic dialogues about contemporary cultural anxieties surrounding environmental precarity.