Minneapolis Institute of Arts announces The Audacious Eye: Japanese Art from the Clark Collections

Minneapolis Institute of Arts presents The Audacious Eye: Japanese Art from the Clark Collections an exhibition on view Sunday, October 6, 2013—Sunday, January 12, 2014.

This first-look exhibition of 120 highlights from the Clark Collections, recently acquired by the MIA, offers unusually rich and personal insights into the scope of Japanese art and the nature of connoisseurship. Bill and Libby Clark amassed one of the world’s finest collections of Japanese art according to their own finely honed interests, instincts, and idiosyncrasies. Not trends. Not markets. Not a particular time, place, or medium. They collected what they liked—what drew their audacious eyes.

This exhibition hints at the stunning variety and bold taste that accorded the Clarks’ endeavor, begun in the late 1970s, a kind of legendary status. Tucked in the agricultural valley of central California, their collections grew from frequent trips to Japan, stoking their enthusiasm for Japanese aesthetics—their home is a blend of Japanese and California Arts and Crafts styles. The collections’ 1,700 objects now range across 10 centuries and from paintings to sculpture, ceramics to textiles, woodblock prints to bamboo baskets. They include important examples from every school of painting in Japan since the 16th century and from some of its most acclaimed living artists, including 80 pieces by ceramist Fukami Sueharu—the largest assembly of his sleek bluish-white porcelain in the world. www.artsmia.org