黑料不打烊

Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within travels to the Chazen Museum of Art September 8鈥揇ecember 23, 2025. The exhibition is the first nationally touring retrospective of Takaezu鈥檚 work in twenty years. Takaezu taught at UW鈥揗adison 1954鈥�1955.

This retrospective aims to trace the evolution of her practice and reframe Takaezu as one of the most compelling and conceptually innovative American artists of the last century. It will serve as an in-depth consideration of the range, depth, and development of Takaezu鈥檚 work, with a particular focus on the worlds she conjured within individual forms, and in stunning environmental installations. The title of the show is meant to evoke the vital sense of resonant space expressed in Takaezu鈥檚 work, and allude to her assertion that the most important aspect of her closed forms is 鈥渢he dark space that you can鈥檛 see鈥� 鈥� the hidden worlds within.

Of Okinawan heritage and born in Hawai鈥榠, Toshiko Takaezu was a groundbreaking twentieth-century abstract artist most celebrated for her prolific output of expressively glazed 鈥渃losed form鈥� ceramic sculptures that ranged in scale from palm-sized works to immersive sculptural environments. Seeking to harness the expressive potential of both abstract painting and sculpture, Takaezu radically reimagined the vessel form as a pliable three-dimensional canvas, and as site for limitless experimentation. Takaezu鈥檚 phenomenal hybrid practice, which was informed both by her cross-cultural heritage and deep appreciation for the living environment, also included innovative work in painting, weaving, and bronze-cast sculpture. She often displayed these varied works alongside and in productive dialogue with her ceramic works to create captivating environments. Similar to her friend Isamu Noguchi, Takaezu鈥檚 boundary-crossing practice defies limiting art historical categorization and stands as an endlessly creative and inspiring model for making and being.

The retrospective is organized by The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, with assistance from the Toshiko Takaezu Foundation and the Takaezu family. It is co-curated by art historian Glenn Adamson, Noguchi Museum Curator Kate Wiener, and composer and sound artist Leilehua Lanzilotti. The exhibition was conceived and developed with former Noguchi Museum Senior Curator Dakin Hart. The show first opened at The Noguchi Museum featuring more than 200 works from private and public collections around the country