Tom Sachs Offers his Take on the Japanese Tea Ceremony

Tom Sachs, Tea House, 2011-2012. Mixed media, 122 1/2 x 132 x 202 3/4 in. Collection of the Artist

Artist Tom Sachs made his name in the 90s with tongue-in cheek takes on popular culture, like his famous Hello Kitty Nativity. But while his new exhibit, Tea Ceremony, also tackles a cultural institution, this time he’s taking an “irreverent-but-respectful” approach to the Japanese Way of Tea. The show, which will run at New York’s Noguchi Museum from March 23rd to July 24th, presents a tea house complete with all the tools for the traditional tea ceremony, chanoyu. “Like [museum namesake] Isamu Noguchi, Tom Sachs is a bricoleur of cultures, who marries his equal passions for craft and high technology—NASA being another important practitioner of both—in complex, deeply optimistic, boundary-eroding fantasies, says Dakin Hart, Senior Curator at the Noguchi Museum.

Tom Sachs, Natsume (tea container), 2014. Hishaku (ladle) at Tsuku-Bai (Hand Washing station), 2014. 15.5 H x 2.5 W x 2.5 D inches. Collection of the Artist

Tom Sachs, Chabako (tea utensils), 2015. 12.375 H x 14.25 W x 9 D inches. Collection of the Artist

To learn more about Tom Sach’s work, click here.

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