Katsuyo Aoki

Formed by hand, this porcelain skull recalls the swirling French Rococo designs used for furniture, decorative arts, and interiors in the 1700s. Rather than apply this aesthetic to the surface, Aoki used ornament to create the very structure of the skull. Intricately formed and densely elaborate, it exists as a memento mori, or a reminder of death and the fleeting nature of mortality, underscored here by the seeming fragility of the porcelain. Expressing, in the words of the artist, “the sacred and vulgar atmosphere of the present age,” this work balances between morbid connotations and painstaking elegance. 

–Elizabeth A. Williams, David and Peggy Rockefeller Curator of Decorative Arts and Design