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		Jun Kaneko January 18 - March 1, 2008 Opening reception: Friday, January 18, 6:00pm - 9:00pm Gerald Peters Gallery, Dallas 1019 Dragon Street Dallas, TX 75207 TEL 214.969.9410 or toll-free 877.430.7804 FAX 214.969.9023 or toll-free 866.904.5936 Hours: Tuesday-Friday 10am - 6pm Saturday 10am - 5pm or by appointment	For further information contact: Ashley Tatum Director (214) 969-9410 atatum@gpgallery.com
		After Gerald Peters Gallery’s nationally acclaimed exhibition of Japanese sculptor Jun Kaneko in 2005, the gallery is pleased to invite gallery patrons and art aficionados to its second ever showing of the world-famous sculptor this January 2008. The upcoming exhibition is presented as a broad survey of the artist’s oeuvre, with works ranging from paintings, drawings, ceramic constructions, glass sculptures, rare selections from the artist’s EKEC period, to the artist’s most familiar forms: ceramic dangos and heads. The Gerald Peters Gallery proudly considers the exhibition a real coup in its offerings of a selection of 6 foot tall bronze heads that were once part of a world-touring set design by Kaneko for the opera Madame Butterfly. Most recently, Jun Kaneko made international art headlines in November 2007 with the unveiling of the world’s largest single-form, hand built ceramic sculptures. Each weighing in at around 5,000 pounds and surpassing 13 feet in height, Kaneko’s newest creations are an awe-inspiring sight to behold. But the finished product came at a high risk of failure. Miniscule flaws in the earliest stages of forming the sculptures can result in deep cracks or obliteration during the firing process. Always keen on pushing the limits of his medium, Kaneko and three assistants built the sculptures out of hand made bricks of wet clay which took one full year to dry. The first stage of low-heat kiln firings took 7 weeks, after which Kaneko spent several days applying paints and glazes in his usual patterning approach. Then the sculptures were fired in the kiln one final time for 7 weeks and took several weeks beyond that to cool. The Gerald Peters Gallery exhibition will have at least one from this recent firing: a 10 foot tall dango. Scale is an important factor when considering Jun Kaneko’s work. Scale with regards to the medium of ceramics implies a virtuosity and mastery over a notoriously finicky and difficult substance. Scale synchronized with color, form and palette produces a mesmerizing reverie, drawing the viewer closer in admiration rather than distancing from sheer monumentality. Kaneko’s works are in museums, airports, hotels, convention centers, hospitals, universities and other public collections across the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan. These include the American Crafts Museum in New York, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the San Francisco International Airport, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Honolulu, the Waikiki Aquarium, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art, the Ichon World Ceramic Center, Japan and the Olympic Museum of Ceramic Sculpture, Athens, Greece. A speaking engagement at SMU in the spring of 2007 drew a standing-room only crowd, some having flown in from out of town especially to hear the artist’s rare public lecture. A retrospective exhibition of Kaneko’s work organized by Smith-Kramer is touring to fourteen museums through 2011. Born in Nagoya, Japan in 1942, Jun Kaneko was blessed with atypical parents in a postwar Japan. He was encouraged from his youth to embrace a “freedom of being”. His artistic exploration eventually brought him to California in his early 20s. There he utilized his keen sense of observation and absorbed the budding artistic ceramic industry with zealous fervor, teaching himself English and developing relationships with those who recognized and supported his talent. He studied under the greatest modern ceramicists of the ‘60's: Peter Voulkos and Paul Soldner. Kaneko attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley and Claremont Graduate School. He has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. His iconic sculptures and paintings are found in public and private collections throughout the world. The artist currently resides and works in Omaha, Nebraska.