Jun Nishida

Seven of the fourteen works of the Zetsu series are found in collections in the United States. In 2011, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston acquired Zetsu No. 8, the largest work of the series which is displayed in three separate vitrines. The components are spotlit in a darkened gallery to accentuate their dramatic textural qualities. Combined, they weigh over 1,360 kilograms.

The monograph on the Zetsu series, first published in 2006, was re-issued in 2018 after Nishida’s work received increased attention in the years following his death.

Jun Nishida (西田潤, Nishida Jun, 1977 – March 26, 2005) was a Japanese ceramicist. He is best known for his massive conceptual pottery pieces, which experiment with the material capacities of clay and the imaginative forms that ceramics could take amid the intense thermochemical conditions of the kiln. Throughout his brief yet productive career, Nishida pushed the boundaries of contemporary ceramics, challenging conventions of scale, abstraction, and method to produce a radically new visual language of pottery.

Nishida died on March 6, 2005 in an electric kiln explosion at the age of 28 while working with local artisans in Java, Indonesia. He had been building communal gas kilns in several villages in Java and Bali to encourage the continuation preservation of the distinctive perbot wheel throwing tradition on the islands, where clay is modeled upon a slanted wheel.

Born in Osaka, Japan in 1977, Nishida studied ceramics at Kyoto Seika University, where he received BFA and MFA degrees in ceramics in 2000 and 2002. From 2000 onward, his work was featured in a number of solo and group exhibitions across Japan, including the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Osaka Contemporary Art Center, Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Gifu. Nishida also received prizes at ceramic competitions across Asia and Europe, including the bronze prize at the 1st Korea International Ceramic Biennale in 2001, and the Grand Prix at the 53rd International Contemporary Ceramic Biennale in Faenza, Italy. He taught as a lecturer at Ikenobo Junior College and Kyoto Seika University.