Detail: TAI Modern is proud to present Japanese bamboo artist Yufu Shohaku’s solo exhibition in Santa Fe after having been on view in New York. It is an honor to present Yufu-sensei’s distinctively powerful body of work to our audiences in New Mexico.

Yufu Shohaku (b. 1941) turned eighty years old earlier this year. A second-generation bamboo artist from Beppu, Yufu began making baskets in elementary school and achieved mastery by middle school. Today, he is known for his robust and energetic rough-plaited baskets that incorporate bamboo branches and roots, half-split chunks of bamboo, and bamboo ropes.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is the magnificent and unusual Meoto Iwa (The Wedded Rocks). Yufu recreates in bamboo these sacred rocks, tied together with a rope, representing the union between Izanagi and Izanami, the two central deities in Japan’s creation myth. The artist spent much of 2020 working on this sculptural homage to connection and new beginnings.