Non Capisco Né La Vita Né La Morte: A Reading From The Tai Ping Hou Kui Leaves ("My Neighbor Sergio" Pt.1)
In which I turn to poetry instead of ruining the art or the tea with clumsier words.
I’m mugging a hearty and fragrant Tai Ping Hou Kui from Imen at Tea Habitat inspired by my recent foray into Global Tea Hut’s “Seven Genres of Tea” Course—a tale for another dispatch—but I promise, I’ll make this one short. For all our sakes.
Yesterday I visited The Kawakita Film Museum here in Kamakura for the second time. Kashiko and Nagamasa Kawakita were instrumental in bringing European films to Japan and Japanese films abroad before and after the war. The museum is built on the grounds of their former residence not far from Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine, one of the two most famous religious sites in town.
On this occasion, a beautiful old kominka—which used to serve as a guest house for visitors from the film world—on the hill behind the museum was open for one of what I believe are two weekends per year. The occasion was the opening day for an exhibition by Sergio Maria Calatroni titled “Natura silenziosa/自然の静寂.”
I know Sergio as a neighbor, but the world knows him for his art and design work. Sergio’s exhibition, which runs through this Sunday November 12, includes paintings, ceramics (tea bowls among them), and sculpture he’s made over the last year or so. The pieces were spread out through the house where visitors can wander around, enjoying the art as freely or formally as they please. For more about Sergio, take a gander at his various IG pages (main, photography and studio) and SC Artroom.
I’m still reeling over how to describe the experience—and Sergio’s art in general—so instead of giving into temptation and put on the old art’s criticism hat, I’ll simply share some photos of the exhibition here:
As usual, when I’m moved beyond prose, I find home in the poem. Below is one I wrote this morning as the exhibition and Sergio’s work continues making its rounds through the rooms of my mind:
Opening Day at the Kawakita Annex
Stand in shock and ask whether any of this,
Is for sale.
Because long before Kamakura
Became the artist capital
A shogun just across the road
Looked in his glass and asked
“Will this cure my hangover?”
Old friends arrive
As new faces fail
To contain their laughter
About the bulldozers
And bureaucrats ahead
Converse full chested
About good deaths
And bad deaths
Trying to attribute
Gratitude’s birthplace
And don’t apologize, about any of this,
To anyone at all.
This grey morning
These long leaves
A butterlettuce glaze
Pan searing old faces
On new friends
I wish I’d composed
These words
At night
Where art better
Reverberates life’s impermanence
Because long before Kamakura
Became the samurai capital
A mountain monk a sea over
Looked in his glass and asked
“To what can this be compared?”
Indeed, to what, can any of this,
Be compared?