Japan, Stillness and Substance

Exhibition: 2–6 October 2026 • Paris

S tep into Sotheby’s Paris as it unveils Japan, Stillness and Substance, curated by Sandrine Merle showcasing contemporary Japanese jewelry.

The exhibition is part of Parcours Bijoux 2026, a triennial event dedicated to contemporary jewelry.

The exhibition brings together seven Japanese contemporary jewelry artists from different generations : Fumiki Taguchi, Shinji Nakaba, Takashi Kojima, Manami Aoki, Kimiaki Kageyama, Aya Iwata, Mariko Sumioka.

Their paths and practices may differ, but they share an intense attentiveness to materials—their histories, properties, and capacity for transformation. They are especially drawn to those with little or no market value, revealing the precious in what is commonly overlooked.

This approach emerges from a history quite unlike that of Western fine jewelry, long centered on gold, gemstones, and the display of social rank. In Edo-period Japan (1603–1868), such adornments did not exist; distinction found expression elsewhere, in the sophisticated fabrics and colors of the kimono.

Against this backdrop, ordinary—or “non-precious,” in Western terms—materials are less a break with tradition than the natural extension of a conception of the object in which worth does not begin or end with the cost of its materials.

Stillness here is not silence. It is a quieter form of conversation—the one that unfolds between material and maker. Each artist listens to what a material can do, works with its constraints, and turns its irregularities into creative possibilities. By revisiting materials and techniques inherited from the past, these artists carry forward an intelligence of making firmly rooted in the present.

Mariko Sumioka

In Mariko Sumioka’s work, materials—metal, fragments of antique kimonos, enamel, coral, and pearls—are not simply assembled: they are given rooms of their own. Framed, sheltered, and sometimes concealed within a succession of miniature containers, they inhabit an architecture of intimacy. For this exhibition, Sumioka takes the idea further by making the case an integral part of the work. Continuing the Japanese tradition of the tomobako, a box made to fit a precious object, each of her four brooches comes with a precisely fitted case. Closed, it protects the jewelry and withholds it from view; opened, it reveals it like a treasure. The box neatly encapsulates her conception of jewelry: an architecture that reveals the poetry of materials without surrendering all their secrets.

Shinji Nakaba

In Müllgorgone, Shinji Nakaba gives consumer waste a mythological afterlife. The work is a Gorgon made from reclaimed plastic, born from a cameo depicting Medusa. Nakaba took a silicone mold from the original cameo, then melted shopping bags, detergent bottles, and plastic caps into it. These remnants of consumption acquire an improbable beauty, at times recalling ancient marble. Müllgorgone also conjures another monster: the endless cycle of desire, consumption, and disposal. The series demonstrates Nakaba’s remarkable command of the glyptic arts—in his hands, discarded matter acquires not merely a new form, but a presence.

Aya Iwata

How can an object hold a presence—and give memory a form capable of sustaining a bond? Aya Iwata’s answer is Kumonoie, literally “houses in the clouds,” in which enamel plays a central role. Light passes through its translucent surface, lending memory a presence that feels at once tangible and just beyond reach. The idea dates to Iwata’s childhood, when the changing shapes of clouds made her dream of drawing freely across the vast expanse of the sky. In 1991, following her mother’s death, she gave that vision physical form by building her a small house in heaven: a cloud-shaped urn in silver and translucent enamel that held her mother’s ashes and traveled everywhere with her. This first Kumonoie found a natural continuation in jewelry—more intimate, closer to the body, and easier to wear.

Manami Aoki

Under Manami Aoki’s hammer, wood becomes hair. She meticulously works hinoki (Japanese cypress) until its fibers separate, unfurl, and take on the suppleness of a flowing mane. She then detangles them with a brush before smoothing and “styling” them. This careful combing echoes the attention given to hair and resonates with the Japanese aesthetic of long black hair during the Heian period (794–1185) and the elaborate hairstyles of the Edo period (1603–1868). Through this slow process, compact wood becomes airy, tactile, and mobile, revealing a fragility and presence one would never suspect.

Fumiki Taguchi

The imposing brooch-pendants in the White Expression series appear to be set with diamonds or crystals. They are not: the brilliance is all silver. Fumiki Taguchi works the metal through his own adaptation of wabori, a Japanese engraving technique performed with a tagane, a chisel traditionally used to decorate sword fittings. By varying the angle, force, and rhythm of each strike, he creates recesses and facets that catch, fracture, and reflect the light—until silver passes for a cut gemstone.

Kimiaki Kageyama

For his two brooches and three cubic rings, Kimiaki Kageyama found his material in the treasure trove of his studio drawers. There he rediscovered fragments of urushi lacquer, a material derived from tree sap. Three centuries old, they had been salvaged during the restoration of a mikoshi—a portable shrine—from Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto. Long prized in Japanese art for its lustrous surfaces, the urushi had been stripped from the wood and marked for disposal. What had outlived its original object now begins another life as jewelry.

Takashi Kojima

For most pearl oyster shells, the story ends with the harvest. For Takashi Kojima, that is where it begins. Through his brand Kohkoh, he gives new life to shells normally discarded once their pearls have been removed. His process, patented in 2022, combines 3D printing with the growth of nacre to create cameos with exceptionally precise reliefs. Yet precision does not mean imposing total control: the process leaves room for the material’s irregularities and transformations. Kojima also works with the shell’s outer surface, using its mottled green and gray tones as a ground for patterns inspired by William Morris. Balancing technical mastery with the agency of living matter, his work invites us to look twice at what we usually throw away.

To learn more about the artists and the exhibition, download the exhibition booklet.

Sandrine Merle, curator of the exhibition, is also the founder of The French Jewelry Post, an independent media platform dedicated to fine jewelry, art jewelry, craftsmanship, and jewelry culture. Through articles, interviews, and curatorial projects, she explores the connections between creation, heritage, the market, and craft. Her approach is grounded in encounters with artists, studio visits, and close observation of the making process. Rather than treating jewelry as an isolated object, she restores it to the cultural, technical, and human worlds from which it emerges.


Instagram @sandrinemerle

Credits

Ingrid Heuel: exhibition production and installation coordination

Pomeline: illustrations and exhibition design @pomelinefavretissot

My warmest thanks go to Magali Teisseire, Director of the Jewelry Department at Sotheby’s Paris, for her trust; to Tomomi Herbin Minami for her invaluable assistance in Japan; and to Ludovic Leonelli for his support.

Contact

Magali Teisseire

magali.teisseire@sothebys.com

+33 (0)1 53 05 52 37