Jun Kaneko

Jun Kaneko was born in Nagoya, Japan, in 1942. He studied painting with Satoshi Ogawa during his adolescence. He came to the United States in 1963 to continue his studies at Chouinard Institute of Art when his introduction to Fred Marer drew him to sculptural ceramics. He proceeded to study with Peter Voulkos, Paul Soldner, and Jerry Rothman in California during the time now defined as The Contemporary Ceramics Movement in America. The following decade, Kaneko taught at some of the nation’s leading art schools, including Scripps College, Rhode Island School of Design and Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Based in Omaha since 1986, Jun Kaneko has worked at several experimental studios including European Ceramic Work Center in The Netherlands, Otsuka Omi Ceramic Company in Japan, Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia PA, Bullseye Glass in Portland OR, Acadia Summer Arts Program in Bar Harbor ME, and Aguacate in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Over the course of his career he has partnered with industrial facilities to realize large-scale, hand-built sculptures. The first was his 1982-1983 Omaha Project at Omaha Brickworks. Later sculptures include his Fremont Project, completed in 1992-1994, and most recently his Pittsburg Project completed in 2004-2007. Most recently, Jun has been working at the Cuernavaca Raku ceramics studio, experimenting with new glazes and the unpredictability of raku.

Kaneko is increasingly drawn to installations that promote civic interaction; completing over sixty public art commissions, including a two three hundred and fifty foot long tile wall at Aquarium Station in Boston, MA (1993-2000), a three-story high wall in the Biology library at The University of Connecticut (1997), and an eighty-eight foot tall Glass Tower at the Buffett Cancer Center in Omaha, NE (2017); other large scale permanent installations can be seen in Osaka, Japan (1994), Kansas City, MO (2006), Des Moines, IA (2013), and at the International Finance Center in Shanghai, China (2012). His artwork appears in numerous international and national solo and group exhibitions annually, and is included in more than seventy museum collections. Kaneko holds honorary doctorates from the University of Nebraska, the Massachusetts College of Art & Design, and the Royal College of Art in London.

Jun Kaneko has designed the sets and costumes for three operas: Puccini’s Madame Butterfly (2006), Beethoven’s Fidelio (2008), and Mozart’s The Magic Flute (2012).  All three have toured throughout the United States. Opera Omaha recently staged Fidelio in April 2015. The San Francisco Opera and the Washington National Opera both recently presented his Madame Butterfly in Winter 2016 and Spring 2017, respectively.

In 1998, Jun Kaneko and his wife Ree formed KANEKO, a non-profit cultural organization to serve the community as an open space for creativity. KANEKO is headquartered in landmark, turn-of-the-century warehouses in the Old Market District of Omaha, Nebraska.

More on the artist’s website.