“Ceramics are unstable and I think I was attracted to that,” said the artist Kimiyo Mishima in a 2019 interview with MEM gallery, in Osaka. Discovering ceramics in the 1970s, Mishima was drawn to the delicate nature of clay objects and to the way they can become nothing in an instant. She eventually became known for making ceramic newspapers, finding that these accurately represent our current age of waste: “Once you read a newspaper,” she says, “it immediately becomes garbage.” Mishima is one of many noteworthy Japanese ceramicists. Since 1970, several generations of contemporary female artists have greatly influenced the Japanese ceramics field, yet they are largely unrecognized. Showing 40 pieces by 36 of these artists, the Art Institute of Chicago reveals work that has been “developed in parallel with, but often separately from, traditional, male-dominated Japanese practice and its countermovements.” —Jeanne Malle