Chado, Karen LaMonte

Artwork Overview

Karen LaMonte, Chado
Karen LaMonte, Chado
Karen LaMonte
Chado
2010
Karen LaMonte, artist
born 1967
Chado, 2010
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: casting; glass
Dimensions:
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 98 x 80 x 92 cm
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 38 9/16 x 31 1/2 x 36 1/4 in
Mount Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 18 3/4 x 38 x 44 in
Credit line: Museum purchase: Gift of Hope Talbot and Helen Foresman Spencer Art Acquisition Fund Photographer: Martin Polak / © Karen LaMonte 2010
Accession number: 2011.0015
On display: Stewart Gallery
Add to portfolio

If you wish to reproduce this image, please submit an image request

Images

Label texts

Spencer Museum of Art Highlights

Karen LaMonte uses a range of materials to explore themes of beauty, gender, identity, and the natural world. Through this life-size kiln-cast glass piece, LaMonte re-envisions the tradition of nude sculpture. She presents a shell of clothing in the shape of a female figure with voids at the neckline and sleeves. The title “Chado” refers to the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, emphasized further with the kimono in a kneeling stance related to this ritual. This glass sculpture required two casts: one mold of a body made from a woman model, and another mold of a kimono that enclosed the cast body form. LaMonte studied how to make a kimono while living in Japan for seven months.

Intersections

The kimono, traditionally worn by people of all genders in Japan, is modeled here to evoke a female Asian body. Karen LaMonte produced Chado using a double casting process, first making a body mold from a live woman, then creating another mold of a kimono to enclose the cast body. The result is a hollow, semi-translucent garment.

The pose of this sculpture—kneeling with arms outstretched—references a serving gesture made by women during a Japanese tea ceremony known as chadō. Karen LaMonte's interpretation of this submissive body language engages the long history of Euro-American artists stereotyping geisha—female artists, companions, and entertainers trained in Japanese dance, music, song, and performance. How does this placement of Chado among objects from other cultures uphold, challenge, or interrupt these stereotypes?

Our ability to simultaneously see and see through the colorless glass makes the material an especially rich metaphorical device. The translucency of Karen LaMonte’s cast sculpture alludes to memory and absence of the implied body. The artist spent seven months in Japan studying all aspects of the kimono—from weaving and construction, to ceremonial function and historic meaning.

—Carolyn Swan Needell, Carolyn and Richard Barry Curator of Glass, Chrysler Museum of Art

Intersections

The kimono, traditionally worn by people of all genders in Japan, is modeled here to evoke a female Asian body. Karen LaMonte produced Chado using a double casting process, first making a body mold from a live woman, then creating another mold of a kimono to enclose the cast body. The result is a hollow, semi-translucent garment.

The pose of this sculpture—kneeling with arms outstretched—references a serving gesture made by women during a Japanese tea ceremony known as chadō. Karen LaMonte's interpretation of this submissive body language engages the long history of Euro-American artists stereotyping geisha—female artists, companions, and entertainers trained in Japanese dance, music, song, and performance. How does this placement of Chado among objects from other cultures uphold, challenge, or interrupt these stereotypes?

Our ability to simultaneously see and see through the colorless glass makes the material an especially rich metaphorical device. The translucency of Karen LaMonte’s cast sculpture alludes to memory and absence of the implied body. The artist spent seven months in Japan studying all aspects of the kimono—from weaving and construction, to ceremonial function and historic meaning.

– Carolyn Swan Needell, Carolyn and Richard Barry Curator of Glass, Chrysler Museum of Art

Spencer Selections (with audio descriptions)

Although this gown looks as if it is made of silk, it is actually made of glass. The gown reaches out as if the body absent from the inside of it is performing a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. The piece gets its title from the name for this ceremony: chado. Artist Karen LaMonte spent seven months in Kyoto, Japan, studying kimonos. Then she spent another four years creating this series of sculptures that involved making impressions from both articles of clothing and the female body. The artist writes, “I was struck with the kindred sensibility between my absent female figures and the sensitivity of a Buddhist society to all that is ephemeral, precipitating an almost melancholic sense of beauty.”

How do you define beauty and how does that definition apply to this work and the others around it?

Empire of Things

This cast-glass sculpture represents a life-size kimono that seems to embody memories. Artist Karen LaMonte has created a shell that signifies the absent figure and the clothing from which the translucent glass gains its form. Chado is part of a series of cast kimonos that LaMonte created in glass, bronze, and porcelain as a result of a seven-month research fellowship spent in Kyoto, Japan, in 2007. LaMonte spent four years making the kimono sculptures. She studied kimonos in every possible way, from formal ceremonial uses, to making one and wearing it herself. Chado draws its name from the Japanese tea ceremony, and the sculpture portrays a kneeling Geisha in the act of offering tea. The artist wanted to convey the sensitivity of a Buddhist society to all that is ephemeral, creating an almost melancholic sense of beauty.

Exhibitions

Conversation XII: Crafting Continuities
Chassica Kirchhoff, curator
2011–2012
Floating World
2011
20/21
Susan Earle, curator
2016–2021
20/21
Susan Earle, curator
2009–2015
Empire of Things
Kris Ercums, curator
Kate Meyer, curator
2016–2021
Spencer Selections (with audio descriptions)
2017
Intersections
Cassandra Mesick Braun, curator
2022–2027
Intersections
Cassandra Mesick Braun, curator
2022–2027

Resources

Video

Watch an interview with Karen LaMonte at the Renwick Gallery (4:37)

Audio

Hear a SWMS student's perspective.
Audio Tour – Bulldog Art Tour
Hear a SWMS student's perspective.
Audio Tour – Bulldog Art Tour
Listen to core object information.
Audio Description
Listen to core object information.
Audio Description
The artist is Karen LaMonte, born 1967 in New York, New York. The title of the work is Chado, created in 2010. This work is made with cast glass.
Listen to Audio Description
Audio Description
Listen to Audio Description
Audio Description
Chado is a three-dimensional sculpture made from cast glass in the form of a Japanese kimono, posed as if there were a person kneeling in it, but the body is absent. It is life-size, about three and a quarter feet tall. The kneeling kimono form is displayed on a knee-high pedestal in an alcove with a window. The form faces the window with its back to the gallery. There are several decorative and distinctive features of the kimono. The hem is plumped as if softly stuffed. It is a circular form shaping a half-circle on the pedestal behind the kimono. The ends of a sash around the middle of the kimono form a large, elaborate bow or knot that nearly covers the kimono’s back from collar to waist. On the relatively unadorned front of the kimono, there is a slender strip of patterned fabric edging the top of the sash. The glass garment is cloudy but translucent, cast in two solid pieces, though it is hollow inside the neckline. The two pieces are joined with an undisguised horizontal seam through the kimono. The division between the top and bottom pieces is quite obvious in the play of light in the glass. The glass is thick enough to convey the weight of rich, heavy, layered fabrics, draping into luxurious creases and folds. The surface is not bright and shiny; instead it has the slightly hushed, soft sheen of fine, subdued silk. The soft surface and the thickness of the glass combine to create a translucent material that softly glows with the natural light from the window and the gallery lights shining on it.
Listen to Label Text
Audio Description
Listen to Label Text
Audio Description
This cast-glass sculpture represents a life-size kimono that seems to embody memories. Artist Karen LaMonte has created a shell that signifies the absent figure and the clothing from which the translucent glass gains its form. Chado is part of a series of cast kimonos that LaMonte created in glass, bronze, and porcelain as a result of a seven-month research fellowship spent in Kyoto, Japan, in 2007. LaMonte spent four years making the kimono sculptures. She studied kimonos in every possible way, from formal ceremonial uses, to making one and wearing it herself. Chado draws its name from the Japanese tea ceremony, and the sculpture portrays a kneeling Geisha in the act of offering tea. The artist wanted to convey the sensitivity of a Buddhist society to all that is ephemeral, creating an almost melancholic sense of beauty.
Listen to App Text
Audio Description
Listen to App Text
Audio Description
Although this gown looks as if it is made of silk, it is made of glass and reaches out as if the absent body inside is performing a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. The piece gets its title from the name for this ceremony: chado. Tap the Related icon to view a Japanese print depicting this ceremony. Artist Karen LaMonte spent seven months in Kyoto, Japan, studying kimonos. Then LaMonte spent another four years creating this series of sculptures that involved making impressions from both articles of clothing and the female body. Tap the Web icon to see a video of other works in the series. The artist writes, “I was struck with the kindred sensibility between my absent female figures and the sensitivity of a Buddhist society to all that is ephemeral, precipitating an almost melancholic sense of beauty.” How do you define beauty and how does that definition apply to this work and the others around it?
Audio Tour – Bulldog Art Tour
Audio Tour – Bulldog Art Tour
Hear a SWMS student's perspective.
Audio Tour – Bulldog Art Tour
Hear a SWMS student's perspective.
Audio Tour – Bulldog Art Tour
A translucent figure. It has a vacant yet intriguing appearance. This piece, “Chado” was created in 2010 by artist Karen Lemonte. She was inspired by the immersion within Japanese culture she was able to experience in her fellowship spent in Kyoto, Japan. The word “Chado” is most often translated to “The Way of Tea”, a Japanese tea ceremony involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha. With this title, an inference can be made that this could be the cast of a woman attending this ceremony. At this ceremony, many women began to learn the arts that prepared them for marriage. The medium of this sculpture, cast-glass creates a stunning, elegant appearance. This is significant because it helps show the sacredness of Chado in a more visual manner. While observing, I also came to the realization that the transparency of glass can be viewed similarly to metaphor. You can see through glass, just as you can see through skin into one’s soul, despite the volumes of clothing that often disguise us. When I have a production for theatre, we wear costumes. Whatever the costume may be, it changes us. While wearing my costume, I am a new person, and I have a new personality with new emotions. Is this what every day clothing does? With this, you may be wondering why only her kimono is displayed. I believe this is likely to depict a more powerful visual. I cannot make any pre perceptions about the person who wears this fabric due to the lack of a visible body. They could possess the nature of any individual. LeMonte says “In my sculptures of dresses, I superimpose the artifice of clothing over the phantom landscape of the body’s natural form, creating sensual, situated objects that speak of loss and ephemerality.” This piece of art is extremely powerful, as the audience, too, is given an opportunity to apply their own thoughts and ideas to the sculpture. It’s unique appearance has a wonderful ability to catch an eye, which is very special. This was a Bulldog Audio tour by Stella Mosier.