This paper describes and analyses preparations for the holding of an
anthropologist potter’s one-man show in a Japanese department store. Based on
participant observation, it describes in detail the strategic planning of, and
preparations for, the fieldworker’s own pottery exhibition in a department store
located in northern Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands and
home to a long tradition of porcelain and stoneware production. The paper
focuses on the main players in the ceramic art world; the social interaction
underpinning an exhibition; the conflicting ideals of ‘aesthetics’, display and
money (pricing); and the ways in which different sets of values, and evaluating
processes, affected the reception of the author’s work. It concludes by
developing a theory of values in the light of recent writings in the field of
cultural economics.
