About
The Gallery
Founded in Berlin in 2012, Galerie Kommoss is a leading gallery in Europe devoted entirely to Japanese art. The gallery focuses on important works of Japanese art, bringing together a variety of traditional and contemporary ceramics, paintings, lacquers, and other works of art such as bamboo baskets and sculptures.
Working in the academic and museum contexts as well as the gallery business, we feel a strong responsibility to both the growing number of private clients worldwide who desire decorative Japanese art, as well as to the preservation of cultural and historical artifacts and their accessibility in museums and public institutions. We are dedicated to acquiring, preserving, and making available works of art of the highest quality in all their facets, and to bringing Japanese culture to a wider audience.
The gallery conducts its business in this present online form, but regularly exhibits at international art fairs and organizes private exhibitions in various locations in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Monaco, Switzerland and many more. If you are interested in a particular work of art, please contact us directly or sign up for our newsletter to stay informed about our upcoming events.
The Gallerist
The gallery was founded by Dr. Fabian Alexander Kommoß. Fabian studied East Asian Art History, Japanese Studies and Philosophy and completed his doctoral studies with a double degree in East
Asian Art History and Art History. During his studies, he received scholarships from the two most prestigious national programs for academic excellence, the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes
and the Deutsche Forschungs-gemeinschaft.
His dissertation "Die Sichtbarmachung des Unsichtbaren: Visualisierungsstrategien zenbuddhistischer Kunst", completed and published in 2021 at the Universities of Potsdam (Germany) and Zurich
(Switzerland), deals with the highly challenging topic of invisibility in art. The book examines how the impossibility of depicting enlightenment has been one of the (hidden) central themes in
the history of Zen Buddhist visual art.
Born in Berlin, Fabian grew up in a multifaceted environment of national, cultural, and ideological interests that shaped his open-minded and cosmopolitan character. He has lived in Japan, where
he spent time in a Shingon and Zen Buddhist monastery, where he became a lay monk and was trained in Japanese archery (Kyūdō) and the traditional tea ceremony (Sadō). He has also studied and
taught East Asian art history in many other Asian countries, including China, South Korea, and Taiwan.
While traveling extensively, he has made the Italian and French Rivieras his family's home base, and besides his business, he pursues some of his main interests: a smart vegan lifestyle, organic
farming and gardening, various sports such as sailing, as well as fighting the serious consequences of climate change through marine conservation projects.