photo: SAIKI Taku

Explosion-Reincarnation

ArtistFUJII Kazunori
Year1999
Material/ Techniqueclay
Size/ DurationH57 × W640 × D240cm
Copyright Notice© FUJII Kazunori
Year of acquisition/ donation2000（作品購入年月日：2000/04/01）
DescriptionBorn in Toyama, Japan in 1969. Lives and works there.

While studying ceramics at Kanazawa College of Art, and influenced by KUZE Kenji, a professor of the same university, Fujii Kazunori learned how to produce works focusing on the nature of earth as material for ceramics. Since then he has pursued his own creative style in art. As a college student, he invented his expression style ‘bakutoh’ (exploding pottery) as he called it, and after that, it has become the core of his production. To make ‘bakutoh’ ceramics, an explosive is put in shaped clay and after the explosive blows up, the clay is dried and fired in a kiln. Fujii’s artworks return to the root of artistic act as he is closely involved in both the explosion, the ultimate natural phenomenon, and the material of earth that leaves form permanently once baked in fire.

This is Fujii’s most important piece in his “bakutoh” series that continues since the 1990s. Rough traces left in the clay blocks, fallen and turned-over parts, and scattered fine pieces indicate a great shock at the time of explosion. To produce this piece, Fujii set a detonating fuse in about 2 ton lump of clay to blow it up. After the blast, the clay was cut into a size large enough to be put in a kiln, and the inside was scooped out before firing. The word ‘Reincarnation’ of the title comes from ‘reincarnation of the soul’ in the Buddhist concept, for he felt something was born inside him as he saw a form of clay after the blast that had gone beyond his expectations. In his previous works, the moment of blast was expressed as a ‘point,’ but in this piece, a series of blasts is expressed as undulating ‘line,’ reflecting more complex dynamism.

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