photo: SAIKI Taku

Yellow green-slipped platinum Kairagi Shino bowl

ArtistKUWATA Takuro
Year2012
Material/ Techniqueporcelain, glaze, platinum
Size/ DurationH40 × W29.6 × D28cm
Copyright Notice© KUWATA Takuro
Year of acquisition/ donation2013(作品購入年月日:2013/03/25)
DescriptionBorn in Hiroshima, Japan in 1981. Lives and works in Gifu.

Kuwata Takuro, who gained national attention through his work with IKEYAN☆, a group of young Japanese ceramists, produces ceramic works of a hitherto unknown type characterized by bizarrely exaggerated forms and bright Pop colors. Kuwata is a versatile ‘kogei’ (craft) artist who creates cups, tea-bowls, plates, and other kogei works usable in daily life, as well as art objects intended purely for exhibiting. His theme in both cases, whether vessels or objects, is ‘playfulness.’ Before becoming a kogei artist, he dreamed briefly of becoming a dancer, and indeed, we find in the focal points of his artworks a sharpness of color reflecting a musical spirit.

In this piece, Kuwata has taken the ‘kairagi’ Shino tea-bowl and developed it on a large-scale. Kairagi or ‘crawling of the glaze’ occurs when the glaze contracts leaving parts of the clay exposed. Feeling interested in this effect, Kuwata created a tea bowl, but in doing so, he has taken that effect to radical extremes. Kairagi is feature found in many famous tea-bowls, such as the Ido tea-bowls so highly esteemed in the tea world. It came to popularity as a result of SEN no Rikyu’s fondness for the natural beauty of kairagi occurring as an accidental effect in a poor firing. Kuwata’s tea-bowl, however, is a large sculpture that exaggerates the kairagi technique to humorous, manga-like effect. Using deformities produced by the clay’s own weight, moreover, he has imparted change to the object, enhanced by bright colors, and produced a rhythmical installation.

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