Born in Hyogo Prefecture in 1977, Takeuchi Kozo studied ceramics at Osaka University of Arts (graduated 2001) and then at the Tajimi Municipal Ceramic Design Institute (graduated 2003). He has held solo exhibitions annually since 2005, sometimes at up to four venues a year, including once in Paris in 2011. He has also participated in a large number of group exhibitions in Japan and abroad (USA, France, Hong Kong, Singapore, Romania, Germany, Turkey and Italy). He is widely regarded as a leading figure among a younger generation of ceramic artists who have been transforming and invigorating the contemporary Japanese ceramics scene in recent years.

This is a very recent work from his hallmark Modern Remains series, which he embarked on in 2006. They consist of fused aggregations of slip-cast porcelain tubes of square cross-section fired to 1250 degrees centigrade and then attacked, very skilfully, with a geologist’s hammer. This particular piece consists of 100 tubes fired in four clusters of 25 tubes each. The four clusters are bolted together on the inside.

The works in Takeuchi’s Modern Remains series are metaphors for the rise and fall of civilizations around the world and at different periods in history, the cycle of which will continue for as long as humankind exists. More prosaically but nonetheless importantly, they are also gauntlets he has thrown down to challenge the idea that for a work of ceramics to be regarded as worthwhile, it has to be perfect and fully intact.