Although he was the elder son of Kondo Yuzo (founder of the Kondo lineage), Kondo Yutaka worked only briefly in the family style of decorated porcelain. Traveling widely throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, he became fascinated by buncheong, a type of Korean stoneware characterized by repeated motifs incised or stamped in the body, which are then covered with white clay that is wiped off the raised sections, filling only the depressions. Along with Yutaka’s unusually formed vessels with inlaid decoration, this group includes two other works that attest to his restless spirit and global outlook, including his engagement with Western abstraction.

In 2008, at the age of fifty, Takahiro began to make self-portraits, taking molds of his own head, slip-casting them in porcelain, and applying some of the techniques and designs he had developed over the preceding two decades, including “silver mist” glaze. He initiated this series, which originally bore the title “Death and Rebirth,” to mark the fact that his uncle Yutaka, whose example inspired him to devote himself to ceramics, had himself died at the age of fifty.

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Reflection: TK Self-Portrait, 2010. Glazed porcelain with “silver mist”, 9 1/2 × 6 5/8 × 8 5/8 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Reflection: TK Self-Portrait, 2010. Glazed porcelain with cobalt blue and “silver mist”, 9 1/2 × 6 5/8 × 8 5/8 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Reflection: TK Self-Portraits, 2010. Unglazed porcelain, 9 1/2 × 6 7/8 × 9 1/2 inches each. © Kondo Takahiro

In contrast to the refinement of the other Reflection heads on view, this set of five sculptures was fired with brushwood and forest thinnings in an improvised outdoor kiln, which left them with a scorched, almost unfinished appearance. This grouping is a reminder that outdoor firings, typically accompanied by dancing, drumming, and religious ritual, are an important part of Kondo Takahiro’s practice.

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Vessels for Life, 2011. Ash-glazed stoneware. Approximately 3 inches each. © Kondo Takahiro

These bowls are a few of the nearly two thousand that Kondo Takahiro made from local clay in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake, which left some 20,000 people dead or missing and triggered a series of grave nuclear incidents. Most of the bowls, fired in a simple kiln with an ascending series of firing chambers, were distributed to displaced victims of the 2011 earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), “Silver Mist” Colors Tea Bowl, 2013. Glazed porcelain with blue and green pigment and “silver mist”, 3 × 6 1/4 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Nested Boxes with “Silver Mist”, 2014. Glazed porcelain with black and white pigment,“silver mist,”and glass outer box, 3 1/2 × 5 1/4 × 3 7/8 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Monolith: “Seismic Wave,” 2016. Glazed and marbleized porcelain with “silver mist” and glass inserts, 43 1/4 × 6 1/4 × 4 3/4 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Monolith: “Black and White Mist,” 2016. Glazed porcelain with black patterns and “silver mist,”and glass insert, 42 1/2 × 7 1/8 × 5 1/8 in. © Kondo Takahiro

Inspired in part by a visit to the Ring of Brodgar, an ancient stone circle in Scotland’s Orkney Islands, Takahiro began to construct large-scale sculptures in 2005. Ranging between four and nearly six feet high, the pieces are assembled from rhomboid-shaped blocks of porcelain, separated by one or more blocks of cast glass. Called Monoliths, these structures—which are intentionally made to look unstable—combine technical prowess with Eastern and Western influences, thereby pushing the boundaries between conventional Japanese ceramics and clay as a medium for contemporary art.

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), “Silver Mist” Bowl: “Wave,” 2016. Glazed and marbleized porcelain with “silver mist”, 3 7/8 × 4 3/4 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro here used his signature “silver mist” glaze along with marbleized black, white, and gray clay, a combination also featured in Monolith: “Seismic Wave” and Reduction. His choice of materials reflects the artist’s belief in the power of nature as well as humankind’s folly in attempting to control the natural world.

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), White Porcelain Jar, 2017. Glazed porcelain, 11 1/8 × 14 in. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Reduction: “Wave,” 2017. Glazed and marbleized porcelain with “silver mist,”and gold lacquer repair, 31 1/2 × 25 5/8 × 17 3/8 in. © Kondo Takahiro

The Tohoku earthquake (2011) inspired Kondo Takahiro to create his Reduction series, which comprises more than twenty casts he made from life, using himself—seated in a traditional Asian meditative pose—as the model. As scholar Robert Mintz has observed, “the artist [placed] himself at the center of the tragedy and [cast] his body as a memorial marker pointing to a moment of transition.” One-fifth smaller than life-size due to shrinkage in the kiln, this Reduction is particularly unusual in that the artist stabilized a firing fault in the clay using kintsugi, a traditional gold-lacquer repair technique more typically seen on tea bowls. Takahiro’s solution is an eloquent metaphor for human fragility and resilience in the face of natural disasters.

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Large Bowl with “Silver Mist” Colors, 2018. Glazed porcelain with blue cobalt pigment and “silver mist”, 3 1/4 × 6 7/8 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

This large bowl is a recent example of Kondo Takahiro’s use of “silver mist,” a proprietary glaze with several precious metals, which, after being kiln-fired, resemble reflective dew drops or condensation.The artist, who typically controls his glazes with extreme care, here allowed the “silver mist” to follow its own path and trickle down the sides.

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Large White Porcelain Vessel, 2019. Glazed porcelain, 20 1/2 × 21 7/8 × 17 3/4 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

A central figure in this exhibition, Kondo Takahiro has recently returned to the potter’s wheel. Unlike the perfectly formed vessels he created earlier in his career, Takahiro now uses the wheel to create dynamic, partially collapsed forms that interrogate the relationship between a ceramic container and its inner space.

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Okura Quarry Clay Tea Bowl, 2019. Crackle-glazed stoneware, 3 3/8 × 4 3/4 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Jar, 2019. Ash-glazed stoneware, 12 × 5 7/8 in. © Kondo Takahiro

Though Kondo Takahiro is based in Kyoto, where he works with highly refined porcelain clay and an electric kiln, he made these three pieces in the Tohoku region—more than 400 miles to the northeast—using rough local stoneware clays and firing them with pine wood in a simple kiln with an ascending series of firing chambers.

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Blue-Green Sake Cup, 2019. Glazed porcelain, 2 7/8 × 2 11/16 × 1 9/16 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Red Mist, 2020. Glazed porcelain with red “silver mist”, 13 3/8 × 9 3/4 × 4 13/16 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Lapis Blue Tea Bowl, 2020. Glazed porcelain, 3 × 5 11/16 × 5 5/16 in. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Large Bowl with “Silver Mist” Colors, 2021. Glazed porcelain with blue cobalt pigment and “silver mist”, 2 × 22 5/8 in. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Wave (Standing Form), 2021. Glazed and marbleized porcelain with “silver mist,” and glass cover, 28 1/8 × 12 5/8 × 6 7/8 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

This work is notable for Kondo Takahiro’s use of marbleized black, white, and gray clay, together with his patented “silver mist” glaze; a combination used in several exhibited works, including Monolith: “Seismic Wave” and Reduction. For Kondo, marbleizing, which cannot be fully controlled by the maker’s hand, implies a willingness to let nature take its course. This approach, in turn, reflects Takahiro’s concern with the vanity and waywardness of humanity’s interventions in the natural world.

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), Monolith: “Blue Mist,” 2021. Glazed porcelain with “silver mist” and glass inserts, 78 7/8 × 10 5/8 × 7 1/4 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

Kondo Takahiro (Japanese, b.1958), “Silver Mist” Colors Tea Bowl, 2021. Glazed porcelain with blue and green pigment and “silver mist”, 3 1/4 × 6 7/8 inches. © Kondo Takahiro

Alongside his regular practice, Kondo Takahiro, like many other contemporary Japanese ceramic artists, makes bowls for use in chanoyu, the formalized tea-drinking event often called the “tea ceremony” outside Japan.These give him the opportunity to experiment with shapes and glazes not seen in his other work.