UCCA Beijing Open Today, 10:00-19:00 (Final entry: 18:30)
UCCA Dune Open Today, 9:30-18:00 (Final entry: 17:30)
UCCA Clay Open Today, 9:00-18:00 (Final entry: 17:30)
Audio Guide
Soil and plants recur throughout Yang Xinguang’s artistic practice. Through these materials, he demonstrates his acute sensitivity towards, and innate sense of intimacy with, natural phenomena. Using techniques that bring to mind the Mono-ha movement, he strives to conceal human intervention, integrating his personal experiences into natural materials such as earth, wood, trees, and stones, allowing them to shape each work’s final form. Yang frequently engages with the unique characteristics of specific locales, even as he moves between different creative approaches. For example, after he began experimenting with clay in 2024, he grouped his efforts into the “Red Clay” and “Celadon” series, distinguished by their incorporation of materials and techniques local to Chongqing and Longquan, Zhejiang province, respectively.
Collectively titled Snow Peach Blossom, his works in this exhibition emerged out of a residency in Yixing over the past summer. The artist used the region’s distinctive zisha (purple clay), shaping it into a series of vessel-like forms resembling tubers in an attempt to evoke the earth’s vitality and untamed energy. “Snow Peach Blossom” is also the name of the glaze the artist selected for use on these pieces. After firing, this glaze coagulates within the folds of the vessels’ surfaces, forming a flesh-pink tone that appears almost visceral—as though the artist had excavated the earth’s energy in its most concentrated form and solidified it into containers of life.
These vessels contain plant materials that Yang collected from around his residency site, ranging from bare branches to withered leaves and rough foxtail grass. Far from the cultivated refinement of dried flowers, they embody the untamed, primordial vitality of the wilderness. The relationship between these vegetal remnants and earthen vessels is strange and unstable: the plants seem at once to sprout from and be consumed by their soil, caught between growth and decay. In this uncertain alternation between growth and decomposition, the cyclical rhythm of nature is re-enacted and brought to completion.
Collectively titled Snow Peach Blossom, his works in this exhibition emerged out of a residency in Yixing over the past summer. The artist used the region’s distinctive zisha (purple clay), shaping it into a series of vessel-like forms resembling tubers in an attempt to evoke the earth’s vitality and untamed energy. “Snow Peach Blossom” is also the name of the glaze the artist selected for use on these pieces. After firing, this glaze coagulates within the folds of the vessels’ surfaces, forming a flesh-pink tone that appears almost visceral—as though the artist had excavated the earth’s energy in its most concentrated form and solidified it into containers of life.
These vessels contain plant materials that Yang collected from around his residency site, ranging from bare branches to withered leaves and rough foxtail grass. Far from the cultivated refinement of dried flowers, they embody the untamed, primordial vitality of the wilderness. The relationship between these vegetal remnants and earthen vessels is strange and unstable: the plants seem at once to sprout from and be consumed by their soil, caught between growth and decay. In this uncertain alternation between growth and decomposition, the cyclical rhythm of nature is re-enacted and brought to completion.
Liu Xi’s early years were shaped by the traditional values and restrictive gender roles of her hometown. Only after moving to Beijing for her studies did she begin to give form to the repression, fear, sorrow, and inner conflict she had long carried, and to confront the intertwined questions of identity and gender involved in negotiating her position as a woman within a traditional society. She chose to work with ceramics for its distinctive material properties: clay, drawn from the earth, is soft, remarkably resilient, and malleable. Reborn through firing, it becomes a hard and enduring substance. In her experimentation with the medium, Liu Xi seeks both self-expression and healing. She further anchors her reflections in the very structures that once weighed upon her—established discourses and “orthodox rules.”
The series “Where Are We Now?” unfolds as a response to these concerns: Liu transforms clay into expansive, fabric-like forms that envelop cones, cubes, and other geometric shapes commonly used in art education. Black ink contaminates the pristine surface of white porcelain, symbolizing the interweaving and extension of two ancient cultures, while also implying the collapse of resistance under extreme oppression. Blending heaviness, fragility, and disquiet, Liu Xi softens the sharp edges of the geometric forms, searching a means for survival within the pressures of a rigid system.
In Where Are We Now? No. 3 (2019-2023), the artist references a plaster cast of a section from Michelangelo’s David. In this work, gold, traditionally a symbol of power, and black, signifying individual dignity, converge, placing representations of authority and self-inquiry within the same visual field. By reconfiguring the relationship between material and form, Liu Xi poses urgent questions within the intricate, shifting realities of the present: What is overlooked in all that we see, hear, and speak? And in our unthinking submission to the so-called collective and to authority, where do we stand?
The series “Where Are We Now?” unfolds as a response to these concerns: Liu transforms clay into expansive, fabric-like forms that envelop cones, cubes, and other geometric shapes commonly used in art education. Black ink contaminates the pristine surface of white porcelain, symbolizing the interweaving and extension of two ancient cultures, while also implying the collapse of resistance under extreme oppression. Blending heaviness, fragility, and disquiet, Liu Xi softens the sharp edges of the geometric forms, searching a means for survival within the pressures of a rigid system.
In Where Are We Now? No. 3 (2019-2023), the artist references a plaster cast of a section from Michelangelo’s David. In this work, gold, traditionally a symbol of power, and black, signifying individual dignity, converge, placing representations of authority and self-inquiry within the same visual field. By reconfiguring the relationship between material and form, Liu Xi poses urgent questions within the intricate, shifting realities of the present: What is overlooked in all that we see, hear, and speak? And in our unthinking submission to the so-called collective and to authority, where do we stand?
Geng Xue’s sensitivity towards human experience and the depths of the individual spirit sit at the heart of her narrative-driven ceramic practice. She has sought out narrative threads within art history and the “strange tales” of classical Chinese literature, reinterpreting them to take her work beyond the confines of a single medium, expanding across time and space into the format of ceramic video.
Between 2009 and 2019, Geng Xue produced three video works—Mr. Sea (2014), The Poetry of Michelangelo (2015), and The Name of Gold (2019)—later collectively known as her “Sculptural Film Trilogy.” In these works, contrasting textures of coarse clay and fine porcelain are amplified across visual, auditory, and tactile registers, each constructing its own distinct sensory world and field of events. Unlike the two earlier videos, The Name of Gold, presented in this exhibition, does not draw on historical imagery or legends. Instead, it is rooted in Geng Xue’s experience of pregnancy and childbirth.
Within the black-and-white world the artist has fashioned from clay, figures of varying forms traverse between scenes, busy yet bound by a shared sense of accord and order. They continually offer sacrifices to a colossal object suffused with flowing gold. Some present treasured possessions, while others proffer of their own or others’ flesh. The rough texture of the clay mirrors humanity’s most universal essence: a primal, unadorned soul, fated for suffering. Brought into being in a state of unknowing, these individuals must submit to the collective, following the ways of the world and offering up their labor—and ultimately their very existence—to the great object.
A clock turning counterclockwise reveals the absurdity and futility of the entire cycle. Is the nameless giant a material embodiment of the collective unconscious, an unshakable system of social power, or omnipresent, unresolvable anxiety? Are individual life and human destiny destined to be driven by this indescribable force?
Between 2009 and 2019, Geng Xue produced three video works—Mr. Sea (2014), The Poetry of Michelangelo (2015), and The Name of Gold (2019)—later collectively known as her “Sculptural Film Trilogy.” In these works, contrasting textures of coarse clay and fine porcelain are amplified across visual, auditory, and tactile registers, each constructing its own distinct sensory world and field of events. Unlike the two earlier videos, The Name of Gold, presented in this exhibition, does not draw on historical imagery or legends. Instead, it is rooted in Geng Xue’s experience of pregnancy and childbirth.
Within the black-and-white world the artist has fashioned from clay, figures of varying forms traverse between scenes, busy yet bound by a shared sense of accord and order. They continually offer sacrifices to a colossal object suffused with flowing gold. Some present treasured possessions, while others proffer of their own or others’ flesh. The rough texture of the clay mirrors humanity’s most universal essence: a primal, unadorned soul, fated for suffering. Brought into being in a state of unknowing, these individuals must submit to the collective, following the ways of the world and offering up their labor—and ultimately their very existence—to the great object.
A clock turning counterclockwise reveals the absurdity and futility of the entire cycle. Is the nameless giant a material embodiment of the collective unconscious, an unshakable system of social power, or omnipresent, unresolvable anxiety? Are individual life and human destiny destined to be driven by this indescribable force?
Asya Marakulina only began working with ceramics a few years ago, but the medium has quickly become the focus of her diverse practice. The Russian-born, Austria-based artist has long been interested in how people shape and interact with urban space. In her past projects, she has explored related topics including pedestrian flows and the traces that demolished buildings can leave on their still-standing neighbors.
Created over the course of a residency at Yixing’s Creative & Cultural Ceramic Avenue, Marakulina’s works in this exhibition find her focusing on the city’s structure and architecture. Wandering through Yixing, the artist was struck by how the line between private and public space was less well-defined than in many European cities. Businesses often share space with family homes, and alleys lead into secluded courtyards that might leave visitors unsure whether they’re accidentally trespassing. Made with Yixing’s zisha (purple clay) using slab techniques inspired by local pottery-making traditions, these pieces delicately depict the city’s vernacular architecture. Marakulina’s eye for detail—epitomized by stacks of unused bricks and the mottled colors on walls and roofs—brings a sense of verisimilitude to the works. At the same time, the buildings in pieces such as City of Ceramics: House with the Window (2025) seem slightly taller and thinner than one might expect, lending them a subtly dreamlike feel. The paths that connect the buildings within their neighborhood-like arrangement are lined with empty flowerpots, paying tribute to how Yixing’s residents cheerfully intervene in public space, beautifying their city as they incorporate ceramics into its urban fabric.
Created over the course of a residency at Yixing’s Creative & Cultural Ceramic Avenue, Marakulina’s works in this exhibition find her focusing on the city’s structure and architecture. Wandering through Yixing, the artist was struck by how the line between private and public space was less well-defined than in many European cities. Businesses often share space with family homes, and alleys lead into secluded courtyards that might leave visitors unsure whether they’re accidentally trespassing. Made with Yixing’s zisha (purple clay) using slab techniques inspired by local pottery-making traditions, these pieces delicately depict the city’s vernacular architecture. Marakulina’s eye for detail—epitomized by stacks of unused bricks and the mottled colors on walls and roofs—brings a sense of verisimilitude to the works. At the same time, the buildings in pieces such as City of Ceramics: House with the Window (2025) seem slightly taller and thinner than one might expect, lending them a subtly dreamlike feel. The paths that connect the buildings within their neighborhood-like arrangement are lined with empty flowerpots, paying tribute to how Yixing’s residents cheerfully intervene in public space, beautifying their city as they incorporate ceramics into its urban fabric.
Masaomi Yasunaga conceives of his practice as the deconstruction and reconstruction of ceramic tradition, expanding its sculptural and philosophical possibilities. The artist trained under Satoru Hoshino, a member of the avant-garde Sodeisha group, which pushed Japanese ceramics away from functionality over the second half of the twentieth century. By privileging process and material transformation over utility, Yasunaga upholds the group’s experimental spirit, creating works that appear to have been unearthed rather than made.
By firing his sculptures, Yasunaga seeks to give form to intangible time and thought, surrendering authorial control to an unpredictable process. He sees fire as a filter for material transformation, and the kiln that contains it as a time machine propelling material and thought into new states. Unconventionally for pottery, Yasunaga adopts glaze, rather than clay, as his primary medium. Also incorporating natural materials such as rocks and metal powders, his works are covered in layers of sand or kaolin before firing. The unpredictable behavior of glazes inside the kiln ensures that the object that enters is never the same as the one that emerges. The resulting forms appear to have been weathered by natural forces over time, recalling ancient relics yet remaining resolutely contemporary.
Though Yasunaga generally eschews functionality, the vessel remains a central form in his practice, often imbued with personal significance. For example, after the death of his grandmother, he combined her ashes with glaze before firing them into porcelain jars. For the artist, vessels carry memory and longing, encompassing both intimate and cosmic associations, from the maternal body to the earth itself. Across his practice, Yasunaga’s objects register time, transformation, and the inevitable return of all things to nature.
By firing his sculptures, Yasunaga seeks to give form to intangible time and thought, surrendering authorial control to an unpredictable process. He sees fire as a filter for material transformation, and the kiln that contains it as a time machine propelling material and thought into new states. Unconventionally for pottery, Yasunaga adopts glaze, rather than clay, as his primary medium. Also incorporating natural materials such as rocks and metal powders, his works are covered in layers of sand or kaolin before firing. The unpredictable behavior of glazes inside the kiln ensures that the object that enters is never the same as the one that emerges. The resulting forms appear to have been weathered by natural forces over time, recalling ancient relics yet remaining resolutely contemporary.
Though Yasunaga generally eschews functionality, the vessel remains a central form in his practice, often imbued with personal significance. For example, after the death of his grandmother, he combined her ashes with glaze before firing them into porcelain jars. For the artist, vessels carry memory and longing, encompassing both intimate and cosmic associations, from the maternal body to the earth itself. Across his practice, Yasunaga’s objects register time, transformation, and the inevitable return of all things to nature.
Born in 1986 in Tajimi, a historic center of Japanese ceramics, Keita Matsunaga describes his generation as one shaped by ideas of repair, renewal, remixing, and reuse. Citing major earthquakes, complex global issues, and architecture as key influences, the artist incorporates contemplation of these topics into the materials, processes, and surface techniques of his sculptural ceramic practice. Matsunaga approaches clay as both raw material and a repository of time—a substance that bears traces of natural processes, from geological shifts to the growth and decay of living forms. His sculptures exist at the threshold between artifact and organism, seeming at times like crafted objects and at others like they were produced by nature itself.
The artist’s vessels and sculptural objects in this exhibition are characterized by richly layered, earth-toned surfaces finished with natural lacquer. Their tactile, organic qualities recall surfaces shaped by time: weathered wood, flowing water, or iridescent shells. These visual associations foreground a dialogue between natural transformations—like the slow growth of tree rings or the casting-off of shells—and human interventions, from the shaping of form to the layering of lacquer. Rather than depicting nature directly, his works distill its underlying rhythms and patterns, exploring how time leaves its mark on matter. Some objects seem to belong to a world of once-living things, as if they had grown from the earth itself, while others clearly bear the hand of the maker, and many—like the eponymous forms of Cocoon (2024) and Fruits (2024)—inhabit the ambiguous space between these two conditions. Matsunaga’s work transforms clay into a meditation on temporality and transformation, offering material reflections on the enduring vitality of the natural world.
The artist’s vessels and sculptural objects in this exhibition are characterized by richly layered, earth-toned surfaces finished with natural lacquer. Their tactile, organic qualities recall surfaces shaped by time: weathered wood, flowing water, or iridescent shells. These visual associations foreground a dialogue between natural transformations—like the slow growth of tree rings or the casting-off of shells—and human interventions, from the shaping of form to the layering of lacquer. Rather than depicting nature directly, his works distill its underlying rhythms and patterns, exploring how time leaves its mark on matter. Some objects seem to belong to a world of once-living things, as if they had grown from the earth itself, while others clearly bear the hand of the maker, and many—like the eponymous forms of Cocoon (2024) and Fruits (2024)—inhabit the ambiguous space between these two conditions. Matsunaga’s work transforms clay into a meditation on temporality and transformation, offering material reflections on the enduring vitality of the natural world.
Linglong porcelain is a renowned traditional craft of Jingdezhen. By carving delicate apertures known as “rice grains” into porcelain blanks and then filling them with a translucent glaze before high-temperature firing, artisans achieve a semi-transparent surface that appears light and luminous yet remains entirely watertight. To create the large-scale installation Sea Creature Lantern (2025), ROYOKO, a brand dedicated to the heritage and contemporary reinvention of linglong porcelain, collaborated with architecture studio USEFULLESS LAB, combining traditional porcelain techniques with metallic machinery. The work amplifies the crystalline translucence of linglong porcelain, transforming the material into part of an organic entity that glows and pulses like a creature from the deep sea.
The underlying inspiration for Xu Zhiwei’s ceramic practice comes from his fascination with leaves and their shapes, in particular the spatial possibilities revealed when they are stacked and combined. Taking this as his point of departure, he continually deconstructs and remakes his subject matter, crafting light and dynamic ceramic structures through the interplay of overlapping planes, bends, and the meticulous refinement of surface textures. In the “White Sandbank” series, flowing, sinuous surfaces reimagine the poetic atmosphere of traditional landscape painting. Elsewhere, curled porcelain sheets evoke the historical resonance of ancient Buddhist scrolls, and the “Free Walk” series pays homage to Futurist sculpture through its dynamic forms. Though varied in approach, all trace back to his foundational homage to the natural image of the leaf.
Most of Xiao Wei’s works consist of geometric forms combining curved, straight, and square components. Through vertical incisions and successive stages of polishing, he exposes the layers of slip embedded within the clay. Soft, luminous tones weave subtly through these layers, creating a gentle rhythm of color and form. Through this process, the artist translates his impressions of the urban architecture that forms his spatial environment, and the subtle textures of his own emotions, into material form. This exhibition features several of Xiao Wei’s series, among which “Existence and Oblivion” stands as the most representative. The inspiration for this series arises from the traces that time leaves upon matter. Through continuous polishing, the upper layers of slip on these pieces are gradually eroded, revealing faint glimpses of the colors beneath. In this way, Xiao Wei seeks to evoke the time-worn textures of weathered stone, peeling paint, and decaying wood. As the artist observes, “People, too, must be tempered and refined by time in order to form their own colors.”
Yang Xinguang
Soil and plants recur throughout Yang Xinguang’s artistic practice. Through these materials, he demonstrates his acute sensitivity towards, and innate sense of intimacy with, natural phenomena. Using techniques that bring to mind the Mono-ha movement, he strives to conceal human intervention, integrating his personal experiences into natural materials such as earth, wood, trees, and stones, allowing them to shape each work’s final form. Yang frequently engages with the unique characteristics of specific locales, even as he moves between different creative approaches. For example, after he began experimenting with clay in 2024, he grouped his efforts into the “Red Clay” and “Celadon” series, distinguished by their incorporation of materials and techniques local to Chongqing and Longquan, Zhejiang province, respectively.
Collectively titled Snow Peach Blossom, his works in this exhibition emerged out of a residency in Yixing over the past summer. The artist used the region’s distinctive zisha (purple clay), shaping it into a series of vessel-like forms resembling tubers in an attempt to evoke the earth’s vitality and untamed energy. “Snow Peach Blossom” is also the name of the glaze the artist selected for use on these pieces. After firing, this glaze coagulates within the folds of the vessels’ surfaces, forming a flesh-pink tone that appears almost visceral—as though the artist had excavated the earth’s energy in its most concentrated form and solidified it into containers of life.
These vessels contain plant materials that Yang collected from around his residency site, ranging from bare branches to withered leaves and rough foxtail grass. Far from the cultivated refinement of dried flowers, they embody the untamed, primordial vitality of the wilderness. The relationship between these vegetal remnants and earthen vessels is strange and unstable: the plants seem at once to sprout from and be consumed by their soil, caught between growth and decay. In this uncertain alternation between growth and decomposition, the cyclical rhythm of nature is re-enacted and brought to completion.
Collectively titled Snow Peach Blossom, his works in this exhibition emerged out of a residency in Yixing over the past summer. The artist used the region’s distinctive zisha (purple clay), shaping it into a series of vessel-like forms resembling tubers in an attempt to evoke the earth’s vitality and untamed energy. “Snow Peach Blossom” is also the name of the glaze the artist selected for use on these pieces. After firing, this glaze coagulates within the folds of the vessels’ surfaces, forming a flesh-pink tone that appears almost visceral—as though the artist had excavated the earth’s energy in its most concentrated form and solidified it into containers of life.
These vessels contain plant materials that Yang collected from around his residency site, ranging from bare branches to withered leaves and rough foxtail grass. Far from the cultivated refinement of dried flowers, they embody the untamed, primordial vitality of the wilderness. The relationship between these vegetal remnants and earthen vessels is strange and unstable: the plants seem at once to sprout from and be consumed by their soil, caught between growth and decay. In this uncertain alternation between growth and decomposition, the cyclical rhythm of nature is re-enacted and brought to completion.
Liu Xi
Liu Xi’s early years were shaped by the traditional values and restrictive gender roles of her hometown. Only after moving to Beijing for her studies did she begin to give form to the repression, fear, sorrow, and inner conflict she had long carried, and to confront the intertwined questions of identity and gender involved in negotiating her position as a woman within a traditional society. She chose to work with ceramics for its distinctive material properties: clay, drawn from the earth, is soft, remarkably resilient, and malleable. Reborn through firing, it becomes a hard and enduring substance. In her experimentation with the medium, Liu Xi seeks both self-expression and healing. She further anchors her reflections in the very structures that once weighed upon her—established discourses and “orthodox rules.”
The series “Where Are We Now?” unfolds as a response to these concerns: Liu transforms clay into expansive, fabric-like forms that envelop cones, cubes, and other geometric shapes commonly used in art education. Black ink contaminates the pristine surface of white porcelain, symbolizing the interweaving and extension of two ancient cultures, while also implying the collapse of resistance under extreme oppression. Blending heaviness, fragility, and disquiet, Liu Xi softens the sharp edges of the geometric forms, searching a means for survival within the pressures of a rigid system.
In Where Are We Now? No. 3 (2019-2023), the artist references a plaster cast of a section from Michelangelo’s David. In this work, gold, traditionally a symbol of power, and black, signifying individual dignity, converge, placing representations of authority and self-inquiry within the same visual field. By reconfiguring the relationship between material and form, Liu Xi poses urgent questions within the intricate, shifting realities of the present: What is overlooked in all that we see, hear, and speak? And in our unthinking submission to the so-called collective and to authority, where do we stand?
The series “Where Are We Now?” unfolds as a response to these concerns: Liu transforms clay into expansive, fabric-like forms that envelop cones, cubes, and other geometric shapes commonly used in art education. Black ink contaminates the pristine surface of white porcelain, symbolizing the interweaving and extension of two ancient cultures, while also implying the collapse of resistance under extreme oppression. Blending heaviness, fragility, and disquiet, Liu Xi softens the sharp edges of the geometric forms, searching a means for survival within the pressures of a rigid system.
In Where Are We Now? No. 3 (2019-2023), the artist references a plaster cast of a section from Michelangelo’s David. In this work, gold, traditionally a symbol of power, and black, signifying individual dignity, converge, placing representations of authority and self-inquiry within the same visual field. By reconfiguring the relationship between material and form, Liu Xi poses urgent questions within the intricate, shifting realities of the present: What is overlooked in all that we see, hear, and speak? And in our unthinking submission to the so-called collective and to authority, where do we stand?
Geng Xue
Geng Xue’s sensitivity towards human experience and the depths of the individual spirit sit at the heart of her narrative-driven ceramic practice. She has sought out narrative threads within art history and the “strange tales” of classical Chinese literature, reinterpreting them to take her work beyond the confines of a single medium, expanding across time and space into the format of ceramic video.
Between 2009 and 2019, Geng Xue produced three video works—Mr. Sea (2014), The Poetry of Michelangelo (2015), and The Name of Gold (2019)—later collectively known as her “Sculptural Film Trilogy.” In these works, contrasting textures of coarse clay and fine porcelain are amplified across visual, auditory, and tactile registers, each constructing its own distinct sensory world and field of events. Unlike the two earlier videos, The Name of Gold, presented in this exhibition, does not draw on historical imagery or legends. Instead, it is rooted in Geng Xue’s experience of pregnancy and childbirth.
Within the black-and-white world the artist has fashioned from clay, figures of varying forms traverse between scenes, busy yet bound by a shared sense of accord and order. They continually offer sacrifices to a colossal object suffused with flowing gold. Some present treasured possessions, while others proffer of their own or others’ flesh. The rough texture of the clay mirrors humanity’s most universal essence: a primal, unadorned soul, fated for suffering. Brought into being in a state of unknowing, these individuals must submit to the collective, following the ways of the world and offering up their labor—and ultimately their very existence—to the great object.
A clock turning counterclockwise reveals the absurdity and futility of the entire cycle. Is the nameless giant a material embodiment of the collective unconscious, an unshakable system of social power, or omnipresent, unresolvable anxiety? Are individual life and human destiny destined to be driven by this indescribable force?
Between 2009 and 2019, Geng Xue produced three video works—Mr. Sea (2014), The Poetry of Michelangelo (2015), and The Name of Gold (2019)—later collectively known as her “Sculptural Film Trilogy.” In these works, contrasting textures of coarse clay and fine porcelain are amplified across visual, auditory, and tactile registers, each constructing its own distinct sensory world and field of events. Unlike the two earlier videos, The Name of Gold, presented in this exhibition, does not draw on historical imagery or legends. Instead, it is rooted in Geng Xue’s experience of pregnancy and childbirth.
Within the black-and-white world the artist has fashioned from clay, figures of varying forms traverse between scenes, busy yet bound by a shared sense of accord and order. They continually offer sacrifices to a colossal object suffused with flowing gold. Some present treasured possessions, while others proffer of their own or others’ flesh. The rough texture of the clay mirrors humanity’s most universal essence: a primal, unadorned soul, fated for suffering. Brought into being in a state of unknowing, these individuals must submit to the collective, following the ways of the world and offering up their labor—and ultimately their very existence—to the great object.
A clock turning counterclockwise reveals the absurdity and futility of the entire cycle. Is the nameless giant a material embodiment of the collective unconscious, an unshakable system of social power, or omnipresent, unresolvable anxiety? Are individual life and human destiny destined to be driven by this indescribable force?
Asya Marakulina
Asya Marakulina only began working with ceramics a few years ago, but the medium has quickly become the focus of her diverse practice. The Russian-born, Austria-based artist has long been interested in how people shape and interact with urban space. In her past projects, she has explored related topics including pedestrian flows and the traces that demolished buildings can leave on their still-standing neighbors.
Created over the course of a residency at Yixing’s Creative & Cultural Ceramic Avenue, Marakulina’s works in this exhibition find her focusing on the city’s structure and architecture. Wandering through Yixing, the artist was struck by how the line between private and public space was less well-defined than in many European cities. Businesses often share space with family homes, and alleys lead into secluded courtyards that might leave visitors unsure whether they’re accidentally trespassing. Made with Yixing’s zisha (purple clay) using slab techniques inspired by local pottery-making traditions, these pieces delicately depict the city’s vernacular architecture. Marakulina’s eye for detail—epitomized by stacks of unused bricks and the mottled colors on walls and roofs—brings a sense of verisimilitude to the works. At the same time, the buildings in pieces such as City of Ceramics: House with the Window (2025) seem slightly taller and thinner than one might expect, lending them a subtly dreamlike feel. The paths that connect the buildings within their neighborhood-like arrangement are lined with empty flowerpots, paying tribute to how Yixing’s residents cheerfully intervene in public space, beautifying their city as they incorporate ceramics into its urban fabric.
Created over the course of a residency at Yixing’s Creative & Cultural Ceramic Avenue, Marakulina’s works in this exhibition find her focusing on the city’s structure and architecture. Wandering through Yixing, the artist was struck by how the line between private and public space was less well-defined than in many European cities. Businesses often share space with family homes, and alleys lead into secluded courtyards that might leave visitors unsure whether they’re accidentally trespassing. Made with Yixing’s zisha (purple clay) using slab techniques inspired by local pottery-making traditions, these pieces delicately depict the city’s vernacular architecture. Marakulina’s eye for detail—epitomized by stacks of unused bricks and the mottled colors on walls and roofs—brings a sense of verisimilitude to the works. At the same time, the buildings in pieces such as City of Ceramics: House with the Window (2025) seem slightly taller and thinner than one might expect, lending them a subtly dreamlike feel. The paths that connect the buildings within their neighborhood-like arrangement are lined with empty flowerpots, paying tribute to how Yixing’s residents cheerfully intervene in public space, beautifying their city as they incorporate ceramics into its urban fabric.
Masaomi Yasunaga
Masaomi Yasunaga conceives of his practice as the deconstruction and reconstruction of ceramic tradition, expanding its sculptural and philosophical possibilities. The artist trained under Satoru Hoshino, a member of the avant-garde Sodeisha group, which pushed Japanese ceramics away from functionality over the second half of the twentieth century. By privileging process and material transformation over utility, Yasunaga upholds the group’s experimental spirit, creating works that appear to have been unearthed rather than made.
By firing his sculptures, Yasunaga seeks to give form to intangible time and thought, surrendering authorial control to an unpredictable process. He sees fire as a filter for material transformation, and the kiln that contains it as a time machine propelling material and thought into new states. Unconventionally for pottery, Yasunaga adopts glaze, rather than clay, as his primary medium. Also incorporating natural materials such as rocks and metal powders, his works are covered in layers of sand or kaolin before firing. The unpredictable behavior of glazes inside the kiln ensures that the object that enters is never the same as the one that emerges. The resulting forms appear to have been weathered by natural forces over time, recalling ancient relics yet remaining resolutely contemporary.
Though Yasunaga generally eschews functionality, the vessel remains a central form in his practice, often imbued with personal significance. For example, after the death of his grandmother, he combined her ashes with glaze before firing them into porcelain jars. For the artist, vessels carry memory and longing, encompassing both intimate and cosmic associations, from the maternal body to the earth itself. Across his practice, Yasunaga’s objects register time, transformation, and the inevitable return of all things to nature.
By firing his sculptures, Yasunaga seeks to give form to intangible time and thought, surrendering authorial control to an unpredictable process. He sees fire as a filter for material transformation, and the kiln that contains it as a time machine propelling material and thought into new states. Unconventionally for pottery, Yasunaga adopts glaze, rather than clay, as his primary medium. Also incorporating natural materials such as rocks and metal powders, his works are covered in layers of sand or kaolin before firing. The unpredictable behavior of glazes inside the kiln ensures that the object that enters is never the same as the one that emerges. The resulting forms appear to have been weathered by natural forces over time, recalling ancient relics yet remaining resolutely contemporary.
Though Yasunaga generally eschews functionality, the vessel remains a central form in his practice, often imbued with personal significance. For example, after the death of his grandmother, he combined her ashes with glaze before firing them into porcelain jars. For the artist, vessels carry memory and longing, encompassing both intimate and cosmic associations, from the maternal body to the earth itself. Across his practice, Yasunaga’s objects register time, transformation, and the inevitable return of all things to nature.
Keita Matsunaga
Born in 1986 in Tajimi, a historic center of Japanese ceramics, Keita Matsunaga describes his generation as one shaped by ideas of repair, renewal, remixing, and reuse. Citing major earthquakes, complex global issues, and architecture as key influences, the artist incorporates contemplation of these topics into the materials, processes, and surface techniques of his sculptural ceramic practice. Matsunaga approaches clay as both raw material and a repository of time—a substance that bears traces of natural processes, from geological shifts to the growth and decay of living forms. His sculptures exist at the threshold between artifact and organism, seeming at times like crafted objects and at others like they were produced by nature itself.
The artist’s vessels and sculptural objects in this exhibition are characterized by richly layered, earth-toned surfaces finished with natural lacquer. Their tactile, organic qualities recall surfaces shaped by time: weathered wood, flowing water, or iridescent shells. These visual associations foreground a dialogue between natural transformations—like the slow growth of tree rings or the casting-off of shells—and human interventions, from the shaping of form to the layering of lacquer. Rather than depicting nature directly, his works distill its underlying rhythms and patterns, exploring how time leaves its mark on matter. Some objects seem to belong to a world of once-living things, as if they had grown from the earth itself, while others clearly bear the hand of the maker, and many—like the eponymous forms of Cocoon (2024) and Fruits (2024)—inhabit the ambiguous space between these two conditions. Matsunaga’s work transforms clay into a meditation on temporality and transformation, offering material reflections on the enduring vitality of the natural world.
The artist’s vessels and sculptural objects in this exhibition are characterized by richly layered, earth-toned surfaces finished with natural lacquer. Their tactile, organic qualities recall surfaces shaped by time: weathered wood, flowing water, or iridescent shells. These visual associations foreground a dialogue between natural transformations—like the slow growth of tree rings or the casting-off of shells—and human interventions, from the shaping of form to the layering of lacquer. Rather than depicting nature directly, his works distill its underlying rhythms and patterns, exploring how time leaves its mark on matter. Some objects seem to belong to a world of once-living things, as if they had grown from the earth itself, while others clearly bear the hand of the maker, and many—like the eponymous forms of Cocoon (2024) and Fruits (2024)—inhabit the ambiguous space between these two conditions. Matsunaga’s work transforms clay into a meditation on temporality and transformation, offering material reflections on the enduring vitality of the natural world.
USEFULLESS LAB × ROYOKO
Linglong porcelain is a renowned traditional craft of Jingdezhen. By carving delicate apertures known as “rice grains” into porcelain blanks and then filling them with a translucent glaze before high-temperature firing, artisans achieve a semi-transparent surface that appears light and luminous yet remains entirely watertight. To create the large-scale installation Sea Creature Lantern (2025), ROYOKO, a brand dedicated to the heritage and contemporary reinvention of linglong porcelain, collaborated with architecture studio USEFULLESS LAB, combining traditional porcelain techniques with metallic machinery. The work amplifies the crystalline translucence of linglong porcelain, transforming the material into part of an organic entity that glows and pulses like a creature from the deep sea.
Xu Zhiwei
The underlying inspiration for Xu Zhiwei’s ceramic practice comes from his fascination with leaves and their shapes, in particular the spatial possibilities revealed when they are stacked and combined. Taking this as his point of departure, he continually deconstructs and remakes his subject matter, crafting light and dynamic ceramic structures through the interplay of overlapping planes, bends, and the meticulous refinement of surface textures. In the “White Sandbank” series, flowing, sinuous surfaces reimagine the poetic atmosphere of traditional landscape painting. Elsewhere, curled porcelain sheets evoke the historical resonance of ancient Buddhist scrolls, and the “Free Walk” series pays homage to Futurist sculpture through its dynamic forms. Though varied in approach, all trace back to his foundational homage to the natural image of the leaf.
Xiao Wei
Most of Xiao Wei’s works consist of geometric forms combining curved, straight, and square components. Through vertical incisions and successive stages of polishing, he exposes the layers of slip embedded within the clay. Soft, luminous tones weave subtly through these layers, creating a gentle rhythm of color and form. Through this process, the artist translates his impressions of the urban architecture that forms his spatial environment, and the subtle textures of his own emotions, into material form. This exhibition features several of Xiao Wei’s series, among which “Existence and Oblivion” stands as the most representative. The inspiration for this series arises from the traces that time leaves upon matter. Through continuous polishing, the upper layers of slip on these pieces are gradually eroded, revealing faint glimpses of the colors beneath. In this way, Xiao Wei seeks to evoke the time-worn textures of weathered stone, peeling paint, and decaying wood. As the artist observes, “People, too, must be tempered and refined by time in order to form their own colors.”
UCCA Beijing
Open Today, 10:00-19:00 (Final entry: 18:30)
798, No. 4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Beijing
Tel: +86 10 5780 0200
Fax: +86 10 5780 0200
UCCA Dune
Open Today, 9:30-18:00 (Final entry: 17:30)
Aranya Gold Coast, Beidaihe
Tel: +86 335 7522 652
UCCA Clay
Open Today, 9:00-18:00 (Final entry: 17:30)
West Entrance, Creative & Cultural Ceramic Avenue, Dingshu Town, Yixing City, Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province
Tel: +86 0510 8767 9989
