During Shanghai Art Week, Observer took a day trip to the newly inaugurated UCCA Clay, a museum that opened its doors this October in Yixing, Jiangsu province—fondly known as the “City of Ceramics.” Situated about two hours and two train rides from Shanghai, this ambitious new cultural destination seeks to bridge Yixing’s storied clay-making heritage with the innovative practices of contemporary artists working with the medium. While the city has long been synonymous with its artisanal workshops and pottery shops, it lacked a true cultural anchor, and UCCA Clay aims to fill that void by not only preserving the remnants of Yixing’s once-thriving pottery factories but also positioning itself as a standalone tourist draw to put the city on the cultural map.

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At the heart of UCCA Clay’s aspirations is its breathtaking architecture, designed by the celebrated Kengo Kuma & Associates. The museum’s façade is a showstopper, clad in hand-fired terracotta tiles crafted by local artisans using Yixing’s famous purple clay. This 2,400-square-meter masterpiece takes its cues from the surrounding landscape, with a fluid, undulating form mirroring the nearby Shushan mountain. The building’s design goes beyond aesthetics, however, creating a sensory interplay between the curved pools in the plaza and the textured ceramic skin. The result? A dazzling display of light effects that ripple across the space, casting flickering reflections onto the vaulted shell ceilings and wavy interior walls. It’s a dynamic environment that feels as alive and tactile as the clay it celebrates.

Unfortunately, the architecture of UCCA Clay steals the spotlight, leaving the inaugural exhibition struggling to match the exterior’s grandeur and ultimately paling in comparison. “The Ways of Clay: Select Award-Winning Works from the International Ceramics Festival Mino of the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan,” which features sixty-nine award-winning ceramic works from the International Ceramics Festival Mino at the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art in Gifu, Japan, lacks cohesion even as it attempts to find significance and coherance in three loosely connected themes. The first chapter, “Seeds of Nature,” explores the organic shaping of natural forms, aiming to establish a dialogue between art and nature. The second, “Geometric Structure,” shifts focus to the interplay of space and surface in contemporary ceramic aesthetics. And finally, “Garden of Meditation” ventures into the spiritual and historical, presenting ceramics as vessels of reflection and iconography.

While the exhibition design, conceived by UCCA’s Anna Xiaoran Yan, is undeniably impressive—presenting the traditional medium with contemporary fluidity—it’s hard to escape the sense that the show falls short of the space’s potential. The museum has actually laid out promising plans to address this very critique: contemporary artists will be invited to interact with the space and local ceramic traditions through ambitious installations and artist........

© Observer