Claire as the Mother of All Battles, 1996, photographic print

Photos courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro Gallery

A visit to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, is now a worthwhile adventure for those interested in pottery and its tyrannical potential. Grayson Perry, the British transvestite potter who won the prestigious Turner Prize in 2003, has his first solo exhibition in Japan at the museum until August 31. Provocative pots, ceramic sculptures, drawings, costumes, photographs and videos shock the unwary and delight the converted.

Perry credits Japan’s ceramic traditions as a major influence even before he came here for the first time as an artist-in-resident with the museum in 2005. Japanese Characters was inspired by the pattern on a small silk tea bowl bag Perry bought in Kyoto. Collaged with black-and-white reverse photo images of women in bondage, the pot also reflects a not-uncommon Japanese penchant for S&M. Pretty and perverse—typical of Perry’s mixed message pieces lurking with surprises.

With biting humor, Perry jives just about everyone, and Art Museums are Bad for You offers a definite laugh. On a crackled vessel, the artist has drawn caricatures of Japanese youth—boy with skateboard, girl clutching a shopping bag—with messages written in Japanese. Perry once heard that Japanese art museums, like those in Britain, struggle to attract youngsters. Fanatically rebellious as a teenager, he knows that they’ll come if they’re told it’s bad for them.

What’s not to Like? is a seminal piece that took Perry seven months to complete and was created to fit within the glass-walled central display site of the museum. Drawings of consumer goods, like watches, mobile phones and handbags, decorate photo images of models and soccer players. At the very top stands Perry’s hero, Alan Measles, the childhood teddy bear that the artist still worships, with raised beer bottle and shopping bag. A poignant reflection of Japan’s consumer-obsessed culture, this pot is well-placed at the center of the show.

Personal Creation Myth, 2007, glazed ceramic, 49x39cm

Perry admits that he was attracted to pottery because it was “naff.” It is the underdog of the arts, earthy and wholesome, a safe enough medium that would allow tyranny without jail time. (He’s never been censored.) But the artist doesn’t consider himself a bona fide potter, more like an artist who “uses ceramics.” He “borrows” the shapes of classic Chinese and Japanese forms. It is more his skill as an illustrator, combined as collages with photos and picture cutouts, that create his piquant imagery and multilayered social and personal messages. His drawings, like the Map of an Englishmen, reveal his skill as a draftsman—and his cerebral cacophony.

Perry is remarkably articulate, with a true gift for gab. In one of his books, Grayson Perry—Portrait of the Artist as Young Girl (2006), he describes the sad deep angst of his childhood, his growing pains as a horny heterosexual transvestite, and the often hilarious “guerrilla tactics” he used on his way to becoming an established artist (Perry won the Turner Prize in 2003). Psychotherapy, fame and family—wife Phillipa and daughter Flo, now 14—have brought him confidence and clarification. “My Civilization” offers a hand-held tour through his dark and colorful psyche, Perry’s own psychological archeology.

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, through August 31. See exhibition listings (other areas) for details.

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