META CRAFTS: Reclaiming Sorcery and Transcendence of Japanese Craft History

Author:KAZUHITO Maekawa, Ph.D. (Arts)

Abstract

This thesis argues that the root cause of the intellectual and market stagnation currently afflicting contemporary Japanese Craft (KOGEI) lies in the irreversible historical chain of events following the Meiji Restoration. Crafts were stripped of their inherent state through a dual fragmentation: the “stripping of spirituality” by Haibutsu Kishaku (abolition of Buddhism) and the “fixation of technique” by institutionalization. The concept of “META CRAFTS,” proposed by the author, demonstrates itself to be the sole cultural response, bearing historical inevitability, capable of resolving this structural issue. By introducing advanced technology and rejecting the dogma that craft must be purely handmade, and by promoting proactive creation that shifts from “preservation” to “evolution,” META CRAFTS reclaims the “original form of craft” and pushes it to extreme evolution. Simultaneously, it deepens the original function of “manifesting divine existence and higher-order concepts” in an essential direction. Through the two pillars of “reclaiming sorcery” and “Sublation of technique by philosophy,” META CRAFTS represents a groundbreaking turning point in Japanese craft history, updating the domain of craft from the dimension of technique to the higher dimension of philosophy and critique.

I. Introduction: The “KITSCH-ification” of Craft and Civilizational Stagnation

Despite its technical excellence, Japanese craft remains isolated from global contemporary art discourse and suffers from stagnant market value. This stagnation is not merely a lack of contemporary expression but a structural consequence of the historical value shift that craft underwent after the Meiji Restoration. This thesis analyzes the process by which craft lost its “spiritual origins” and was transformed into “KITSCH (a popular, shallow aesthetic),” thereby deriving the necessity of META CRAFTS as the solution.

II. Examination of Historical Challenges: The Dual Loss of Craft’s Soul

The emergence of META CRAFTS is a necessary historical act of restoration in response to the two “acts of fragmentation” in Japanese craft history that stripped craft of its soul.

A. Stripping of Spirituality and the “Amnesia of the Divine”

The Shinbutsu Bunri (separation of Shinto and Buddhism) and Haibutsu Kishaku in the first year of the Meiji era (1868) forcefully detached craft objects from their fundamental purpose—”the embodiment of faith and tools for rituals manifesting the divine existence.” This fragmentation, a political “cultural sell-off” that disregarded the cultural roots, shifted the value of craft objects from “spirituality” to “commodity.” Consequently, artisans, seeking survival, began applying excessive ornamentation to meet market demands, and craft devolved into “soulless KITSCH.” The convergence towards Sori Yanagi’s design philosophy illustrates the final separation from spirituality, completed by adherence to the secular value of “functional rationality.”

B. Institutional “Fixation of Technique” and the Exclusion of Philosophy

The postwar value system of “KOGEI” was structurally fixed by cultural heritage administration, exemplified by the Living National Treasure system. With the core focus placed on “faithful succession and preservation of past techniques,” craft was confined to the context of KOGEI, where the “reproduction of technique” became a self-serving end. Elements like “philosophy,” “concept,” and “social critique” were systematically excluded. As a result, craft was relegated to the lower hierarchy of “technical training” within the art world, a position established since the founding of the Tokyo Fine Arts School (1887). This outcome led to a decisive negative consequence: the international influence of Japanese craft, which led the world during the Meiji period, rapidly declined after the war, causing a stagnation in the domestic market.

III. Philosophical Necessity of META CRAFTS: Sublation of Historical Contradictions and Dimensional Upgrade

The META CRAFTS concept, proposed by the author, is the sole logical outcome that resolves the structural challenges born from the dual fragmentation through “Sublation (Aufhebung)”—the integration of intellect and technique.

A. Reclaiming Sorcery and the Transcendence of Technique

The core of META CRAFTS, “reclaiming sorcery in the contemporary era,” is an attempt to restore the spiritual origins of craft destroyed by Haibutsu Kishaku.

1. Technological Transformation: The use of digital technology, AI, and irrational colors (vermilion) in the author’s work serves as new means of sorcery to re-inject “non-material, irrational forces” into the modern age, transcending reason. Craft is liberated from the framework of “rational function” and is elevated to an existence possessing “spiritual agency” once again.
2. Dimensional Upgrade of Craft and the Rejection of the Handmade Dogma: META CRAFTS shifts the criteria for craft value from the physical and temporal dimensions of the “dogma of being handmade” or “fidelity to past techniques,” to the conceptual and philosophical dimensions of “philosophical response to the fundamental challenges of modern civilization” and “manifestation of higher-order existence.” This activity is proactive creation promoting “evolution” over “preservation,” pushing the “original form of craft” to its extreme evolution. The author’s intellectual weapon—the Ph.D. (Arts) degree—academically justifies this dimensional upgrade. The artist’s technique is subordinated to the higher concept of “visualization of philosophy,” rendering institutional criticisms based on technique a “difference in the dimension of debate.”

B. Connection to the Global Market and Strategic Legacy

The author’s activity structurally reforms the domestic craft associations and the stagnant market—which have fixed the craft value system—by leveraging external forces.

1. Market Transcendence: Visualization of Spiritual Value in the Global Market: META CRAFTS aims to manifest the work’s material and technical value (monetary value), imbued with Japanese traditional culture, aesthetic consciousness, and fundamental religious views and spirituality, as a work possessing high-dimensional spiritual value in the global market. The strategic goal is to redefine the spiritual and aesthetic value that Japanese craft should inherently possess within the context of global contemporary art. By realizing transactions at their proper valuation, this strategy serves as an objective indicator for proving the dimensional upgrade and breaking the economic stagnation long endured by the Japanese craft world. Furthermore, acquisition by major Western museums constitutes an intellectual legacy proving the value of this philosophy.

IV. Conclusion: The Significance of META CRAFTS in Japanese Craft History and A Proposition for the Future

META CRAFTS cuts the negative chain of “destruction of spirituality → commodification → fixation of technique” that Japanese craft followed, decisively transforming the history of Japanese craft art by updating its domain of existence from the “dimension of technique” to the “dimension of philosophy and critique.”

A Proposition for the Future: The Evolution of Craft is Entrusted to the Sublation of META CRAFTS

What we have presented is not the personal vision of a single artist. This is the sole logical outcome in response to the ultimate collapse of the structural contradictions in Japanese craft history, accumulated over 150 years since the Meiji Restoration.

Japanese craft is already on the verge of losing its intellectual and economic vitality due to the dual pathologies of “fragmentation of the soul” and “fixation of technique.” The obsolete system clinging to “succession of technique” can no longer save Japanese craft; it is an act that “fixes” technique and closes the door to the future.

There is no longer room for debate. The philosophy backed by a doctoral thesis, the market strategy aiming to manifest works with spiritual value in the global market as an objective indicator, and global critique have already transcended the existing value standards of the Japanese craft world.

The only possibility for Japanese craft to continue its development 100 years from now is guaranteed solely by accepting the philosophy and economic strategy of META CRAFTS as an unavoidable “current of inevitability.”

We strongly propose to the Japanese craft world that, in order to further develop the future of craft, it must sincerely recognize the concept of META CRAFTS as an indispensable axiom for creating that future.

Regardless of whether you acknowledge this transformation or not, the next 100 years of Japanese craft art history have already begun to be rewritten by META CRAFTS.

References

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