Jun Kaneko: Black & White / Bentley Gallery, Phoenix, Arizona
January 9 - February 28, 2014

Many Arizonans are familiar with Jun Kaneko’s large-scale ceramic dango sculptures (Japanese for dumpling) at Sky Harbor Airport, and his ceramic tile wall in front of Phoenix Art Museum. Bentley Gallery will be exhibiting his monumental glazed dangos and heads covered in geometric shapes and pure color. The sculptures are made with large amounts of clay, slowly built by hand using the slab technique. The glazing on Kaneko’s new works are reminiscent of his classic dangos, punctuated by graphic polka dots, spirals, stripes, and zigzags in pure black and white. These rhythmic designs are analogous with the Japanese Shinto concept of the Ma, which loosely translates into “attachment through space.”

Born in Nagoya, Japan in 1942, Kaneko came to the U.S. in 1963 and studied at the Chouinard Institute of Art. His innovative work is in more than 70 international museum collections including Arabia Museum, Helsinki, Finland; Detroit Institute of Arts; Houston Museum of Fine Arts; Los Angeles County Art Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Art and Design, NY; The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Phoenix Art Museum and Smithsonian American Art Museum. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Nebraska, the Massachusetts College of Art & Design and the Royal College of Art in London.

This past summer, a large scale outdoor exhibition of Kaneko’s Tanuki sculpture (a symbol of fertility and prosperity) was installed at Millennium Park in Chicago. In 2012 his costumes, sets and lighting designs were featured in the San Francisco Opera’s production of The Magic Flute. He has also created costumes, sets, and video backdrops for Madame Butterfly, which began touring in 2006 and is still in production today. The artist lives in Omaha, Nebraska.

Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 9:30 am to 5:30 pm and by appointment.

CONTACT
info@bentleygallery.com
Tel. 480 946 6060

BENTLEY GALLERY at Bentley Projects
215 East Grant Street
Phoenix, Arizona 85004
United States
www.bentleygallery.com

Above: Jun Kaneko, Dango 13-07-38, 2013, Glazed ceramic, 48 x 48 x 48 inches.

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Johan Tahon: Albarelli for all sores / Valerie Traan Gallery, Antwerp
January 23 - March 8, 2014

In his early twenties Johan Tahon dug up in the center of Ghent a majolica milk jug. It proved to be an important discovery: it was made by the Antwerp ceramist of Italian descent Guido Andries. Andries introduced majolica in the Netherlands and in 1520 put up a kiln in the Kammenstraat, not far from where gallery Valerie Traan is now located. This accidental discovery lead to Tahon’s collection of pre-Renaissance pottery and to a growing fascination with the archetypal uses of pottery.

A quarter century later Johan Tahon is the best known Flemish sculptor with his famous white sculptures. In Galerie Valerie Traan he shows for the first time his versions of the albarello, or pharmacist’s pot, capriciously covered with white glace.
These ointment jars with their healing powers and their ancient utilitarian shape mean a lot to Tahon. He doesn’t consider these hand-molded pots to be ready-made objects, but sees them as modern variants on ancient forms that have survived over time.

With his famous white sculptures Johan Tahon became the most famous Flemish sculptor. In Galerie Valerie Traan he shows for the first time his versions of the albarello, or pharmacist’s pot, capriciously covered with white glaze. These ointment jars with their healing powers and their ancient utilitarian are of great importance to Tahon. He doesn’t consider these hand-molded pots to be ready-made objects, but sees them as modern variants on ancient forms that have survived over time.

"It gives a great freedom, a certain lightness, to make utilitarian objects," explains Johan Tahon. "There is not that philosophical burden that weighs on you when you make art. The utilitarian, the making of utensils, is a discipline in itself. For me, it refers to rituals, to primal expressions of human civilization. And yet I have never before done anything with pots."

Gallery hours: Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 2-7 pm.

CONTACT
gallery@valerietraan.be
Tel. +32 475 75 94 59

Valerie Traan Gallery
Reyndersstraat 12
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
www.valerietraan.be

Above: Johan Tahon, Albarelli for all sores, 2014, Glazed ceramics, H 43 cm. Courtesy Valerie Traan Gallery.

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Jun Kaneko: Black & White at Bentley Gallery, Phoenix, Arizona
January 9 - February 28, 2014

Courtesy of the artist and Bentley Gallery.

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EPURE by Daniela Schlagenhauf & Nathalie Jover / Les Ateliers galerie de L’Ô, Bruxelles
February 20 - March 20, 2014

By challenging the gravity, Daniela Schlagenhauf creates the activity. The body becomes east and the void is movement. Her work embraces the air with such a master that is allowed to be carried by the gentle arabesques. The strictness of the gesture, the rhythmof the curves and the audacity of the empty given, guide you on the due of the choreography.

Dare the imbalance, risk falling to rise in any virtuosity, go round, touch upon, evade the invisible and give it shape. The subtle and refined work of Nathalie Jover seems to slip away and vanish but like a wave it takes shape before our marveled eyes.

Located in the former public bath of the municipality of Forest, La Galerie de L’Ô is an exhibition venue dedicated to contemporary ceramics. Its configuration and its unusual architecture offer artists a unique development potential space.

CONTACT
info@galeriedelo.be
Tel. +32.495.28.71.74 

Les Ateliers galerie de L’Ô
56a Rue de L’Eau, Forest
1190 Bruxelles
Belgium
www.galeriedelo.be

Above: Daniela Schlagehauf, Résonance, 2013, Porcelain, paperclay, 70x50 cm.

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Şirin Koçak at Kuğulu Art Gallery, Ankara, Turkey
February 10-28, 2014

Photographs by Cemil Erdoğan. Courtesy of the artist.

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Rose Cabat at 100: A Retrospective Exhibition of Ceramics / Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona
February 1 - September 14, 2014

Rose Cabat is considered an artistic treasure in Arizona and an important American studio ceramicist of the Mid-century Modern movement. Born Rose Katz in the Bronx, New York, in 1914, she first worked with clay as a child at the Henry Street Settlement House. In 1936, she married childhood friend Erni Cabat, who became her artistic mentor and biggest supporter. In the late 1930s, Erni studied under Vally Wieselthier, a well-known Wiener Werkstatte potter and ceramic sculptor who had immigrated to the United States from Austria. In 1938, when Erni brought home a lump of clay to use for one of his own projects, Rose fashioned it into several coiled figures and other objects. Noticing Rose’s talent, Erni bought her a membership at Greenwich House Pottery in Greenwich Village. There she taught herself to create wheel-thrown pots in earthenware and to develop her own glazes. The Cabats moved to Tucson, Arizona, in 1942, when their first child developed asthma. The family grew, and Rose worked as a riveter at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. In Arizona, Rose first worked with clay from the local brickyard, and threw pots on a wheel made from a converted washing machine. Eventually, Rose worked with stoneware and porcelain clays on a professional Randall wheel, which she still uses to create her celebrated forms. In the mid-1950s, Rose exhibited her work nationally, including at the Tucson Art Center, later to become the Tucson Museum of Art.

Cabat’s artistic breakthrough came in 1956 when she accompanied Erni while he attended a conference in Hawaii. Rose stayed on to take a course in glaze calculation at the University of Hawaii, and returned home with new insights into the nuances of the craft. Together, Rose and Erni developed a glaze they named “feelie glaze” for its silky smoothness. In the early 1960s, Rose elevated her signature vases from utilitarian craft objects to museum-quality works of art; iconic rounded forms with delicate, narrow necks and jewel-colored glazes. In 1966, Rose participated in the Craftsmen USA exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which established her reputation as an important Mid-century Modern ceramicist. Rose Cabat will turn 100 this summer. This exhibition is a celebration of Cabat’s illustrious life and intrepid artistic achievements.

CONTACT
MFenlason@TucsonMuseumofArt.org
Tel. 520-624-2333

Tucson Museum of Art
140 North Main Avenue
Tucson, AZ 85701
United States
www.tucsonmuseumofart.org

Above: Rose Cabat, Feelies, c. 1960s-1980s, Porcelain, Various sizes: 4½ x 3½ to 6¾ x 2¼ inches. Collection of the artist. Photo by Carissa Castillo.

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Beyond Craft: Decorative Arts from the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection / Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
February 23 - May 26, 2014

In February, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will present the first major exhibition of the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection, a remarkable group of 170 artworks—ceramics, fiber work, furniture, glass, jewelry and works on paper—acquired by the Museum in 2010. Beyond Craft: Decorative Arts from the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection will showcase 85 objects by 50 artists—including Olga de Amaral, Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, Sam Maloof, Richard Marquis, Albert Paley, Ken Price, Peter Voulkos and Toshiko Takaezu—and highlight important studio objects made from the mid–1960s to the 2000s with a focus on the 1960s–80s, the collection’s great strength.

“Lee and Mel Eagle were adventurous collectors at a time when the boundaries between high art and studio craft were challenged by cognoscenti and prescient dealers; the result is a distinctive collection that reflects the technical innovations and shifting tastes of the last half century,” said Museum director, Gary Tinterow.

“Since the Museum acquired the collection in 2010, many of the works have been featured in permanent collection presentations, providing glimpses into its riches,” said Cindi Strauss, curator of Modern and Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design. “Now, for the first time, the Museum will present the collection and visitors can experience the power of these individual objects while appreciating the Eagles’ vision as collectors.”

Leatrice and Melvin Eagle began by collecting works of clay in 1960 and the medium remains at the heart of their collection to this day. Lee’s early training as a ceramist led to a lifetime devotion to clay, a passion that Mel has shared with her over the years. As the couple became sophisticated observers of the field and their preferences took shape, they successfully assembled a museum-quality collection of ceramics, fiber art, furniture, jewelry and prints, paintings and drawings. Their passion grew beyond living with objects to encompass a deep respect for art and artists, as well as a lifelong commitment to promoting and supporting their work through institutional and personal involvement.

Beginning with the 1973 establishment of Eagle Ceramics—a business that provided the resources to make and teach ceramics—the Eagles immersed themselves in the art community and began forming relationships with many prominent artists. From 1979 to 1983, Montgomery College, Eagle Ceramics and the American Hand Gallery in Washington, D.C., collaborated to present of a series of workshops, lectures and exhibitions called “Making It in Clay.” These events enabled the Eagles to meet prominent artists and the couple started collecting their works in depth. Ralph Bacerra, Don Reitz, Adrian Saxe and Michael Cardew have remained touchstones for the Eagles and lasting friendships with the artists resulted from these initial meetings. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Eagles were inspired to acquire collection subsets in jewelry, fiber and furniture and expand their significant holdings in West Coast ceramics, particularly those made in the 1960s and 1970s during the heyday of the Funk movement.

The Museum’s embrace of craft as an art form led to the Eagles’ choice of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as the new home for their collection in 2010. Since that time, the Eagle Collection has been a great asset to the permanent collection, enhancing its strengths in ceramics, glass and jewelry, and filling major gaps in fiber and furniture.

The Collection
The heart of the Eagle Collection is ceramics, particularly works made by California-based artists, such as Peter Voulkos and his students John Mason, Ken Price, Paul Soldner and Stephen de Staebler, who revolutionized the field by advocating a sculptural and abstract aesthetic rather than the functional forms that had previously predominated contemporary clay. The Funk Movement of the mid 1960s and 1970s is amply represented by important clay works by Robert Arneson, Clayton Bailey, Viola Frey, Michael Frimkess, David Gilhooly, Howard Kottler and Marilyn Levine. Second-generation ceramic artists that further cemented California’s reputation as an incubator for innovation in the field, including Ralph Bacerra, Michael Lucero, Ron Nagle and Adrian Saxe, are also featured. In addition, clay art by ceramists such as Rudy Autio, Jack Earl, Edward Eberle, Ken Ferguson, Wayne Higby, Don Reitz, Toshiko Takaezu, Robert Turner and Betty Woodman provide an introduction to functional, narrative and sculptural trends that were developed in other regions of America in the post-World War II period.

The Eagles collected selectively in other decorative arts media, honing in on artists whose innovations, aesthetics and techniques established studio craft as a relevant and dynamic art form. Highlights include furniture by Wendell Castle and Sam Maloof, two of the most renowned American studio furniture-makers who are represented in the exhibition by early works from the 1960s and 1970s. Major abstract wall-hangings by the Colombian artist Olga de Amaral and American artists John Garrett, John McQueen and Cynthia Schira comprise the fiber art in the collection. Jewelry and metalwork by Glenda Arentzen, William Harper, Eleanor Moty, Albert Paley, Earl Pardon and Joyce J. Scott offer a view into the diverse work of pioneering American jewelry artists.

An aspect that sets the Eagle Collection and this exhibition apart from others is the presence of paintings on paper and drawings by many of the artists, including Robert Arneson, Rudy Autio, Viola Frey, Richard Shaw and Peter Voulkos. Adding this facet of these artist’s careers to the exhibition broadens the understanding of their aesthetic and creativity.

Catalogue
Beyond Craft is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue that includes a full list of the entire 160-piece collection. It features an essay by the distinguished scholar Janet Koplos on prevalent issues in the craft field during the 1960s–80s and their intersection with contemporary art of that time as well as their relevance and legacy today. A general discussion of the Eagle Collection and its formation is authored by Cindi Strauss, curator of Modern and Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Approximately 45 featured works from the collection have in-depth entries written by Susie J. Silbert and Cindi Strauss.

Beyond Craft: Decorative Arts from the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Generous funding is provided by Jeffrey Spahn Gallery.

CONTACT
Tel. 713.639.7300

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Beck Building, Lower Level
5601 Main Street
Houston, Texas 77005
United States
www.mfah.org

Above: Ken Price, Sag, 2007, Painted clay. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection, Museum purchase with funds provided by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund. © Estate of Ken Price.

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Modern and Contemporary Ceramics: Anita Kay Hardy and Gregory Kaslo Collection / Boise Art Museum, Idaho
February 22 - October 5, 2014

In celebration of Kay Hardy and Gregory Kaslo’s impressive collection and significant contributions, Boise Art Museum proudly presents a full-scale exhibition highlighting their collection and gifts. Among the notable ceramic artists included are Rudy Autio, Frank Boyden, Helen Frankenthaler, Jun Kaneko, David Smith and Peter Voulkos as well as two-dimensional works by Bill Lewis, Judy Cooke, Alden Mason and Hung Liu.

“There is no central pathway to view the exhibition Modern and Contemporary Ceramics: Anita Kay Hardy and Gregory Kaslo Collection, other than a love of the ceramic medium. They acquire based upon that recognition between eye and mind that have encountered a masterwork. The ceramics range from traditional to edgy, from known masters to the lesser known. It is deliciously eclectic.” - Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio, Award-winning authors, critics and curators.

Over several decades Kay Hardy and Gregory Kaslo have assembled an exceptional art collection, reflecting their interest in modern and contemporary art with a focus on ceramics. As part of their ongoing relationship with Boise Art Museum, they have loaned numerous artworks to various exhibitions and gifted BAM more than 40 important ceramics and other paintings that deepen and enrich the Museum’s collections.

CONTACT
Tel. 208 345 8330

Boise Art Museum
670 Julia Davis Drive
Boise, Idaho 83702
www.boiseartmuseum.org

Above: Wouter Dam, Red Sculpture, 2009, Thrown and assembled porcelain with diffuser-applied matte glaze, 9 x 16 x 14 inches. Photo by Jonny Fuego.

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Klara Kristalova: Underworld / Galerie Perrotin, New York
February 27 - April 12, 2014

Opening reception: Thursday, February 27, 6-8 pm.

There is something fascinating about circuses, not the big productions kind, but the small family type that travel around the countryside. They aren’t perfect but you get a sense that they really try; the kind of atmosphere were strange things can happen but we are still close to ordinary life. – Klara Kristalova

Galerie Perrotin, New York is pleased to present “UNDERWORLD”, its first solo exhibition by Klara Kristalova in New York and the artist’s fourth solo show with Galerie Perrotin.

Klara Kristalova constructs a dark, odd, and yet familiar world. The characters that inhabit her universe are peculiar, alone, quiet, perhaps lost, as if they have just escaped from a cruel tale, waiting for a passer-by to stop and indicate the way. Made from glazed ceramics, Kristalova ‘s figures carry a raw, vulnerable, human feel to them. Drawing from Nordic storytelling and traditional myths, Kristalova manages to convey basic human emotions such as fear, love, sadness and guilt, which emerge from her work like memories from our own childhood.

For her first exhibition at Galerie Perrotin, New York, Kristalova presents a series of new characters who form an ambiguous circus cast: performing acrobats, a bird with a girl’s face, a boy with mosquito wings, a magician’s daughter. How they ended up together is for us to guess though don’t be fooled by their seemingly innocent look. As with “Double Face”, they all carry their own enigma of good and evil. Perhaps they deserve their fate; perhaps they are unaware of their own condition. Kristalova crafts their portraits at a specific moment of their mysterious lives, providing us with a few elements before the curtain drops and the show begins, leaving us to write the rest of our their narrative.

Kristalova was born in former Czechoslovakia in 1967 and moved to Sweden with her parents when she was only a year old. She studied at the Royal University College of Fine Art in Stockholm and lives in Norrtälje, Sweden. Recent exhibitions include the Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden (2012), Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2012), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2011) and SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico (2009), among many others.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am - 6 pm.

CONTACT
newyork@perrotin.com
Tel. +1 212 812 2902

Galerie Perrotin
909 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021
United States
www.perrotin.com

Above: Klara Kristalova, She’s From The Woods, 2013, Glazed stoneware, 68 x 38 x 49 cm / 26¾ x 15 x 19¼ inches. Photo by Carl Henrik Tillberg. Courtesy Galerie Perrotin.

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Gail Goldsmith: Everyday Weapons / William Holman Gallery, New York
February 19 - March 22, 2014

William Holman Gallery is pleased to present Everyday Weapons by Gail Goldsmith and Times and Places by Richard Barnet, two concurrent solo exhibitions that are installed at the gallery through mid-March.

Featuring eight clay sculptures, Gail Goldsmith’s Everyday Weapons series reflects on death and mourning. Made in the aftermath of her husband’s suicide twenty-five years ago, the sculptures are cathartic, revealing how his death altered everyday objects in Goldsmith’s life. From a series of broken bottles to an ominous corkscrew lying next to a pair of women’s shoes, these quotidian objects reverberate with pain and anger, seeming ominous as thinly-veiled weapons. With the distance of time since their creation, Goldsmith has come to see these sculptures as theatrical; each work is an archetype, both personal and universal.

"After my husband’s suicide, I found myself immersed in the need to express complicated inarticulate feelings- anger and rage, pain, fear, revenge, and also grief. When I was finally able to return to my studio, I began a clay figure of a standing woman. It was almost finished when, walking along the street; a large kitchen knife appeared in my mind’s eye. Back in my studio, I made a clay knife. I unclasped the woman’s hands, put the knife in her hands, and reclasped her hands around the knife as she appears today in the exhibition. At that moment, I didn’t understand why she needed the knife.

That woman led me to the Everyday Weapons sculptures. Soon after, I made another, larger clay knife and placed it lying across a clay hammer. Because the two pieces had to be secured, I quickly rolled out a slab of clay. The knife lies across, corner to corner, occupying the space. Its upturned point holds down the claws of the hammer, which, immobilized, can’t strike without a hand to lift it. This clay slab made a significant place for the objects. I rolled out another piece of clay and looked around. The next piece I made was a lineup of bottles. A few years earlier my husband had bought several cases of Perrier water, in anticipation of an expected water shortage. From somewhere in my mind, I remembered a street story I’d been told in which someone who was being followed, broke the top off a bottle, sat down in a doorway holding the broken bottle and waited. I took out a bottle from the case and wrapped it in a thin piece of clay. When the clay became firm but not too hard to work with, I peeled it off, joined the edges and put it on the clay slab. I took out a second bottle, looked at it, broke off the top and repeated wrapping the glass with clay. Then I added a third and a fourth and lined up a group. Because I found the objects beautiful, and because breaking bottles for a purpose was extremely satisfying, I broke more bottles and made a second sculpture of only broken bottles. After making that sculpture, I found that objects in my home, literal and domestic, became ambiguous: a pair of shoes, a rolling pin, the keys to my house. One night in a dream, I saw a man’s work glove rising up out of the earth, which eventually inspired the work titled Apparition. I made these works almost twenty-five years ago, a very long time ago. Although I remember the violent emotions I felt when I made the pieces, I can also look at them objectively today. I see this work as dramatic. Each clay slab presents an individual piece of theater. The sculptures can be read in sequence as a narrative.

The first work, the knife over the hammer begins the unfolding drama, followed by the bottles. These are survivors, taking their stand. A man enters next – he is represented by an inert and empty pair of gloves, hands with the palms facing up. The gloves rest in front of a row of bottles, the sleeping pills with the potential for harm. This work is followed by a man’s glove, a woman’s pair of shoes, and a corkscrew. The corkscrew could be for romance, to open a bottle of wine, but could also be a weapon. This ambiguity is contained in all the objects. In this particular piece none of the objects touch each other. Each sits in its own space within the larger space that contains them, raising questions about the relationships between the objects. In the final two pieces some objects come together and touch. In the first, a man’s boot is blocked and held in place by the weight of a rolling pin. In the second of these two final pieces, a single bottle, the top broken off as in the earlier sculptures, sits sheltered inside an ordinary mug. The edges at the top of the bottle point up, as do the keys which rest beside it. In this smaller clay square, the objects are at peace.

In the Everyday Weapons series, objects and spaces are made of the same monochromatic color and texture, giving each piece unity and strength. The static objects belie the emotions which inspired them. These sculptures are transpersonal as well as personal; they exist as archetypes. The monochrome color and the dry texture of the clay remind me of the desert and objects buried, then excavated. Because clay is an ancient material, this work could have come from a remote past. Because these pieces originated in my experience, the work represents the archaeology of my past. Because clay has this quality of timelessness, the represented actions of violence and rage can be imagined now or in the future.”
– Gail Goldsmith, January 2014

Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10.30 am to 6.00 pm.

CONTACT
info@wholmangallery.com
Tel. 212 475 1500

William Holman Gallery
65 Ludlow Street
New York, NY 10002
United States
www.wholmangallery.com

Above: Gail Goldsmith, Everyday Weapons No. 4, 1990, Clay, 24 x 12 x 9 inches.

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Gunhild Rudjord and Nils Erik Gjerdevik / Copenhagen Ceramics, Denmark
February 27 - March 22, 2014

The expressive potential of ceramic glazes is one of the artistic links between both artists at the year’s first exhibition at Copenhagen Ceramics. Gunhild Rudjord and Nils Erik Gjerdevik both master the capacity to exploit the particular textural possi-bilities of ceramics, but make use of them for widely differing purposes.

It might at first glance seem to be a somewhat odd combination of artists to find exhibiting new ceramic works together at the coming exhibition at Copenhagen Ceramics. But on closer inspection it becomes obvious that an interest in the expressiveness of ceramic glazes, their physical properties and colour feature strongly in the work of both artists. They are nevertheless rooted in different traditions and their approach to the use of the materials is fundamentally different.

Gunhild Rudjord was born in Norway, but trained as a ceramist in Denmark and in her career here she has mainly worked with some of the best-known archetypes of ceramics – the vessel and the dish as her ‘canvas’. She has created wonderfully decorated works where the ornamental motifs – often inspired by nature – are expressed in a more or less abstract form in an exuberant interaction with the glaze-effects of depth of colour, gloss and obvious signs of the fusing process during firing. There is a great deal of power in her works. They have the appearance of being simple but dramatic, with strong compositions, marked contrasts and – despite this – the particular softness of expression drawn by the glaze as it runs down over the surface of the pot.

Gunhild Rudjord is virtually unrivalled in her capacity to exploit the particular transformation that takes place during firing, as can be seen in a series of new wall dishes on show at this exhibition.

As far as Nils Erik Gjerdevik is concerned, the ceramic works arise from an apparently spontaneous processing of the actual material, the soft clay, into a sculptural expression. The ceramic works have, throughout his career, created a parallel track to his paintings and drawings.

His abstractions are of a special nature: one category of works are the spatial constructions, which look like free-fantasy visions in an architecturally influenced artistic idiom which, partly via the soft hardness of the material, acquires an almost surrealist feel. Construction and deconstruction take place at one and the same time. Other ceramic works unfold as large, untamed landscapes that contain an innate narrative, a blend of a clear form that at the same time apparently defies any form of interpretation: I see what I see, but what is it I see? There are many references in the works, both to former schools of art (e.g. Art Nouveau) in the formal techniques, but also elements taken from the universe of the strip cartoon. A formal stringency and a controlled chaos. First and foremost, however, his works have a presence, a here-and-now, where the response from the clay adds a quite distinctive dimension to Gjerdevik’s virtuosity.

Gunhild Rudjord has exhibited widely in Denmark as well as internationally. Among her more recent exhibitions are Galleri Moderne, Silkeborg 2013, Galleri Pagter (solo), Kolding, 2012; Himmerlands Kunstmuseum 2011 (together with Kirsten Klein) and Kunsthallen Brænderigården (solo), Viborg, 2006. She has carried out various decorative assignments, including a two-metre-high vase for Faaborg and 100 platters for the New Carlsberg Foundation. Her works are represented at the New Carlsberg Foundation; Danish Art Foundation; Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim, Norway and Sønderjylland Kunstmuseum, Tønder, DK.

Nils Erik Gjerdevik’s impressive activities as an exhibitor include major solo exhibitions at Kunsthallen Brandts, 2012 and Kunstforeningen Gl. Strand, 2009. In addition he has had a great many showings at galleries at home and abroad – in Denmark at Galleri Nils Stærk in particular. He has also carried out a number of public decorative assignments for, including others, Erhvervsarkivet , Aarhus; The University of Southern Denmark and the Danish Parliament. His works feature in the collections of the National Gallery of Denmark, Aros–Aarhus Kunstmuseum; Esbjerg Kunstmuseum; The Danish Royal Collection of Graphic Art, Bergen Kunstmuseum, and more.

Gallery hours: Wednesday to Friday, 13.00 – 17.00; Saturday, 12.00 – 16.00.

CONTACT
Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl, martin@copenhagenceramics.com
Tel. +45 2728 5452

Copenhagen Ceramics
Smallegade 46, baghuset 2 sal tv.
2000 Frederiksberg
Denmark
www.copenhagenceramics.com

Above: Gunhild Rudjord, Platter, 2014, Earthenware, D 40 cm. Photo by Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen.

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Beverly Mayeri / Duane Reed Gallery, Saint Louis
April 11 - May 10, 2014

Beverly Mayeri is a studio artist living in the Bay Area with over 30 years experience as an established ceramic sculptor. She earned a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in sculpture at San Francisco State University.

Mayeri works with refined and elegant heads and figures often using meticulously patterned details that allude to the inner life of emotions, thoughts and human frailties. The pieces are painted in washes of acrylic paint. Mayeri’s figures “evoke a richly complicated human presence,”and often “bridge the psychological, the political and the sensuous within one hybrid form.” Her work has been shown extensively in numerous museums and galleries, and is included in many public and private collections. She has received 2 NEA grants, and a Virginia Groot Grant, and has lectured and taught many workshops throughout the U.S.

Since its opening in 1994, the Duane Reed Gallery has represented and exhibited nationally recognized contemporary artists working in the fields of painting, photography, and sculpture. This program itself has been committed to showcasing innovative, established and emerging artists working both figuratively and abstractly in a variety of mediums that also include ceramics and glass. Works of gallery artists can be found in major public and private collections that include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA, The Museum of Arts and Design, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Carnegie Museum, Philadelphia Museum, LA County Museum, Victoria and Albert, and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, to name a few.

Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am - 5 pm.

CONTACT
info@duanereedgallery.com
Tel. 314.361.4100

Duane Reed Gallery
4729 McPherson Ave.,
Saint Louis, MO 63108
United States
www.duanereedgallery.com

Above: Beverly Mayeri, Conversations, 2012, Clay, acrylics, glaze, 86x61x20 cm, each head: 20x9x10 cm. Photo by Beverly Mayeri.

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Sara Radstone / Marsden Woo Gallery, London
April 3 - May 10, 2014

Sara Radstone describes her work as ‘a lifetime obsession with things that are overlooked or discarded’. Thoughts of archived objects and the traces or fragments of long redundant artefacts all haunt her work; they represent, as she puts it, the ‘frozen remains of what might have been.’

Her most recent sculptures on the theme of distant and fragile memory make reference to both past works and more universal themes. Some aspects of her investigation include the re-envisioning of her personal visual language. She speaks of ‘Re-visiting a sense of volume and seeing it differently’, to overturn the original idea to the degree of ‘going to the absolute opposite’. Thus formerly enclosed shapes are now ripped open, while a delicate, skeletal wall-mounted piece, composed of frail fragments, makes poignant reference to an earlier sculpture, sadly lost alongside numerous other contemporary British artworks in the MoMart warehouse fire of 2004.

Traces of thoughts and the notion of ideas gradually taking shape and accumulating over time are also represented in a series of folder or book-like forms. These thin and precarious objects appear dry and brittle, torn, scratched and punctured, while bearing the sheen of use. Radstone found herself returning to work on the books almost as a daily ritual; as such they became the focus of her interest in ‘building up a sort of diary of marks’, serving as a record of ‘the struggle to express things on their pages’.

Sara Radstone (b.1955) studied at Herefordshire College of Art (1975-76) and Camberwell School of Art & Design, London (1976-79). She has exhibitedinternationally and her work can be found in numerous public collections including the Los Angeles County Museum, USA; Shigaraki Cultural Park, Japan; and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Gallery hours: Tuesday to Friday, 11:00 - 18:00 and Saturday, 11:00 - 16:00. The nearest tube stations are Barbican, Farringdon or Old Street.

CONTACT
info@marsdenwoo.com
Tel. +44 (0)20 7336 6396

Marsden Woo Gallery
17-18 Great Sutton street
London EC1V 0DN
United Kingdom
www.marsdenwoo.com

Above: Sara Radstone, installation view of ‘Mute’, 2014, Image © Philip Sayer, courtesy of Marsden Woo Gallery, London.

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InCiteful Clay / Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, USA
April 4 - June 29, 2014

The Arkansas Arts Center, the state’s leader in international, visual and performing arts, presents the exhibition, InCiteful Clay, on view April 4 - June 29, in the Winthrop Rockefeller Gallery.

“This exhibition of brilliantly expressive ceramics offers extraordinary insight into the artists’ creative imaginations,” said Arkansas Arts Center chief curator and curator of contemporary craft Brian Lang. “Each work in the exhibition tells a unique and compelling narrative and illustrates the diversity and limitless potential of the clay medium.”

Artists have long used their creations as powerful vehicles to confront current and major societal issues, moving beyond paintings, sculptures, prints and photographs to installations and electronic media over the last century. Social concern has also become an area of increasing interest in contemporary craft.

For more than fifty years, the Arkansas Arts Center has been a leader in collecting and exhibiting contemporary craft. InCiteful Clay continues this tradition and is a follow-up to the landmark exhibition, Confrontational Clay: The Artist as Social Critic, which was also presented by the Arkansas Arts Center in 2000. This national travelling exhibition offers an unparalleled overview of an emergent movement in contemporary ceramics dedicated to social commentary.

Incorporating a broad range of work, InCiteful Clay includes approximately 35 ceramic sculptures by artists who utilize a millennia-old medium to create provocative critiques of contemporary social, political, cultural and environmental issues. The exhibition is organized around five themes: war and politics; the social and human condition; gender issues; environmental concerns; and popular and material culture. The artists have conveyed their messages in styles that are aggressive, violent, disturbing, irreverent, and at times, humorous, but all the while ever passionate. They rely on figurative imagery, narrative content, and a range of expressive avenues, including caricature, parody, satire, obscenity, erotica and the grotesque.

Featured artists in the exhibition include: Toby Buonagurio, Nuala Creed, Michelle Erickson, Richard Notkin, Anne Potter, Richard Shaw, Akio Takamori, Ehren Tool, Patti Warashina and Paula Winokur, among others. Among the specific topics they address are: the social consequences of war, the impact of declining moral values on children, capital punishment, consumerism and global warming.

Traditionally, ceramics have served functional and decorative purposes and have been associated with positive experiences. Visitors to this exhibition will come away with a new appreciation for the expressive capabilities of clay media to convey substantive content and to deliver the powerful critiques more routinely seen in painting and sculpture.

InCiteful Clay is organized and circulated by ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, with the Arkansas Arts Council and The National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition is curated by Judith S. Schwartz, Ph.D., an internationally recognized specialist in contemporary ceramics. A professor and director of craft media in the Department of Art and Art Professions, New York University (New York, New York), Schwartz recently published a groundbreaking study of this movement within ceramic art, Confrontational Ceramics: The Artist as Social Critic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).

Arkansas Arts Center programs are supported in part by: the City of Little Rock; the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau; the City of North Little Rock; and the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm; Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm. Free Admission.

CONTACT
info@arkansasartscenter.org
Tel. (501) 372-4000

Arkansas Arts Center
9th and Commerce / MacArthur Park
Little Rock, AR 72202
www.arkansasartscenter.org

Above: Anne Drew Potter, The Three Little Girls with Shirley Temple Curls, 2012, Terra cotta, 40x64x8 inches / 100x162x20 cm. Courtesy the artist.

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Hannah Wilke: Sculpture 1960s-’80s / Alison Jacques Gallery, London
April 24 - May 29, 2014

Alison Jacques is proud to present its fourth solo exhibition of the late American artist Hannah Wilke (1940 – 1993). For this show, the focus is on Wilke’s sculpture from her early terracotta works of the ‘60s through to the more richly coloured installations of the ‘80s. The show also encompasses the theme of her body as sculpture seen in performative photographs as well as drawings from the ‘60s and ‘70s which either refer to her sculptures or demonstrate a visceral physicality that feels completely in dialogue with her sculptural practice.

The gallery has worked in partnership with The Hannah Wilke Collection & Archive, Los Angeles, who have enabled us to assemble a succinct survey of iconic and lesser-known works which shed light on the many aspects of Wilke’s sculptural vocabulary. One of her earliest and most important sculptures That Fills Earth, (1965) is an earthy terracotta cube opening into organic forms. By pairing this explicit symbol of Modernism: the cube, with quasi-Metaphysical essentialism, Wilke demonstrates an idea of the “Modern Woman” – deconstructing a complicated living being into an ostensibly simplistic material form.

The show continues with a survey of sculptures that have been widely identified by scholars but rarely seen in public – from a trio of bronze sculptures, Athens (1979) to examples of her Generation Process Series grid groups from the mid-1980s. In each of the latter, Wilke placed hand-painted ceramic sculptures in geometric arrangements across painted boards, employing colour, pattern and her signature folded-gesture forms to both acknowledge and subvert her male contemporaries’ obsession with the mathematics of grid systems.

The main focus of the show is Wilke’s choice of materials and what they represent. In the exhibition catalogue to accompany Gestures, the most comprehensive survey of Wilke sculpture to date (Neuberger Museum, New York, 2008), the curator Tracy Fitzpatrick states:
“Wilke’s practice is rooted in her devotion to malleability and her interest in vulnerability. Throughout her career she created art from unusual materials, plastic and fragile in composition, and then placed these objects in compromising situations – hinged with pins or glued to walls and boards, placed freely on the floor, always seemingly on the verge of disaster, always questioning: Will it fall? Will it crack? This vulnerability, so much a part of Wilke’s work, is also carefully constructed strategy, perilous but orchestrated by the artist. The combination of these seemingly opposing forces creates a unique tension throughout her artistic production.”

An area of Wilke’s work, which is shown here in depth, are the kneaded erasers series from the 1970s, in which Wilke used simple everyday grey colour erasers and adapted this material into an entire series of work. Wilke placed her kneaded erasers, moulded into little gestural folded forms, onto various surfaces including boards on plinths but also everyday utensils such as Fork and Spoon (1974) and vintage postcards including Sea Wall (1975), and The Beach, The Pines, Cotuits, Mass (1977).  Other materials including Wilke’s signature chewing gum are present in the show, from photographs which make up the iconic SOS series to her lesser known large-scale photographic work called California Series where Wilke photographed her gum sculptures outdoors attached to foliage and flowers.

Earlier this year, The Guardian newspaper described Hannah Wilke as “one of the most subversive women artists in history”. Throughout this exhibition, in whatever medium her sculptural forms reside, we are constantly reminded that Wilke saw no contradiction between creating pioneering, confrontational works that helped redefine the extent of feminist activism, whilst creating aesthetically pleasing forms. Wilke was an unapologetic aesthete, stating in an interview with Lil Picard in 1973: “The concept of the disagreeable object had offended me, and I decided to make ‘agreeable objects’. I don’t feel happy on any level with disagreeable forms – I love beautiful things”.

Hannah Wilke (b. New York, NY, 1940; d. Houston, TX, 1993) trained at Stella Elkins Tyler School of Fine Art, Temple University, Philadelphia. Key solo museum exhibitions during her life included Hannah Wilke: Scarification Photographs and Videotapes, Fine Arts Gallery, University of California, Irvine, (1976); and Hannah Wilke: A Retrospective, University of Missouri (1989). Recent solo presentations of her work include Hannah Wilke: Gestures, Neuberger Museum of Art, New York (2008). Wilke has also been included in significant group exhibitions, including: Human Nature, LACMA, Los Angeles, CA (2012); Naked Before the Camera, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012); The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today, MoMA, New York, NY (2010) and elles@centrepompidou, Centre Pompidou, Paris, (2010). Her work features in major museum and foundation collections including Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; LA County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Princeton University Art Museum; and Coleccion Jumex, Mexico City.

Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am - 6 pm or by appointment.

CONTACT
info@alisonjacquesgallery.com
Tel. +44 (0)20 7631 4720

Alison Jacques Gallery
16-18 Berners Street
London W1T 3LN
United Kingdom
www.alisonjacquesgallery.com

Above: Hannah Wilke, Support, Foundation, Comfort, 1984, Two painted ceramics on painted board, (A) 8.9 x 23.5 x 10.8 / (B) 8.3 x 20.3 x 9.5 / (board) 61 x 45.7 cm. Hannah Wilke Collection & Archive, Los Angeles. © Marsie, Emanuelle, Damon, and Andrew Scharlatt/VAGA, New York/DACS, London.

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Marit Tingleff and Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl: X–Scapes / Copenhagen Ceramics
May 1-24, 2014

Landscape as the scene of everyday life. Sculptures as concrete drawings in space. Huge, robust ceramic dishes are set against more fragile, sinuous accumulations of abstract form in the exhibition of Marit Tingleff and Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl at Copenhagen Ceramics.

X–Scapes is the title of the joint exhibition by Norwegian ceramicist Marit Tingleff and Danish artist Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl. The title refers to ’scape’ as in landscape, while also pointing to numerous other possible scapes - physical and mental scenarios– anything from seascape and cityscape to mindscape; from the concrete to the abstract.

This x-scape represents the pivotal point of the meeting in clay between the two artists, where, in spite of the obvious differences in their artistic expression, the ambience of their work overlaps and visual resonance appears.

Marit Tingleff is internationally renowned as one of Norway’s greatest contemporary ceramic artists.Throughout her career she has consistently worked with, and against, the deep-rooted cultural layers of ceramic tradition.

Her particular strength lies in her ability to express the monumental character inherent in everyday phenomena. She manages to elucidate the metaphorical qualities of even the most ordinary functional objects, precisely by insisting so powerfully on their familiar and beloved forms. These are often presented in a monumental format - very large ceramic dishes or platters are her particular subject.

In the work she will be showing at Copenhagen Ceramics, she treats the landscape as a painterly theme with reference to early faience tableware.
Blue landscapes were favoured as subject matter and are still found on plates, cups and dishes in many homes. Tingleff uses the landcape of her own daily life as a starting point for an interpretation of these ceramic landscapes.

In a very different manner, a sense of being within landscape is equally the theme for Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl, in an abstract vein. In his ceramic sculpture the underlying agenda is to emphasize simple existence in space. Characteristically, he insists that even the most casual, banal gesture in space can be made important through a precise formal elaboration. Here is the crossover with Marit Tingleffs work: both have a vigilant eye for the monumental within the seemingly insignificant.

In his new works, entitled Spatial Drawings, he aims to establish the conditions for creating an intuitive, spatial form. He sets up his own obstacles to avoid consciously planning the figures. Out of endless small bits of clay tubes he builds parts that are then assembled into larger structures, which move around in space - dancing, groping their way, rising and falling. Like sculptural equivalents of semi-consciously scribbled doodles, they just exist – perhaps they emerged out of a void of thought – a distracted sense? They could have looked completely different. A pure sculptural movement. A captured account of the here and now.

Marit Tingleff is represented in many public and private collections in Norway and abroad: e.g. Designmuseum Danmark; National Museum, Oslo; the decorative art museums of Bergen and Trondheim; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Anthony Shaw Collection, London and many more. She has made commissioned work for several Norwegian embassies and government offices. Recent solo exhibitions include Arabia Museum, Helsinki, 2012; Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo, 2011. Unforeseen Events, was a dual exhibition with Alison Britton at Marsden Woo Gallery, London, 2009.

Since early 2013 Marit Tingleff has been Professor at the Ceramics Department of the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo.

The work of Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl is represented in Danish and international museums and private collections: e.g Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris; National Museum, Oslo; Designmuseum Danmark; Trapholt Art Museum, DK; MIMA, Middlesborough, UK; Annie and Otto Johs. Detlefs Collection, DK; Diane and Marc Grainer Collection, Washington. Recent shows include the New Year Exhibition, Marsden Woo Gallery, London, 2014; Danish Design at the House, Sydney Opera House, 2013; Copenhagen Ceramics, 2012 (solo); Contemporary British Studio Ceramics, Mint Museum, North Carolina, USA, 2010; The Digital Clay, Designmuseum Danmark, 2008 (solo); END, English – Norwegian – Danish group-exhibition, Designmuseum Danmark, 2007.
Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl is teaching part time at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design. He is co-founder of Copenhagen Ceramics.

The exhibition will be opened on 1 May 2014 at 5 pm by Alun Graves, curator of ceramics at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Gallery hours: Wednesday to Friday, 13.00 – 17.00; Saturday, 12.00 – 16.00.

CONTACT
Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl, martin@copenhagenceramics.com
Tel. +45 2728 5452

Copenhagen Ceramics
Smallegade 46, baghuset 2 sal tv.
2000 Frederiksberg
Denmark
www.copenhagenceramics.com

Above: Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl, Spatial Drawing no. 5, 2014, Glazed earthenware, H 64 cm. Photo by Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen.

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Annabeth Rosen / Ventana244, Brooklyn
May 2 – June 14, 2014

Opening reception: Friday, May 2, 6–9 pm.

Ventana 244 is pleased to present new work by Annabeth Rosen, who will be showing a group of pieces developed over the last few years - lumpen forms with rich, densely packed and cracked molten surfaces. The shapes and surfaces seem to have emerged from the natural world and are described in her words as “…reduced in scale into concentrated simple forms… Heaps or hives or nests, sometimes with a human interference, formed by an intensive, focused energy. Against the weight and the impervious nature of fired ceramics, they seem to be in flux, slowly heaving and settling. Unsure if the works are found or formed… they infer yielding and resistance, thoughtfulness and recklessness…”

In the catalogue, Nancy Princenthal writes about Rosen’s work and includes this quote from Lucretius: “No rest, we may be sure, is given to atoms in the void abyss but rather, as unceasing different movements impel them, some, colliding, leap great intervals apart, while others recoil only a short distance from the impact… “

Rosen holds the Robert Arneson Endowed Chair in Ceramic Sculpture at The University of California Davis and is represented by Gallery Paule Anglim and Beam Contemporary Art. Her work can be found in the collections of The Boston Museum of Fine Art, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Oakland Museum of California, and The Denver Art Museum, and in many private collections.

A catalogue of Rosen’s work from 1989 to the present includes an essay by Nancy Princenthal was published for the exhibit with support from Beam Contemporary and The University of California Davis. The exhibition is curated by Josie Browne and organized by Dan McCarthy.

Gallery hours: Thursday & Friday 5-7pm, Saturday & Sunday 12-6pm, and by appointment.

CONTACT
info@ventana244.org
Tel. 718 753 7363

Ventana 244 Art Space
244 N 6th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
United States
www.ventana244.org

Above: Annabeth Rosen, Thule, 2013, Ceramic, glaze, 30x28x30 cm. / 12x11x12 in.
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Anna Maria Maiolino. Between Senses / Hauser & Wirth, New York
May 7 – June 21, 2014

Opening reception: Wednesday, May 7, 6–8 pm.

Anna Maria Maiolino is one of the most significant artists working in Brazil today. In a career spanning five decades and a diversity of disciplines and mediums, ranging from drawing, sculpture, and artist books to video and performance, she expresses through her art a bottomless concern with creative and destructive processes and, above all, the never-ending search for identity. Maiolino’s multidisciplinary practice has consistently explored the viscerality of embodied experience – often obliquely through fragmentation and abstraction – and engaged the human body’s processes as analogs for both the making of art and the making of modernity. As an immigrant coming of age in politically unstable Brazil, Maiolino has perfected a dialogue between opposite yet complementary categories in a practice that dissolves dichotomies of inner and outer, self and other. Hers is an art in search of a new language for the liminal realm of daily human existence.

Beginning 7 May 2014, Hauser & Wirth will present Anna Maria Maiolino. Between Senses, the gallery’s debut exhibition devoted to the artist. On view will be a selection of drawings, works on canvas, sculptures, photographs, and videos, as well the sound installation ‘Two Beats’ (2012), which features the artist’s poem ‘Eu so Eu (I am I)’ that was presented at dOCUMENTA 13.

Born in wartime Italy in 1942, Anna Maria Maiolino immigrated with her family to South America in 1954, living first in Venezuela and moving to Rio de Janeiro in 1960. ‘I found myself being an immigrant again, without speaking Portuguese’, the artist recalls. ‘What kept me going was my obstinate search for a language, my obsession to become an artist. All my energy was spent trying to become an individual. The existential and art formed one anguished body. My life was dominated by anguish and doubts, although I also wanted to participate in that moment of great political, social and artistic effervescence that was pushing artists to make alliances with the previous generations… We wanted to develop an autonomous national art, far removed from external patterns and models. We dreamt of a free and autonomous Latin America, with its own economic resources, and art was no different in this respect’.

Maiolino’s early experiments in the 1960s connected her to important movements in Brazilian art history, shadowed by the turmoil and governance of military repression: Neo-Concrete, New Figuration, New Objectivity. Maiolino took part in the radical reconfiguring of the art object – and thus the art institution and the artist – during this period. Along with Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark, and Hélio Oiticica, Maiolino participated in the 1967 exhibition, ‘New Brazilian Objectivity,’ which symbolized a cultural shift in previous constructivist traditions and established a new vision for the production of art in Brazil. After living in New York from 1968 to 1971, she returned to Brazil and devoted herself to drawing as a means of self-expression. Working to further define her identity as both an individual and an artist, she initiated a new series of works on paper that gave emphasis to the gesture, the action, and the process of making. Since the 1990s, Maiolino’s drawings – examples of which are included in the exhibition at Hauser & Wirth – have engaged similar methodologies in her continual exploration of other materials and media, from sculpture to video and installation.

CONTACT
newyork@hauserwirth.com
Tel. +1 212 794 4970

Hauser & Wirth
32 East 69th Street
New York, NY 10021
United States
www.hauserwirth.com

Above: Anna Maria Maiolino, Untitled, from Novos Outros (New Others) series, 2013, Pigmented, molded cement and raku pieces on metal table with electrostatic paint. Piece: 10 x 47 x 44 cm. / 3 7/8 x 18 1/2 x 17 3/8 in. Table: 75 x 47 x 44 cm. / 29 1/2 x 18 1/2 x 17 3/8 in. © Anna Maria Maiolino. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Everton Ballardin.

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State of Flux / An Talla Solais, Ullapool, Scotland
April 17 - June 1, 2014

Featuring work by: Edina Andrási, Artúr van Balen, Fiona Byrne Sutton, Melanie Davies, Sinéad Dunn, Morgane Deffense, Tilly Gifford, Nicola Henderson, Kevin Morris, Emma Pratt, Ester Svensson.
Curated by Kevin Morris and Fergus Stewart.

Clay, in a state of perpetual flux, formed formed by the earth and then in the hands of the artist, will be transformed again in the eyes of visitors to this exhibition at An Talla Solais. Led by two artists, Fergus Stewart a well-established potter in the highlands and Kevin Morris a highly acclaimed new graduate from Aberdeenshire, State of Flux features a wide range of handmade and unique pieces of ceramic art from eleven of Scotland’s finest graduates.

Artúr van Balen’s installation of porcelain chickens reinvents the polystyrene wrapped, headless mounds of poultry meat bought in supermarkets into precious and valuable objects, these ceramic sculptures were cast in Berlin where porcelain was once more expensive than gold.

‘A Journey’ by Ester Svensson creates an imaginative world using porcelain, wood and string. Strange creatures and morphed forms which are delicately glazed create a three-dimensional fairy tale, open to interpretation.

These pieces contrast well with the aesthetic of Fiona Byrne-Sutton’s press moulded vessels, which are physical expressions of geological processes. Her vigorous handling of clay is a balance of risk and control. Each of her vessels are unique, formed with black stoneware and embedded with clays she digs up near the principal rivers of Scotland. Nicola Henderson’s open formed vessels are also rich in geological reference. Her vessels are influenced by a type of metamorphic rock known as gneiss. Deep beneath the earth’s crust these rock are formed under huge temperatures and pressure causing separate layers to form which compress and distort, giving the impression of waves and movement. Henderson has developed this layering effect in an attempt to impart a subtle energy and flow. She says ‘I wanted to reflect the fact that though we think of rock as something static, unmalleable and permanent, it is in a state of flux, having a life cycle of its own, changing and recycling itself over millions of years’.

Alongside this exhibition runs a series of educational activities using clay, including artist-led workshops in slip casting, mold making, throwing, and constructing and firing in an outdoor kiln.  These activities are designed to introduce participants to the different ways of working with this inspiring material through hands-on experience. These workshops will be taught by artists involved in the exhibition, providing a very rare opportunity for visitors to interact with real specialists and explore new art forms, literally getting their hands dirty!

The project State of Flux has grown out of the fact that opportunities to learn how to work with clay have dwindled a great deal over recent years. In 2012 Scotland’s last specialist degree course in Ceramics closed and it is no longer possible to study this subject as a full degree. An Talla Solais has acquired a brand new kiln in the light of this lack and this exhibition is just the beginning.

Thanks to Highland Stoneware and Breedon Aggregates who sponsored this exhibition.

Gallery hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 10 am - 4 pm.

CONTACT
info@antallasolais.org
Tel. 01854612310

An Talla Solais
Market Street
Ullapool IV26 2 XE
Scotland, United Kingdom
www.antallasolais.org

Above: Ester Svensson, Journey, 2013, Porcelain, string, wood, hand modeled and painted.

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