Edmund de Waal: Atmosphere / Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent
March 29, 2014 - February 8, 2015

Edmund de Waal: Atmosphere presents a new installation by the renowned ceramic artist and author.
De Waal, who grew up in Canterbury and is best known for his large installations of porcelain vessels and the international bestselling book Hare with the Amber Eyes, showcases a major new commission for Turner Contemporary’s Sunley Gallery. This is the third commission produced for the Sunley Gallery following those by Maria Nepomuceno in 2012 and Daniel Buren in 2011.

For this ambitious project the artist has created an installation in response to the space, light and architecture of the Sunley Gallery with its double height windows and spectacular views over the North Sea. Atmosphere (2014) comprises of a series of 9 large, suspended vitrines that are in conversation with the mutable light from the sea.

Suspended at different heights, the lines of the 20-40 vessels within each of the vitrines offer the viewer an array of horizons as they move through the space both on the gallery’s ground floor and from the overlooking balcony. In Atmosphere De Waal brings the changing weather into Turner Contemporary and echoes the ways in which artists as diverse as Gerhard Richter, Hiroshi Sugimoto and JMW Turner have thought about clouds and horizons.

This commission will be accompanied by two other works by the artist. Juxtaposed alongside Atmosphere is Bauspiel, a group of vessels residing on a floor based plinth in a configuration which reflects those in the nearby suspended vitrines. Turner Contemporary’s ground floor corridor is transformed by a new wall-based text installation, which sees De Waal convert the corridor walls into a life-size notebook, drawing on an array of sources from Turner’s letters to the poems of Baudelaire.

Edmund de Waal states: “When thinking about the changing landscape of clouds, I remember Constable’s beautiful letter about lying on his back and doing ‘a great deal of skying’. There is no more extraordinary place to look at the sky than the Sunley Gallery at Turner Contemporary. Atmosphere is my attempt to make a response to this threshold between a building and the air outside. Suspended in the space are nine vitrines holding 200 small celadon and grey porcelain vessels. I hope they will provoke some skying of their own.”

The exhibition coincides with a new monograph, Edmund de Waal published by Phaidon Press and featuring contributions from AS Byatt, Peter Carey, and Colm Toíbín amongst others. Edmund de Waal, which will be released on 5 May 2014, will be the first and only complete survey of the artist’s career to date, weaving together both his literary and ceramic practices.

Edmund de Waal was born in 1964. He studied English at Cambridge University and ceramics in both England and Japan. De Waal is best known for his large scale installations and much of his recent work comes out of a dialogue between minimalism, architecture and music, and is informed by his passion for literature.

De Waal has had major interventions in many museum and public collections around the world, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Waddesdon Manor, Tate Britain and the National Museum of Wales. In September 2013 de Waal opened his first show in New York at the Gagosian Gallery. This was followed by new work for the new Asian Pavilion at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Alongside his major commission for Turner Contemporary in Margate this year, de Waal will be installing a work at the Theseus Temple in Vienna, in collaboration with the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Future projects include working with the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden and with David Chipperfield Architects in London.

Edmund is also known as a writer. His book, Hare with the Amber Eyes, published in 2010, has been an international bestseller and won many literary prizes.

Exhibition supporter: Gogosian Gallery.

Gallery hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 10:00 – 18:00.

CONTACT
info@turnercontemporary.org
Tel. +44(0)1843 233000

Turner Contemporary
Rendezvous, Margate, Kent CT9 1HG
United Kingdom
www.turnercontemporary.org

Above: Edmund de Waal atmosphere, 2014, 286 porcelain vessels in 9 aluminium and plexiglass vitrines, Each: 11 3/4 x 118 x 9 3/4 inches (30 x 300 x 25 cm). Overall dimensions variable. © Edmund de Waal. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photo by Stephen White.

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Ewen Henderson / Erskine, Hall & Coe, London
May 6 - June 5, 2014

"I fell in love with both the material and the vessel as a magical form; but it was a long time before I realised how I wanted to use it… I was seduced by the alchemy of change where you take a material…and it is transmogrified into something else."

Born in Staffordshire in 1934, Henderson became interested in painting and sculpture while working for a timber company in Cardiff and started attending evening classes at the local art school. In 1964 Henderson began a foundation course at Goldsmiths College in London where he first encountered clay. Later he would study ceramics under, among others, Hans Coper and Lucie Rie, at the Camberwell School of Art.  But he always made time to draw and paint. He graduated in 1968 and continued his studies at Edinburgh College of Art before returning to London.

Hendereson very soon left the wheel behind and moved to the freedom of hand-building. Throughout his career he explored clay as a medium in its own right, and said of his work that:

"It explores the significance of what is broken, torn or cut, the ability of single or multiple forms to speak of either compression or expansion, flatness or fullness. It is a kind of drawing in three dimensions. I start with fragments - familiar, found, improvised - and then build up to complex structures that invite the observer to complete the circuit, so to speak, by considering such matters as memory, invention and metaphor."

In parallel with ceramics his passion for painting continued throughout his career, with watercolours, gouaches and collages becoming increasingly inseparable from his ceramics.

Ancient cultures, geological forms and landscapes were persistent influences during his career - Avebury, Eden Valley in Cumbria, the Rollright Stones in north Oxfordshire, Orkney, and Manorbier in Pembrokeshire where he had a home for the last year of his life.

Gallery hours: Monday to Friday 10 am - 6 pm, and Saturday 10 am - 6 pm (during exhibitions).

CONTACT
mail@erskinehallcoe.com
Tel. +44 (0)20 7491 1706

Erskine, Hall & Coe Gallery
15 Royal Arcade
28 Old Bond Street
London W1S 4SP
United Kingdom
www.erskinehallcoe.com

Above: Ewen Henderson, Zig-zag Folding Form, 1990’s, Laminated stoneware, 40x45x40 cm.

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2nd International Ceramic Art Symposium “LANDescape” - Ceramic Laboratory: Call for Applications
Submissions deadline: June 15, 2014

Dates: August 11-25, 2014
Location: Mark Rothko Art Center, Daugavpils, Latvia

International Ceramic Art Symposium “LANDescape” 2014 is a joint initiative of Daugavpils Clay Art Center and Daugavpils Rothko Art Center which emerged from both partner organizations’ activities and cooperation aimed at promoting contemporary art, including contemporary ceramic processes in Latvia.

In the framework of planned ceramic symposium “LANDescape”, drawing inspiration both from Latvian nature and cultural space, as well as personal world, the participants are invited to create unique ceramic art works with their chosen materials and techniques, although there is a conjunctive theme, that indicates „spurting”, „escaping” „getting away”, etc.

The “LANDescape” symposium is being organized for the second time, and this year’s symposium is assigned with an additional title - Ceramic Laboratory. This year our aim is to create a kind of laboratory, where artists experiment and share their experience with each other in different ceramic firing technologies. While choosing the symposium participants, priority will be given to artists who, alongside the creative work will offer a firing master class and/or public lecture dedicated to the ceramics or ceramic technologies, which will subsequently be published in the catalogue of the symposium.

Symposium Organizers: Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center in collaboration with association „Daugavpils Clay Art Center” Symposium aims:
1. To create unique contemporary ceramic objects for Latvian art and cultural space, to create a platform for artists to exchange experiences and generate creative idea, as well as to promote contemporary ceramic processes in the society;
2. To promote high quality contemporary art availability to public, raise public interest in culture, preservation of cultural heritage, to promote the creation of new artworks and their collections.

Symposium participants: 15 professional ceramists participate in the Symposium. Selection of the participants will be held taking into consideration the materials sent (Application, CV and visual information that are sent, taking into consideration the regulations below).

Symposium organizers’ liabilities:
1. Artists’ accommodation costs in Daugavpils (hotel and meals);
2. Working studios;
3. Working materials: clay (1000 ºC), chamotte clay (1000-1100 ºC), glaze.
4. Opportunity to use wood-firing kiln, electric kiln, as well as a chance to explore different types of individual firing;
5. Publicity (information in mass media, publishing of symposium catalogue);
6. Recreation possibilities: tour around the city and region, visiting educational arts establishments in Daugavpils;
7. Opportunity to present a creative work;
8. Symposium opening exhibition (opening on August 12, 2014);
9. Symposium final exhibition (opening on August 23, 2014).

Artist liabilities:
1. Travel costs to Daugavpils and return home;
2. Other materials and instruments necessary for work;
3. Workshop and/or lecture presentation in frame of the symposium;
4. To donate one art work from symposium opening exhibition to Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center (art works should be brought to the symposium opening exhibition);
5. To donate one art work, which will be created during the symposium, and which will be chosen by specially organized jury, to Daugavpils Clay Art Centre;
6. During first 5 days after receiving the invitation, an artist needs to confirm his/her participation (until July 10, 2014).

For further information, download the regulations (.pdf).
Click here to apply online.

CONTACT
Valentins Petjko, +37120207533
valentins.petjko@gmail.com

Emma Woffenden: Falling Hard / Marsden Woo Gallery, London
May 15 - June 21, 2014

Emma Woffenden continues to explore the figure and the fragmented body in her latest sculpture series, ‘Falling Hard’.

Using a variety of mixed materials including glass, jesmonite, polystyrene, clay and metal, Woffenden creates a discourse around the interconnectivity of the body as a physical and psychological site and the impact of what the body – whole or fragmentary – expresses. The influences of social structures and the dynamics of power relations on the individual imbue her sculpture with a palpable sense of internal conflict.

Interpretation of contradictions and opposites is a pervasive theme in this new series of work; how internal emotional experience is expressed through theexternal action of the figure, the aesthetics of symmetry and asymmetry, the erotic and fetishistic power of religious sculpture, culminating in the unsettling yet exquisite appearance of her sculptures. The dualities Woffenden confronts in the ‘Baby Hammer’ hybrid object - corporeal and material, playful and brutal, fragile and resilient - hint at violence both real and symbolic.

Woffenden’s uncanny forms trespass upon the viewer’s imagination, casting an oblique light on the human condition.

Emma Woffenden (b. 1962) studied at West Surrey College of Art & Design (1981-1984) and the Royal College of Art (1991-1993). She employs a full range of complex glass and mixed media techniques to make works that explore the power of myth and archetypes, and the human condition.
Widely recognised as one of Britain’s leading glass artists, her work is included in a number of international public collections, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Wellcome Trust and the Crafts Council, London; Ernsting Glass Museum; Broadfield House Glass Museum, West Midlands. Her award winning designs for Transglass can be found in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She was appointed North Lands Creative Glass Artistic Director in October 2013. She lives and works in London and France.

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: Emma Woffenden, Figure on Top of Stairs, 2014, Acrylic-based fibre glass and wooden base, H 168 x W 66 cm. Photo © Phil Sayer, courtesy of Marsden Woo Gallery, London.

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Nathan Lynch: Another High / Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
May 13 - July 3, 2014

Brunch reception: Saturday, May 17, 11 am - 1 pm.

Inaugurating our new space at 1639 Market Street, Nathan Lynch will present a series of ceramic work which, like the gallery itself, recalls the past while grappling with an unsure future.

Motivated at first as homage to his late teacher Ken Price, Nathan Lynch’s abstract ceramic and wood sculptures make physical the difference between what we want and what we get. The work consists of abstract “blobjects” that appear to slump, sag, burst, drip, and ooze off of their platforms. Like a 4-day old helium balloon that is neither all the way up nor completely down, the forms hover in the layered emotions between elation, confusion, and disaster, suggesting the potential futility in even our best efforts. As Nathan describes; “In all levels of our life, we are in constant pursuit of the best solutions, from personal fitness and desktop applications to the national political debate. By remodeling this idealism, my work questions our value systems, revealing ironic, contradictory, and embarrassing culture narratives.”

Nathan Lynch was raised in Pasco, WA, an agricultural community in the shadow of Hanford Nuclear Power Plant. This environmental contradiction gave Lynch an acute sense of location and deep appreciation for irony. In the five formative years after graduation Lynch worked as the prop master for a local community theatre, the effects of which are still being realized in his current body of work. His concerns for political conflict and environmental upheaval are filtered through notions of absurdity, hand fabrication, and the dramatic devices of storytelling.

As a sculptor and performance artist, Lynch has made collaboration and experimentation major components of his practice. Recent projects include a residency at the Exploratorium, habitat restoration design for Ashy Storm Petrels on the Channel Islands, and a reinterpretation of David Ireland’s Dumballs for Southern Exposure’s 39th anniversary show, The Long Conversation. He is currently included in YBCA’s Bay Area Now 7 in San Francisco. At the University of Southern California Lynch studied with Ken Price, and later earned an MFA at Mills College with Ron Nagle. Lynch is an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Ceramics Program at California College of the Arts.

Gallery hours: Tuesday through Friday 11-5 and Saturday 11- 4.

CONTACT
info@renabranstengallery.com
Tel. 415.982.3292

Rena Bransten Gallery
1639 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
United States
www.renabranstengallery.com

Above: Nathan Lynch, Oversharing, 2014, Glazed and painted ceramic, 10½ x 10½ x 7 in. / 27 x 27 x 18 cm.

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Jun Kaneko: A Stage for a Shared Dream / Locks Gallery, Philadelphia
May 2-31, 2014

Locks Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of ceramic works by the artist Jun Kaneko, alongside video excerpts of the artist’s opera design for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

Stemming from his ongoing concerns regarding spatial relationships and installation, Kaneko has fluidly moved between his sculpture and theater practice. The late art critic Arthur C. Danto applauded Kaneko’s previous opera design (for Madama Butterfly) stating that, “The production unfolds like a shared dream.”

The exhibition highlights the imaginative color palettes along with the bold and organic patterns that have become a creative signature for Kaneko’s interdisciplinary aesthetic. Discussing his glazing process, the artist remarked that, “I start thinking about orchestration of the colors around the work as a whole… sort of like a symphony. Everything has to make an interesting harmony to become one, to be there as one statement.”

With this installation of Kaneko’s Dango (freestanding stele forms) and wall-mounted slab works, a new conversation can begin between the artist’s studio and his contributions to the opera stage. Within the varying forms of his Dangos, their figurative presence is transformed to the theatrical. The exhibition is presented on the occasion of the east coast debut of The Magic Flute at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. alongside an installation of monumental Dangos in the Hall of Nations.

Jun Kaneko (born in Nagoya, Japan) lives and works in Nebraska. The artist has shown extensively in the U.S. since 1964 and has had exhibits in Finland, Norway, Japan, South Korea and Canada. Kaneko’s work is in over fifty museum collections throughout the world including the Arabia Museum, Helsinki, Finland; Detroit Institute of Arts; Los Angeles County Art Museum; Museum of Art and Design, NY; The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Phoenix Art Museum; Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 2013, Kaneko’s recent sculptural works were the focus of a large-scale installation in Millennium Park in Chicago.

Kaneko’s design for the opera Fidelio debuted at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia in 2008. The east coast debut of his design for the opera Madama Butterfly became the catalyst for a citywide celebration in Philadelphia with sculptural exhibitions at the Kimmel Center’s Commonwealth Plaza, City Hall, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and at Locks Gallery.

Coinciding with the Locks Gallery exhibition is a sculptural installation in the Kennedy Center’s Hall of Nations from April 9th through May 19th, 2014. The Magic Flute— featuring Jun Kaneko’s set, projection, and costume design—will run at the Kennedy Center from May 3rd through the 18th, 2014.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm.

CONTACT
info@locksgallery.com
Tel. 215-629-1000

Locks Gallery
600 Washington Square South
Philadelphia PA 19106
United States
www.locksgallery.com

Above: Jun Kaneko, Untitled (Dango 06-08-08), 2006, Glazed ceramic, 42 x 26 x 14 in. / 107 x 66 x 36 cm.

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

© Marsie, Emanuelle, Damon and Andrew Scharlatt, Hannah Wilke Collection & Archive, Los Angeles. Courtesy Alison Jacques Gallery, London. Photography Michael Brzezinski.

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SCORES: Fujita, Cole & Lopez / Cross MacKenzie Gallery, Washington DC
May 9-31, 2014

Cross MacKenzie Gallery is pleased to present “SCORES” an exhibition of new ceramic sculpture and photographs by three artists whose work is based on repeating dozens or “scores” of elements to create something greater than the sum of their individual parts. Each artist’s work is full of repetitions, multiples, and variations of a seemingly simple form, built up to a greater whole, creating order out of disorder. Together, the pieces are in conversation with one another.

Michael Fujita’s ceramic hand rolled tubes are laid row upon row until a handsome vessel takes form. Glazed in blues and greens, the macaroni-like bowls evoke various visual textures, drawing upon our tactile sensibilities. This is a labor of love, patience, and detail, and it therefore comes as no surprise that the artist experienced carpal tunnel syndrome while building these works. In his previous show at our gallery, Fujita’s repeated element was individually glazed spheres the size of gumballs, each work was multi-colored and looked almost machine-made. His new work, however, differs in its monochromatic palette, and the ragged edges serve to emphasize the handmade aspect of the vessels. Stacked one by one, each tube is completely unique, and the overall effect is of an entity growing organically of its own accord.

Linda Lopez’ ceramic sculptures are also labor intensive. Like Fujita, she becomes entranced in her repetitions and creates rather comical furry shapes that are reminiscent of sea anemones. Her clay teardrops elegantly melt down along the surface and are placed layer upon layer until the entire form is covered as densely as a head of hair. Lately she has extended tendrils from the core opening up her monoliths into the surrounding space, growing outward.

John Cole’s new series of photographs called the “Full Bleed Series” at first glance seem like Washington Color School paintings, Gene Davis-like, made of multiple stripes of color. The fact that these are actually extreme close-up views of the edges of stacked magazines is a delight. By refocusing one’s eyes to take in the tiny scale of the magazine page colored edges, it simultaneously gives us a way of looking at the ceramics. His observations give us a full perspective by both zooming in and zooming out of focus. Each image is made of scores of pages, not only filling the frame of the photograph, but also continuing past the edge of the frame, implying an endlessly repeating pile of magazines.

Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 12-6:00 pm.

CONTACT
Rebecca Cross, becca@crossmackenzie.com
Tel. 202.333.7970

Cross MacKenzue Gallery
2026 R St. NW
Washington DC 2000
United States
www.crossmackenzie.com

Above: Linda Lopez, Pink Furry, 2014, Earthenware, low fire glaze, 12 x 15 x 8 in. Photo by Chloé Bigio - Courtesy of Cross MacKenzie Gallery.

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Dual Natures in Ceramics: Eight Contemporary Artists from Korea / SFO Museum, San Francisco
May 17, 2014 - February 22, 2015

“In modern art, as everyone knows, the beauty of deformity is very often emphasized, insisted upon. But how different is Korean deformity. The former is produced deliberately, the latter naturally. Korean work is merely the natural result of the artisan’s state of mind, which is free from dualistic man-made rules.”
—Bernard Leach (1887–1979)

Renowned British studio potter Bernard Leach once acknowledged that Korean potters are admired for their naturalism and spontaneity in creating ceramics. Scholars have attempted to define the beauty of Korean ceramics as “artless art” or “unplanned plan.” Indeed, Korean ceramics have been produced by the second nature of matured, skilled hands, sometimes transcending any rules, knowledge, and intentions.

During the twentieth century, Korean artists and theorists grappled with the interplay of modernization and tradition. Some artists looked to the genuine, fresh, and fundamental qualities of Korean potters from the past as inspiration to create more appealing modern concepts. Through Korean ceramics, they have explored a dialogue between the traditional and the contemporary as well as East and West.

The eight artists in this exhibition revive and reinterpret aspects of traditional Korean ceramics in various ways. Yoon Kwang-cho and Lee Kang Hyo discover artistic freedom in Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) buncheong (white-slipped stoneware) ceramics and apply white slip in playful and innovative ways. Buncheong is a distinctive type of Korean ceramic that flourished during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Both artists’ ceramics have the whimsical, rustic, and audacious characteristics of buncheong in addition to contemporary elements. Joseon dynasty whiteware was the main foundation for Kim Yik-yung and Park Young Sook. Park has experimented on the uniquely Korean globular jar, the so-called ‘moon jar,’ while simultaneously exploring other Korean porcelains including a blue-white ware shown in this exhibition. Embracing whitewares’ core traditions, Kim Yik-yung complements innovative surface treatments and explores new types of glaze.

Techniques used in traditional Korean ceramics are another matter for the artists in this exhibition. Roe Kyung Jo is known for his marbled-ware technique (yeollimun). The technique was traditionally used for celadon wares, but Roe applies it to other wares. Onggi, a form of earthenware that predates porcelain production, served various purposes in Korean households. Lee Inchin started his works based on onggi wares but expands the technique using new kinds of glazes and experimenting with their applications.

Koo Bohnchang and Yeesookyung go further in interpreting traditional Korean ceramics. Through photographs and video art (newly created for this exhibition), Koo reveals the organic qualities of Korean ceramics that have been overlooked or disregarded by our bare eyes. Yee utilizes and renders the superfluous aspect in ceramic production. Using abandoned ceramic shards, she translates the original concepts of ceramics into more innovative sculptural works that sometimes puzzle the viewers about the concept of ceramics as art in the twenty-first century.

Although their techniques, methodologies, and approaches are different from each other, these eight artists playfully add complex layers onto the history of Korean ceramics through their own interpretations and expressions. Dual Natures brings fresh perspectives to traditional Korean ceramics and suggests new paths of expression for a new century.

This exhibition is co-organized by the Asian Art Museum and SFO Museum and is curated by Hyonjeong Kim Han, Associate Curator of Korean Art, with assistance from Silvia Hari Chang, and Chihyun Lee at the Asian Art Museum.

Dual Natures in Ceramics is located in Terminal 3, Boarding Area F. The exhibition is located post-security and is only accessible to passengers ticketed for travel through Terminal 3. There is no charge to view the exhibition.

CONTACT
Charles.Schuler@flysfo.com
Tel. 650.821.5031

SFO Museum (San Francisco International Airport Museum)
806 S Airport Blvd
San Francisco, CA 94128
United States
www.flysfo.com/museum

Above:
Koo Bohnchang, From the artist’s archival pigment print series Vessel (BW), 2011
Location of pottery, clockwise from top-left:
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Koryo Museum of Art, Kyoto; The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka;
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.

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Elements in Harmony: Contemporary Japanese ceramics at Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
December 21, 2013 - June 2014

Collection of Richard B. McMahon

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Transformation 9: Contemporary Works in Ceramics / Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh
April 25 - November 1, 2014

The Transformation series, one of the Society for Contemporary Craft’s signature programs, was established in 1997 as a biennial juried exhibition focusing on traditional craft media–glass, wood, metal, clay, and found materials–in rotation. The exhibition seeks out an international selection of artists redefining their medium to create work that is challenging and thought provoking; inviting us all to reconsider our notion of “craft.”

This year’s focus is on clay. Clay has been used, decorated, coveted, and collected for thousands of years, yet in the hands of contemporary artists this irresistible medium continues to surprise through innovative techniques, forms, and functions. Visitors are invited to see what happens when makers push the boundaries of time-honored craft materials—right before our eyes, something old is new again.

In conjunction with each Transformation exhibition, the jurors award the participating artist whose work best displays the tenets of excellence and innovation the Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize. Named in honor of SCC’s founder, the award is accompanied by a $5000 cash prize.

Transformation 9: Contemporary Works in Ceramics features the work of all 31 of the Raphael Prize finalists, a selection of internationally recognized and emerging artists. The exhibition highlights outstanding and innovative examples of contemporary works in clay, all of which have been created within the last year. The work of three regional artists—Chuck Johnson of Venango, PA, Erica Nickol of Pittsburgh, PA, and Ian Thomas of Slippery Rock, PA—is included in the exhibition.

Linda Swanson of Montreal, Quebec has been selected as the winner of the Society for Contemporary Craft’s (SCC) 2013 Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize competition. Two honorable mention honorees, Lauren Gallaspy of Salt Lake City, UT and Lee Somers of Montevallo, AL, and one merit recipient, Lauren Mabry of Philadelphia, PA, were also announced at the exhibition opening on April 25, 2014.

Swanson’s winning entry, Cypreus Lumen, 2013, is a 20 inch round wall disk made from crystalline glazed porcelain with a painted aluminum rim. The turquoise glaze looks almost liquid with the faintest ripple of movement on the surface. A patch of deep red disrupts the calm in a dynamic swirl of motion. “Processes of change, formation, and dissolution are caught in this crystalline glazed surface,” says Swanson of the piece. “A flow of molten colorants in an optically ambivalent and luminous frozen moment recalls geology as well as biology, and elicits material affinities between the body and the world around us.”

As the 2013 Raphael Prize winner, Swanson shows several other ceramic works in Transformation 9, each exploring the changing nature of matter. A site-specific installation similar to her piece Osmogenesis (recently seen at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, MN) was installed in SCC’s main gallery throughout the run of the exhibition. Combining the slow and steady drip of water onto a clay-covered steel surface, the piece is constantly changing. As the water burrows through the clay, the underlying metal surface is exposed in a collection of bubbling craters. Swanson describes the piece as exploring the “interdependence of organism and environment, as well as organism and organism – in which one species is created, or at least sustained, by and through another.”

Born in Los Angeles, CA, Swanson received her B.A. in Art History from University of California Santa Barbara, her B.F.A. in Ceramics from California State University, and her M.F.A. in Ceramics from the School of Art and Design at Alfred University, Alfred, NY. Currently, she lives in Montreal, Canada where she is an Assistant Professor at Concordia University. Swanson’s ceramics have been exhibited in SOFA Chicago with the Lacoste Gallery, Elemental at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, and INFESTATION, a public art installation at the Parcs Canada Lachine Canal Historic Site in Montreal. In 2013, Swanson was named an Emerging Artist by NCECA, the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts.

An honorable mention award was given to Lauren Gallaspy for her piece, Giving Up the Ghost, 2014. The startling 16” tall sculpture combines soft, feminine lines with a mass of ceramics shards and strips. Gallaspy received her M.F.A. in Ceramics from Alfred University and has been named a NCECA Emerging Artist. She describes her work as being “about imbalance—the vulnerability of living things— and the sometimes violent, sometimes pleasurable, almost always complex consequences that occur when bodies and objects in the world come into contact with one another.”

A second honorable mention award was presented to Lee Sommers for his work, Scape IV, 2014. Having also received his M.F.A. in Ceramics from Alfred University, his work has been exhibited throughout the United States and China. Known for his distinctive ceramic collages, Sommers explains his process as “a coupling of fleeting notions and physical realities. Collage is a key strategy in both the physical and conceptual organization of my work. Drawing from a variety of sources, ongoing acts of sampling, collecting and cataloging, leads to a critical mass of components. Weaving a matrix of relations between these parts, I find compositional epiphanies - parallels to aesthetic experiences etched in my memory.”

Additionally, the jurors gave a merit award to Lauren Mabry for her piece, Curved Plane, 2013. The artist, a M.F.A. graduate from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, describes her work as “painterly, abstract, ceramic sculpture.”

The jury for the 2013 prize was composed of Joshua Green, Executive Director of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts; Jae Won Lee, a Korean American ceramic artist and Associate Professor at Michigan State University; Alexandra Raphael, enamel artist, London, England; Catherine Raphael, metalsmith and storyteller, Pittsburgh, PA; Kate Lydon, Director of Exhibitions at SCC; and Janet McCall, Executive Director at SCC.

“This prize honors artists who are redefining the boundaries of their media to create work that is challenging and thought-provoking. The strength and recognition of this competition has grown over the past 17 years and continues to challenge our viewers understanding of craft today,” said McCall.

A fully illustrated catalogue of the exhibition, featuring introductory essays by guest jurors Joshua Green and Jae Won Lee along with photo-documentation and biographical information on each of the finalists, is available at SCC for $18. During the run of the exhibition, educational programs and weekend activities are planned to enhance visitors’ understanding and enjoyment of the techniques and materials used by the participating artists. In conjunction with the exhibition, the SCC Store will offer pieces by Raphael Prize finalists Heather Mae Erickson, Martina Lantin, and Valerie Zimany for sale.

Transformation 9: Contemporary Works in Ceramics and the Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize are made possible by Alexandra and Catherine Raphael, the Allegheny Regional Asset District, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Elizabeth R. Raphael Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Presenting contemporary art in craft media by regional, national and international artists since 1971, the Society for Contemporary Craft offers cutting edge exhibitions focusing on multicultural diversity and non-mainstream art, as well as a range of classes, community outreach programs and a retail store.

Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm. Exhibitions are free to the public.

CONTACT
info@contemporarycraft.org
Tel. 412.261.7003

Society for Contemporary Craft
2100 Smallman St.
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
United States
www.contemporarycraft.org

Above:
(first image) Lauren Gallaspy, Giving Up the Ghost, 2014, Porcelain, glaze, china paint, 16 x 9 x 7 in. Photo: Lauren Gallaspy.
(second image) Linda Swanson, Cypreus Lumen, 2013, Crystalline glazed porcelain, painted aluminum, 22 round x 5.5 in. Photo: Linda Swanson.
(third image) Lauren Mabry, Curved Plane, 2013, Red earthenware, slips, glaze, burned resin (wall mount: wood, steel, epoxy), 24 x 60 x 15 in. Photo: Lauren Mabry.

More exhibitions / View the list of contemporary ceramics exhibitions

Alexandra Lerman: Immediate Release / Tina Kim Gallery, New York
May 1 - June 28, 2014

Tina Kim Gallery is pleased to present Alexandra Lerman’s first solo exhibition, Immediate Release.

A coincidence of the calendar becomes a critical frame. The first of May commemorates May Day, an ancient folk festival meant to awaken the wintering body through conviviality, dance, and song, also, International Workers’ Day, the 20th century’s concession to the solidarity of laboring bodies in almost every country of the world. The 1st of May saw the opening of Immediate Release, the new exhibition of multi-media artist Alexandra Lerman.

Alexandra Lerman’s Immediate Release presents a multi-layered installation of drawings, terracotta tablets, ceramics, and performance by Madeline Hollander that literally and metaphorically diagrams the capture of the body by the intersecting forces of technology, capital, and representation. The inauguration of a new kind of May Day, then, that understands that the body’s movements are no longer simply instrumentalized through the mechanics of labor, but also by the codification of its informal moments of respite: social communication, relaxation, aesthetic expression.

Two walls of the gallery are hung with terracotta maps depicting the gallery staff’s circulation through the space, traced by a finger dragged across the wet tablet’s surface and finished with a pinch, a now ubiquitous gesture for minimization, for which Apple briefly owned a patent. On an adjacent wall, Sumi ink drawings on legal forms render the 26 poses of Bikram Yoga, which tried to license to traditional, commonly-held wisdom of the body movements it taught. These components supplied a kind of elementary formal dictionary for Hollander’s choreographed performance that unfolded in front of them: at the opening, and then again on May 10th, the gallery’s central column become a kind of maypole for four dancers who looped through a series of movement sequences abstracted from Apple Inc.’s touch screen gestures, BikramChoudhury Yoga Inc. poses, and moves from Balanchine™ Ballet. In the intervening time, the stage around the column has been strewn with freestanding ceramic totems impressed with the positions the body takes during the performance.

At one level, the performance exists as the corollary release to the implicit capture of the body through the licensed systems of movement it borrows from: emancipation through appropriation. The movements are loosed from their various proprietary rationalizations and applications, existing momentarily for and by themselves. And yet the intentionally awkward and repetitive choreography also asks where exactly is this body being released into? Not just a commercial gallery, but, more generally, another regime of representation that may prove to be no less administered.

We are reminded that the original spirit of the folk May Day, like every bacchanal, was not just immediate release but temporary release, too, sanctioned only by its agreement to be defined as an exception. In this way, Lerman’s art is also like the festival: not an outside, but an interval- the moment of the body in mid-air, when the feet have left the ground and not yet returned.
—A.E. Benenson

Immediate Release is curated by Ceren Erdem.
Alexandra Lerman (born 1980, St. Petersburg, Russia) lives and works in New York. Lerman completed her MFA at Columbia University in 2012 and received her BFA from Cooper Union in 2004. Lerman’s individual and collaborative projects have been shown at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, Anthology Film Archived, Austrian Cultural Forum, Artists Space, Janos Gat Gallery, the New Museum in New York, MUSAC in Spain, and the Hermitage in Russia. For 2012-2013, Lerman was a resident at LMCC Workspace Program, New York; in August, 2012 she took part at The Banff Centre Visual Arts Program: 01 The Retreat: A Position of dOCUMENTA (13), Alberta, Canada; from 2014 through 2016 she is taking part in the Open Sessions at the Drawing Center, New York. In 2012 Lerman co-founded Torrance Shipman Gallery, an artist run space in Brooklyn.   

Performance by Madeline Hollander
Hollander’s performance presented 10 looped movement sequences that combine Apple Inc.’s touch screen gestures, BikramChoudhury Yoga Inc. poses, choreography from Balanchine™ Ballets, selfies, emojis, texting, liking, and patented exercise regimes to create a May pole dance that reflects our culture’s current corporeal vocabularies.

The music was composed by the sound artist, Celia Hollander, and the costumes are by ARJUNA.AG by Mikaela Bradbury, silver-plated protective clothing that blocks electro magnetic fields from cellphones and other electronics.

Dancers: Andrew Champlin, Marielis Garcia, James Graber, Mary Beth Hansohn, Madeline Hollander, Jeremy Pheiffer.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm.

CONTACT
info@tinakimgallery.com
Tel. (212) 716-1100

Tina Kim Gallery
545 West 25th Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
United States
www.tinakimgallery.com

Above: Alexandra Lerman, RM, 2014, Terracotta, glaze, wood; 32 x 27 x 5 in. Courtesy the artist and Tina Kim Gallery.

More exhibitions / View the list of ceramic exhibitions

New Delhi, a city of ten million or so people, takes its history seriously. Pretty much any museum experience you can imagine is available. Whether you want an overview of what’s been happening during the past 5,000 years, an insight into the life of Mahatma Gandhi or a journey through the crafts representing India’s incredible regional diversity, you can get it.

That said, if you’re only in the city for a short stay, you don’t have time for everything. So here are three museums that you really shouldn’t miss. For a place to stay that’s convenient, check out the some of the great hotels in Delhi Dwarka.

National Museum

To really understand a country, there’s no substitute like visiting the National Museum. Found on the corner of Janpath Street and Maulana Azad Road, and run by the Indian Government’s Ministry of Culture, India’s is home to a stunning collection that will take you on a truly amazing trip through five millennia.


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The numerous objects and more than 200,000 art works are divided into twenty-one galleries. One of the highlights is definitely the Harappan Gallery, where you’ll see evidence that technology was exceptionally advanced and lifestyles rather sophisticated even back in 3000BC. Another is the absolutely delightful Miniature Gallery, filled with over 17,000 miniature paintings. Styles include Mughal, Deccani, Central India, and Pahair, and you’ll see art works on all kinds of materials, from palm leaf to wood to leather.


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In order to really understand what you’re seeing, nabbing an audio guide is highly recommended. The museum is unlikely to give you one unless you can provide ID, however, so don’t forget to take your Driver’s Licence or similar with you. The National Museum is open between 10am and 5pm, Tuesday to Sunday, but closed on Monday. Admission is 150 INR (general), 10 INR (Indian citizens) and 1 INR (students). To make an inquiry, call +91 1123019272.


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National Gallery of Modern Art

The National Gallery of Modern Art, located at Jaipur House, India Gate, is committed to preserving and promoting post-1850s art. More than 17,000 paintings, sculptures, photographs and graphics range from miniature works to cutting-edge contemporary installations. Some of the major artists represented include British painter Thomas Daniell (and his nephew William), Jamini Roy, Amrita Sher-Gil, Raja Ravi Verma and Abanindranath Tagore.

Since opening in 1954, the gallery has received significant renovations and upgrades. Most recently, in 2009, it saw the addition of a brand new wing, increasing the overall space six-fold and incorporating a theatre, an auditorium, a library, a section dedicated to academia, a laboratory committed to conservation, an eatery and a retail outlet. You can visit the National Gallery of Modern Art between 10am and 5pm on any day except Monday.

National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum

If you’ve already fallen in love with silk sarees and shadow puppets, this is the place to find out all about them. India’s handicrafts have become popular in various incarnations all over the world, having developed in their own country over the course of thousands of years.

Given India’s immense population (more than 1.2 billion) and expansive area (over 3.2 million square kilometres), the artistic regional diversity is incredible. At the National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum, you can find out all about the evolution of various sets of aesthetics – and how they inform an array of crafts, including carving, pottery, weaving, puppetry and painting. You’ll find the museum in Pragati Maidan on Bhairon Road. Between July and September, visit between 9:30 and 5pm, while between October and June, opening hours are 9:30am-6pm. It’s closed Mondays all year around and on public holidays.

* This is a guest post.

Simon Carroll / Corvi-Mora Gallery, London
May 13 - June 7, 2014

Tommaso Corvi-Mora is pleased to present a solo exhibition of work Simon Carroll. Born in 1964, Simon Carroll died in 2009 at the age of 45. He was one of the most talented and inventive potters of his generation.

After the clean slate brought about by the generation of postmodern potters of the 70s and 80s (Alison Britton, Elizabeth Fritsch, Walter Keeler, Jacqui Poncelet), whose work developed also in reaction to Bernard Leach’s lasting influence, potters working in Britain divided themselves into two separate camps: those who could be called the “apollonians” (Julian Stair, Edmund de Waal, Ken Eastman), who privilege clean lines, muted colours, an interest in modes of display and an approach to ceramics influenced primarily by minimal and conceptual art, and those who could be identified as the “dionysians” (Gareth Mason, Ashley Howard), more focused on the object presented individually and on an approach closer to “art informel” and abstract expressionism. Simon Carroll’s work places itself firmly in the latter group; however the exuberance and eruptive force of his forms is always tempered by a thoughtful and affectionate reverence for the tradition and history of pottery, especially for 17th- and 18th Century slip-decorated Staffordshire wares.

The exhibition at the gallery will focus on two bodies of work: a series of jugs from 2005-2007 and a group of tall pots, first exhibited in 2006 at Tate St. Ives. Emmanuel Cooper wrote about the exhibition in The Guardian in 2009: “A major breakthrough came in 2006 with a show at Tate St Ives, when Carroll filled the long showcase with tall, thrown and manipulated pieces that included modelled parts, incised decoration, colour and slips and incorporated diverse references such as 18th-century porcelain, Staffordshire slipware and the decoration on Oribe ware, as well as Elizabethan ruffles. All were inventively amalgamated into his squareish forms, some with rounded feet, which brought an understanding of the history of ceramics into the 21st century, the cracks and imperfections being a vital part of the story.”

Simon Carroll’s work is the object of a monographic presentation at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the frame of the “Display” series, in the Ceramics Galleries, room 146 until 4th January 2015.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 11 am to 6 pm.

CONTACT
tcm@corvi-mora.com
Tel. 020 7840 9111

Corvi-Mora Gallery
1A Kempsford Road
London SE11 4NU
United Kingdom
www.corvi-mora.com

Above: Simon Carroll, Untitled, 2007, Slip-painted earthenware, glazed, 84 x 37 x 37 cm / Untitled, 2007, Slip-painted earthenware, glazed, 82 x 34 x 34 cm. Courtesy of Corvi-Mora, London. Photography: Marcus Leith, London.

More exhibitions / View the list of ceramic art exhibitions

Michael Geertsen: Still Life, Still Lives / Jason Jacques Gallery, New York
May 21 - June 21, 2014

Jason Jacques Gallery is pleased to announce its second contemporary exhibition with contemporary ceramic master Michael Geertsen. Following a ceramic installation at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and a show at Puls Ceramics in his native Denmark, Michael Geertsen has come back to show in New York. Geertsen is known for sleek ceramic works with alien-like sculptural bodies, and stacked sculptures of utilitarian objects like plates and cups. His whimsical and animated forms are executed with machine-like precision, thanks to his background in industrial ceramics. Michael claims American streamline design and Italian Futurism as his primary influences.

His most recent works have reinterpreted ancient Greek pottery, taking the classical forms and integrating them with modernist elements. He adds antlers, knobs and nipples in metallic gold and platinum. The gold and platinum protrusions create mirror like reflections which, when placed next to other works, distort the forms further, shifting perceptions of their form or shape.

Geertsen says his use of gold and silver is a nod to Western decadence. He started using these elements in his work while exploring Soviet constructivism where Gold and silver screamed hedonism, abundance and American kitsch. The use of gold and silver is also a reaction against 1960’s naturalistic pottery, making the works cheeky and stylized. The artist and scholar Edmond de Waals described his work as always “questioning the place that ceramics has inhabited, as well as the place that ceramics will inhabit in the future.” Michael’s most recent innovations have made that statement even more fitting.

Geerstsen’s work can be found in the preeminent collections of museums worldwide, from as close as the Metropolitan Museum in New York City to as far as the Incheon Museum in South Korea. His incredible installations can be seen all over the world, from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to a three dimensional mural in downtown Hanoi Vietnam.

This exhibition explores the full spectrum of Geertsen’s work from his use of utilitarian objects in stacked futurist sculptures, to free standing sculptural life forms that seem to come from another planet, to his new classical inspired vessels with gilded protrusions. The show is sure to be a spectacular cementing his place among the contemporary greats.

The gallery is open by appointment 7 days a week.

CONTACT
jason@jasonjacques.com
Tel. 212.535.7500

Jason Jacques Gallery
29 East 73rd Street
New York, NY 10021
www.jasonjacques.com

Above: Michael Geertsen, Red Standing Object with Platin, 2013, Earthenware, Red Glaze and Platin, 17 x 12 x 11 inches.

More exhibitions / View the list of ceramic exhibitions worldwide

Contemporary Ceramics Festival TseGlyna 2014, Kiev, Ukraine
May 30 – June 3, 2014

The contemporary art ceramics festival TseGlyna 2014 takes place in Kyiv, Ukraine, between May 30 and June 3, 2014. This art project aimed at boosting the professional ceramics development in Ukraine.

The main objectives of the project are to demonstrate the achievements of Ukrainian ceramists and to develop the cooperation between ceramists, designers, architects, gallery owners, collectors and theorists.

More than 50 participants represent various regions of Ukraine: Kyiv, Lviv, Uzhgorod, Kharkiv, Poltava, Luck, Zaporizhia, Slovyansk (Donetsk region), Konotop (Sumy region). Among the participants there are young artists as well as leading ceramists such as: Taras Levkiv, Uliana Yaroshevych, Gia Miminoshvili, Nelli Isupova, Svitlana Pasichna, Andriy Illinsky, Sergiy Radko, Stepan Andrusiv, Vasyl Bodnarchuk, Volodymyr Kovalev, Sergiy Kozak, Volodymyr Khyzhynsky, Yuriy Musatov and others.

The partner of the festival is the Ya Gallery Art Center, who will present the project «Drova» by Olena Blank.

Festival schedule:
May 30, 18:00 - Festival Grand Opening
May 31, 16:00 - Round-table Discussion, which aims to look over the questions:
- Current status of the contemporary Ukrainian ceramics;
- Popularization of the professional Ukrainian ceramics among gallerists, collectors, architects, designers, art event organizers;
- Cooperation with architects and designers; interaction with interior spaces;
- Theory and practices of the contemporary Ukrainian ceramics in the global world’s context;
June 1, 16.00 – Professionally-creative experience and knowledge exchange evening; Personal projects presentation (Gia Miminoshvili: project Interactive Construction, Nelli Isupova: International Ceramics Biennale participation memories);
June 2 – Film presentation: artistic ceramics and international ceramic symposiums;
June 3, 18.00 – Festival Grand Closing (performance by Dinamic Culture TseGlyna).

The festival location: Exhibition Hall at NSK «Olympic», str. Velyka Vasylkivska 55, Kyiv, Ukraine. Admission is free.

Organizing committee: Oxana Bilous, Olesya Dvorak-Galik, Yulia Ostrovska
Contact: ceramics.kyiv@gmail.com, press.ceramics.kyiv@gmail.com
Visit the festival’s Facebook page (Ukrainian).

Above: Yuriy Musatov, Geometric cloud I, 2013, Chamotte, engobe, pigments, copper oxide, 48 х 48 х 18 cm.

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Exhibitions galleries
Hannah Wilke: Sculpture 1960s-’80s at Alison Jacques Gallery, London
Elements in Harmony: Contemporary Japanese ceramics at Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Exhibitions
Michael Geertsen: Still Life, Still Lives / Jason Jacques Gallery, New York
Simon Carroll / Corvi-Mora Gallery, London
Alexandra Lerman: Immediate Release / Tina Kim Gallery, New York
Transformation 9: Contemporary Works in Ceramics / Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh
Dual Natures in Ceramics: Eight Contemporary Artists from Korea / SFO Museum, San Francisco
Jun Kaneko: A Stage for a Shared Dream / Locks Gallery, Philadelphia
Nathan Lynch: Another High / Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
Emma Woffenden: Falling Hard / Marsden Woo Gallery, London
SCORES: Fujita, Cole & Lopez / Cross MacKenzie Gallery, Washington DC
Ewen Henderson / Erskine, Hall & Coe, London
Edmund de Waal: Atmosphere / Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent
State of Flux / An Talla Solais, Ullapool, Scotland
Anna Maria Maiolino. Between Senses / Hauser & Wirth, New York
Annabeth Rosen / Ventana244, Brooklyn
Marit Tingleff and Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl: X–Scapes / Copenhagen Ceramics
Hannah Wilke: Sculpture 1960s-’80s / Alison Jacques Gallery, London
InCiteful Clay / Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, USA
Sara Radstone / Marsden Woo Gallery, London
Beverly Mayeri / Duane Reed Gallery, Saint Louis

Calls for applications and news
Contemporary Ceramics Festival TseGlyna 2014, Kiev, Ukraine
2nd International Ceramic Art Symposium LANDescape, Daugavpils, Latvia

Territorios Conmovidos / Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Latinoamericano MACLA, La Plata, Argentina
May 15 - June 29, 2014

Curated by Lucía Savloff.

The exhibition was born from the sensations that were aroused to a group of artists from La Plata after the perception of what happened during the terrible flood that hit their city last April 2nd of 2013. The artworks of Marcela Cabutti, Mariela Cantú, Gabriel Fino, Graciela Olio and Paula Massarutti display a diverse set of poetics that allows us to think about how the construction of images and artistic devices participates in the process of building a collective memory.

Certain circumstances constitute an event to the extent that causes a deviation in the course of our everyday experience. Natural or social tectonic movements displace the foundations on which we build us. The unpredictable breaks, hits, and then opens, letting us see what was below that which has been moved. The flood brought our attention to what we usually don´t look, putting our fragility in public, and revealing that the way we live, build and socially act modifies the territory we inhabit. The artworks in this exhibition do not try to “represent” what happened. The artists conceive the practice of memory from the field of poetry, creating works and devices that function as meeting spaces that enables dialogues unknown a priori. As blocks of sensations or resonance boxes, the artworks create meeting infrastructures and invite to build from its empty spaces. If the disruptive experience operates as a large gap in our symbolic order, the poetic has the ability to register, give presence, or make visible that which escapes in our attempt to narrate what happened.

Graciela Olio builds small houses with porcelain planes, which cuts and splices together. The house, symbol of the cosmos, is the materialization of our attempt to protect ourselves. But her houses are precarious, sometimes without ceiling or a wall, shelters that rather than creating an interior space, makes themselves visibles. The house crossed by the river has to be one of the most terrifying images. Then comes the adjusting, things acquire a new order, some get lost, others deteriorate. How to move on? The question translates into an impulse to work with what we have, what is left, the remains.

Worlds are constructed from pre-existing worlds, and in that way to make is to remake says Nelson Goodman. Olio takes some pieces of his series Home and Mil Ladrillos that in After the Storm, are crossed by a transformation processes. She intervenes in her ceramic pieces, testing operations that multiply the work of the unpredictable in its forms. Her works become a testing ground, where she experiments encounters with the possible. Putting back in the process something that was finished entails working with error, with failures. Putting back in the kiln some ceramic pieces, reinforced the deconstructive the process of the forms, to the point where some could no longer stay up. Olio built for them small platforms, supports that served as bases, and became palafittes, structures that rise the houses above the water level in coastal areas or rivers. The support structure becomes a metaphor for the idea of care, of guard of the other. What political infrastructure of affection, encounter and care must we build to create strategies that allow us to survive in this complex and unpredictable territory? How to rethink lifestyles, work, organization and collaboration to create sustainable ways of life? How to coordinate actions of citizen participation in the management of the common, the territory?

Paula Massarutti delves into the testing of social bonds that implied the emergence of collective strategies to respond the abandonment during the flood. The forms of solidarity and energetic presence of the other, in rescue, shelter and hospitality actions. Starting from a dialogue with the neighbors that live in the adjoining blocks to her house, she creates a fictional space that asks: What are we willing to compromise with the other? Her project imagines the possibility of elaborating an act of agreement or contract between neighbors, which materializes the commitment to mutual aid in case a new catastrophe occurs. Tensioning the boundaries between fiction and the real, the project transits the space between the spontaneous and anonymous solidarity and the will to build a sustained commitment.

Mariela Cantú overlaps images of the day after the flood, with fragments of a poetic discourse that relates the steps to oblivion after a breakup and audios of old argentine news that talk about the floods in the territory of the province of Buenos Aires. History repeats itself? Cantú intersects the plans for the personal and intimate memory, with those of the great social tragedies. Is it just a matter of scale? Intimate garbage, exiled objects, piles of stuff that become portraits of an unknown other. What images are built in the disordered accumulation of belongings from a certain person when they are devoid of any value? Cantú explores the process that involves any kind of mourning, wondering about intricate work of memory construction, with a critical eye towards the dimension of oblivion.

Gabriel Fino creates images of the storm, of the chaos-seed, of a transformed landscape in which the structures and boundaries dissolve. His work proceeds by accumulation of layers, and densities of meaning. Produced with infinite patience, it requires from the viewer a similar attitude, an attentive gaze, looking below, in the detail, in the fragment, into the interstices, beyond the delicate gesture that gives strength to the whole. Watching between the lines, and get a glimpse what is born of that mix of the whole, of the beautiful and the ugly, of darkness and light; the life emerges in the mixture of the dirt, the rotten and the forgotten. Allow the water to stagnate, to see the birth of the water lily. To see what germinates from chaos.

The installation Mirá cuántos barcos aún navegan! (Look how many ships still sail!) by Marcela Cabutti configures a territory that puts our attention in the moment after. An instant that seems to be frozen but which we perceive as vibrant. The work in its apparent stillness does not cease to deploy images. There is something treasured in the traces of its constructive, manual and methodical process. If art preserves, according to Deleuze, a bloc of sensations, in front of this piece we can´t but shudder at the way in which a work may operate as a memory machine. What connections and memories activates, that make us stand before the constructed landscape? Accidentally we assume the attitude of the character, and we find ourselves contemplating as well. Along the way, we become landscape, we become animal, we become others and suddenly we find ourselves playing. The memory that is activated is one certain way of being in the world, one that resonates in the strings that connect us with the looks of childhood, surprise and wonder at the beauty of the world.
—Lucía Savloff

CONTACT
Tel. 0221.4271843
prensa@macla.com.ar

MACLA (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Latinoamericano)
MACLA (Latin American Contemporary Art Museum)
Casco Urbano, La Plata (1900)
Buenos Aires Province
Argentina
www.macla.com.ar

Above: Graciela Olio, From the series “After the Storm”, Ceramic assemblage, Keraflex porcelain, stoneware and terracotta, enamel black metal, porcelain laser printed decals, 30 x 35 x 50 cm.

More exhibitions / View the list of ceramic art exhibitions worldwide

Seth Czaplewski: Onsite Sculpture, 2013-2014

While researching North St. Louis I have uncovered a history of production and self-sufficiency pushed to the periphery, which today is so prevalent in American society that we barely notice. In the early 1800’s the area just North of downtown St. Louis was a communal farmland for residents. There was also a 15-acre plot along the Mississippi river open to residents to use as they wanted.  Both ideas were very progressive for their time and still are, although neither is still in place today. European immigrants once flocked to this area due to failed farming in their homeland. In the case of Henry Overstolz, originally from Germany, once in America his fortune changed when he opened grocery stores. Since then the rapid development of infrastructure has led to a society of convenience. And once again, like in Overstolz’ time of the mid 1800’s, people have fled, as the site cannot meet the needs of the people. My works are inspired by and situated on sites like these.

With the agricultural and technological revolutions of the mid-twentieth century, skills were traded for convenience in the United States with the implementation of the assembly line, mechanization, and mass production. Skilled craftspeople traded their skills in to work in a factory. The factory did provide some benefits, but within a generation, previous skills were lost. As a result, people no longer know how to construct goods, arrange living space, or grow food needed to sustain life. In my work, I attempt to understand and teach myself all three skills on a small scale in relation to the sites former production. The chain of passed-down knowledge has been broken and a relearning of these skills is essential to understand where we stand today.

How people live in relation to agriculture throughout recent history is influential to my work. As society is becoming increasingly disconnected from food production we are losing the most basic and necessary skills. These works re-incorporate food production in direct proximity to dwelling, as it is a necessary step backwards to move forwards. Today the average distance it takes food to get to our homes in the U.S. is 1500 to 2500 miles. Although convenient, “progress  is sometimes deceiving and makes us more vulnerable than we once were.  Likewise my structures are precarious, permanently placed outdoors, and vulnerable to the whim of the passerby.

I rapidly construct these minature dwellings in relation to food production on a scale reminiscent of the anthropological diorama. They are made out of necessity and use past fragments of mass production related to site as material in creating non-linear historically based sculptural markers. I draw upon past people, industry, patterns, and site uses in the creation of new fragments that anticipate, dedicate, and monumentalize the site. Once constructed, the physical objects are situated outdoors entering the strata. They are then documented digitally as the primary ‘art object’.

Infrastructural changes since the electrification and gassing up of the United States have been influential to my work. In the making of industry, we often lose culture and community, and there has been a considerable amount of unmaking. This unmaking is not isolated to North St. Louis where I currently work. As my needs change and I move to new locations, my work will respond to local histories.