|
|
Subscribe to Ceramic Arts Daily and we'll give you
Emerging Ceramic Artists to Watch: New Pottery and Ceramic Sculpture FREE! |
|
|
|
 Enter your email address to get a Free Charter Subscription to Ceramic Arts Daily, an email newsletter for people who are passionate about clay. | |
|
|
[Content
Body]
| by Matthew Kangas
It's rare that a graduate student has a solo gallery debut while still in school, but, then, ceramics graduate students are older these days. At 28, Japanese-born Kensuke Yamada is finishing up his first year under Beth Lo at University of Montana. After a group show at Catherine Person Gallery (www.catherinepersongallery.com) in Seattle, Washington, he was invited for a single-artist survey of figurative work he began last year. The results are promising, if strongly derivative of another artist, Akio Takamori. Yamada has met the University of Washington professor and visited his studio. Yamada took Takamori's village-people idea, set them in groupings on raised platforms (like Takamori's), gave them more individual facial features than Takamori's, and lent them colors, patterns and clothing of his own palette. It is important to remember that classical Asian art has never been about originality or individuality; copying the masters has always mattered and taken precedence.
That said, given Yamada's lifting so much from Master Takamori, the eighteen sculptures were surprising and pleasingly different. Less stark than Takamori, they convey hopeful exuberance and facial expressions that border on the sad or sentimental. In a way Takamori never approaches, Yamada's figures, because of their smaller scale, are almost cute.
As such, they point up a dangerous dividing line between figurative ceramic sculpture and diminutive knick-knacks. When Patti Warashina reduced the scale of her whiteware figures in the early to mid-1980s, she undercut any cuteness with her violent, scary subject matter. Even Yamada's animal figures, like "Red Wild Cat," "Blue Rabbit," and "Wild Dog" have human faces, stretching toward the province of cute even more. Yamada mentioned in an interview the influence of the Cartoon Network, available on television in Japan when he was a child.
To be fair, many of Yamada's figures are not standing. Some are seated. Others, like "Super Hero No. 2" are reclining, like the giant Buddha statues in India and Japan. "Zoo Rider" is seated atop a blue elephant. "Boy on the Ground No. 2" has his hands on his knees in a praying or supplication pose. By developing positioning of the figures, he can distinguish himself from Takamori even further.
The clothing on the standing figures builds on Takamori's allusions to Japanese textiles by playing up colorfully patterned peasant clothing much more. Lots of horizontal stripes ("Boy: Hello, Miss Sunshine;" "Girl No. 1") mix with dots and dashes. Others sport polka dots and diagonal stripes. These are not anthropologically correct outfits; they are part of the artist's fertile
imagination and memory.
"Boy Crossing Arms" has a poignant, defensive pose, as does "Boy on the Ground No. 1," with his arms crossed over his knees. His eyes are closed in a sad reverie. "Girl No. 2" stoops forward, laughing. In "Heroes," a child is carried on the figure's back. That's more compelling than the figures with animal attachments, like "Girl: Chicken for Tonight" and "Everyday Thing." Can a ceramic knick-knack be three feet high?
The promise and danger of the knick-knack summons up the fate of another Montana artist, Ben Sams. The only ex-student Rudy Autio was reluctant to acknowledge in lectures, Sams headed for a long spate of critters and kooky, cutesy figures in the 1970s. Garishly colored, they built on Autio's worst faults and avoided the teacher's strengths. Although Yamada has never studied with Takamori, the vulgarizing potential is there. Perhaps he would do better to emulate Professor Lo's poetic treatment of her family heritage.
Meanwhile, if Yamada can balance his flair for muted yet colorful surfaces with his gift for the figures' expressive hand gesture and facial expressions, he may avoid Sams' fate. Graduate school is one time, of course, when it's okay to copy anybody. The marvel and miracle is that Yamada began by emulating Takamori and is now struggling for his own fully, individual artistic vision. With the mixed blessing of a sell-out show, Yamada is not home yet. However, he is launched on what could become a successful career. Move beyond the doll or potential knick-knack scale. Play down the cute, deepen the emotions, and all will be well.
the author Matthew Kangas is a Seattle-based independent art critic who has written extensively about ceramics.
|
| Recollection: An Obsession with Collecting and Craftsmanship |
|
| by Scott Meyer
Great conversations between individuals owe their quality to several key attributes. Of primary importance is the shared supposition that a truth can be reached between participants, insight not accessible to the solitary individual. For over a year, ceramics artist Richard Hirsch and glass artist Michael Rogers have been involved in an extraordinary exchange, a Gestalt almost completely impossible to imagine when considering each artist's personal path.
On the surface, enough common ground for useful exchange between these two sensibilities might not have been anticipated. Fortunately, for both artists, surface is not skin-deep. What lies beneath, each object's specific history, is evidenced in its rich and rustic shell. For both, the wear of time makes significance possible. The Japanese word wabi (a Zen Bhuddist philosophy reflecting a simple, somber, solitary beauty) is most applicable, providing for the artists a shared language. At the heart of their exchange is their obsession with collecting things. While the character of their treasures differs, once sought and salvaged, they are positioned carefully, loved, lived and savored again. These are the icons of other cultures, bygone utility and natural formation. From countless riches they are encouraged to speak, suggest, question and to mingle histories that were once separate.
It is of no small importance that the artists share a "craft medium" heritage. Both clay and glass have their roots in utility and place a high value on process and careful manipulation. Though the interface between their contributions appears as a spontaneous jam session, the time for play, speculation and "productive dissonance" is post-ceded by compromise, strategy and painstaking execution. It bears saying that the cornerstones of this music are trust, maturity and gentle humor.
If these artifacts are musical notes, Rogers and Hirsch have taken the stage together for the purpose of making jazz. They speak about their process like musicians. At the apex of full, rich careers, each is in thorough command of his instrument, secure within and therefore able to delight in the other's assertions. The text of their interaction is a rhythmic question and answer, the substance and meaning of each piece is as much about the journey as it is about reaching accord. In fact, viewed in this first major exhibition of their collaboration, each piece feels like the consummation of one phrase, a momentary resting place that is stirred to further action by the next.
Recollection: An Obsession with Collecting and Craftsmanship, the first major collaborative mixed-media exhibition by Michael Rogers and Richard Hirsch, will be on view through March 30 at the Pittsburgh Glass Center (www.pittsburghglasscenter.org) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
|
Exquisite Pots: Six Degrees of Collaboration
|
|
| "Exquisite Pots: Six Degrees of Collaboration" will be on display through April 28 at the Northern Clay Center (www.northernclaycenter.org) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The exhibition includes collaborative works by Margaret Bohls, Andy Brayman, Sam Chung and Deborah Schwartzkopf, as well as co-curators Maren Kloppmann and Andrew Martin.
"In the 1920's, the Surrealists invented a technique for adding to and completing compositions-in words, drawings and collages-in which each successive collaborator built on the preceding work without fully knowing what had come before," said Kloppmann. "The process, based on an old game, celebrated unpredictable, chancy and occasionally startling results. It expanded the idea of collaboration from its usual consciously cooperative mode to an unconscious, accidental level."
"For the past eight months, six artists who work in porcelain have been shipping bisque ware to one another, forms that are distinctive and representative of their individual work. Their collaborators have then glazed and fired the work in their particular glaze palettes. While the potters in this exhibition were able to see the forms they were finishing, the instruction to complete the pots in their own styles has resulted in a combination of forms and finishes that is occasionally as startling as a surrealist collage.
"The resulting pots prompt us to think more carefully about the relationship between form and finish, and about the idea of collaboration-and finally about the aesthetic 'ownership' of a piece: Is it a Sam Chung teapot because of its distinctive form or has it become an Andrew Martin teapot because of the equally distinctive glazing?"
|
Watershed Winter Residents: 2007-2008
|
|
| "Watershed Winter Residents 2007-2008," an annual exhibition featuring new works by recent resident artists at Watershed Center for Ceramic Art (www.watershedceramics.org) in Newcastle, Maine, will be on view March 1-22 at the Clay Art Center (www.clayartcenter.org) in Port Chester, New York. The artists will be exhibiting new work made during their residencies at Watershed.
"Each year the Clay Art Center takes the opportunity to showcase the emerging talents coming out of the Watershed Winter Residency program," said Clay Art Center program director Leigh Taylor Mickelson. "This year's exhibition will feature Misty Gamble, Monica Leap, Krisaya Luenganantakul, Elisavet Papatheodorou, Daniel Ricardo Teran and Adero Willard. Watershed is a residency/retreat that provides artists with time and space to create in clay. They serve artists from across the country and abroad. Watershed's unique niche grows out of its small and intimate communal approach to a non-hierarchical, process-oriented environment for experimentation, exploration, collaboration and growth.
"Watershed's approach to freedom in art-making is evident in this year's artists chosen for winter residency. The exhibition will feature everything from abstract wall works and installations, to compelling figurative sculpture, to provocative vessels and functional pottery. Every year this exhibition offers a wide array of visual and mental stimulation, and every year we look forward to what might arrive."
|
| "From Dust to Decadence," an invitational exhibition curated by Sasha K. Reibstein, will be on view through March 4 at Palomar College's Boehm Gallery (www.palomar.edu/art/boehmgallery.html) in San Marcos, California.
"Ceramics is one of humankind's most basic materials, allowing man the power not only to create but to record," said Reibstein. "We have used clay as one of the primary means to unearth information about how primitive societies lived through the vessels they used or sculptures they left behind. What will future generations be able to deduce about our lifestyles from the ceramic objects we are now creating? In selecting artists for this exhibition, I wanted to reflect on the answer to that question.
"Exhibiting artists' works explore objects and their perception, relationships, identity, intimacy, humor, environmental hierarchy, politics and our strained relationship with nature and ourselves. Artists Peter Pincus, Rain Harris and Charlie Cummings are working traditionally by creating vessels but giving their own unique perspective on the object, form and its function. Peter Pincus' pots address fashion and relationships, the pinstripe suit and polka dot skirt. Charlie Cumming's retro futuristic vessels reflect on modern proclivities with decaled garbage flies, enormous ants and candy-colored kiss mark icons covering their brightly glazed surfaces."
|
Sahdows of Collected Memories: Ilena Finocchi
|
|
| "Shadows of Collected Memories," a solo exhibition of new work by Ilena Finocchi, will be on view March 7-April 6 at the Olin Art Gallery at Washington and Jefferson College (www.washjeff.edu) in Washington, Pennsylvania.
"I will be creating an environment through the use of installation and ceramic sculpture," said Finocchi. "All the work blends as a cohesive body based upon the ideas of shadows. Half of the exhibition will feature installation of lighted porcelain bottles that reflect memories of my dad, who passed away in the summer of 2006.
"The other portion of the work will be utilizing monochromatic sculptural pieces. Meticulously carved bones, tools and other objects will cast shadows on multiple levels, carved surfaces, objects created out of multiples of other objects and the shadows they create in their environment."
|
| The Greatest Show on Earth |
|
| "The Greatest Show on Earth" will be on view March 17-22 at the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery (www.artsfestival.net) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Greatest Show on Earth is a themed exhibition about the circus and the carnival, celebrating the history of the outcast in society. The show will feature a wide range of functional, sculptural and installation ceramic works by emerging and nationally recognized artists. This show was organized by a small group of former residents of The Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana.
|
|
|
|
|
|