| From the Pages of Ceramics Monthly
Review: Remembering Beauty:
The Ceramic Work of Victor Babu
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Canister with Lizard Handles.
Covered casserole.
Charger.
Charger.
Charger.
Installation view of gallery.
Ewer.
| by Elisabeth Kirsch
More than 50 porcelain chargers, ewers, covered canisters and tureens by Victor Babu were the subject of a long-overdue retrospective of the artist’s work at the Kansas City Jewish Museum Foundation’s Epsten Gallery (www.epstengallery.org) this winter. Pieces in the show dated from 1958 to 2007, and were drawn from 29 public and private collections. The exhibition was curated by Sherry Cromwell-Lacy, a former colleague of Babu’s from the Kansas City Art Institute. (Babu was a Professor of Ceramics at KCAI from 1968–2001). Cromwell-Lacy also wrote the exhibition catalog, with sixteen illustrations of the artist’s work.
The Epsten Gallery is only one room, and the exhibition was crowded. But no piece seemed superfluous. The proximity of the works to one another allowed one to trace the development of Babu’s art over the decades, to note how the scale and volume of the works have grown, and how increasingly ambitious and gloriously idiosyncratic his designs of animals and nature have become. Every work in the exhibition was an exercise in perfection, beginning with a small brown ewer made while Babu was a student at Alfred University, to a 26-inch diameter multicolored charger covered with baroque designs of extraordinary complexity, completed last year.
Babu, who works with ultra-refined porcelain, has always been known for his precise and flawless style. In a recent analysis of Babu’s art, Catherine Futter, the Helen Jane and R. Hugh “Pat” Uhlmann Curator of Decorative Arts at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, wrote that “[Babu’s] detailed studies of nature, his meticulous choice and application of brilliant colors combined with the clearly defined lines of his forms make for works that are both vibrant and yet calm.” Part of what makes Babu’s work so unique, Futter notes, is his ability to make functional pieces extremely decorative and decorative works useful, which this show highlighted.
Born in the Bronx in 1936, Babu’s aesthetic sensibilities were honed early on. As a child he remembers studying the family’s Persian carpets, and many of his works reflect the rich maroons and verdigris he observed back then. He frequently traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where, he recounted recently, “This is very important: I looked at more paintings and sculptures than pots.” The arched line of his spouts, the swelling fullness of his canisters and ewers, along with the sheer volumetric scale of his work reflect Babu’s innate sense of historical, modern and contemporary sculpture.
A seminal moment for Babu, however, came over 30 years ago, when he was designing lamps. He went to the Toledo museum with a friend and discovered a centuries old Chinese bowl from the Tang Dynasty. The young Chinese curator of the exhibition explained to him that the calligraphy on the pot said: “I am a flower.” Babu remembers, “I was very moved. Someone spoke to me very clearly from 2000 years before.”
The recent exhibition makes clear that from the beginning, Babu had the ability to perfectly emulate, as well as riff on, the forms of classical Asian porcelain ceramics. His casseroles, tureens and ewers from the ’60s and ’70s are exquisite enough to be at home in a 16th century Ming Dynasty palace. His single color pots and platters from this time period, whether in gun metal black or celadon green, are transcendental. His design work, if present, is delicate as a whisper. But works from this period are polite statements compared to what he started creating in the ’80s.
In 1982 Babu began to unleash a torrent of figurative imagery—lizards, butterflies, frogs, rattlesnakes, exotic flora—on forms that began to escalate in scale and volume. His platters now demanded more than 70 pounds of clay, while the massive lids to his canisters required endless fittings. He started using his entire body to push and shape the mass for each form. His artworks were still ultra-refined, but with their sensuous curves and extenuated shapes they became metaphors for the human body. His work gave the impression of being porous and alive, to seem like it literally breathed.
While Babu’s ability to create form and volume was admired by his fellow ceramists, he was often criticized for his ornate, “decorative” designs. (Babu creates his own stencils for his designs, which he applies using multiple overlays and glazes.) His work was in direct opposition to the dominant aesthetics of the contemporary art world, with its emphasis on conceptualism and politicized artwork. The concept of beauty was mistrusted and even reviled at this time. Over twenty years ago, when he gave a talk at a ceramics convention in Texas, Babu remembers that someone came up to him and asked: “how dare you put butterflies and birds on a plate?”
Beauty in art was at its nadir then, but in reality Babu’s work was anticipating the beginnings of a new global aesthetic. His work was in line with painters such as Philip Taafe, whose flagrantly beautiful paintings embraced straight design elements frequently drawn from non-Western countries. A host of younger artists followed stead, influenced by art critics such as Dave Hickey, who blatantly challenged the art world’s dismissal of the beautiful. The art world has now swung back into a consciousness that embraces both beauty and design, and Babu’s retrospective shows us he was there first.
The most fascinating aspect of Babu’s art, however, may be the element of punctum experienced by the spectator upon encountering the heavily decorated later works. Roland Barthes described an aspect of punctum as “that accident which pricks, bruises me.” One of Babu’s signature motifs is his depiction of rattlesnakes, which he recreates in a deliberately life-like scale.
As a child, Babu loved the zoo. “The Bronx zoo was so wonderful,” he recalls. “The snakes were frightening and exquisite, but you knew they might still get you. The notion that things that are beautiful can kill you is an idea that has always intrigued me.” Babu’s ability to merge exquisite porcelain ware with designs that look equally comfortable in the trendiest of tattoo parlors or on the body of a Japanese Yakuza make for a startling visual encounter. It’s a bit like having dinner with Martha Stewart and a Hell’s Angel simultaneously; that’s one meal you’ll never forget.
the author Elisabeth Kirsch is senior contributing art critic for the Kansas City Star.
All works by Victor Babu. All images courtesy of E.G. Schempf.
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Review: Nobuhito Nishigawara: Cultural Identity
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Domestic.
Giddy-up.
Princess.
Itsuwari.
Star.
Waikiyoku.
| by Matthew Kangas
Born in Nagoya, Japan, sculptor Nobuhito Nishigawara is intensifying the complex dialog between American and Japanese pop culture and managing to make art historical allusions to the origins of Japanese figurative ceramics at the same time. After being forced to read the 34-year-old, Santa Ana, California, resident’s 2000-plus words of explanation imposed on the gallery walls throughout the exhibition, one would never guess at deeper, more interesting meanings, but they are there.
After emigrating to Canada in 1989 and studying with Sadashi Inuzuka at University College of Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Nishigawara went on to be educated at two of the last outposts of American figurative ceramics: Kansas City Art Institute and Arizona State University. He is following in the footsteps of Akio Takamori at KCAI, but pushing his own figures into a realm far more mythic and subjective than Takamori’s docile village people.
Warmly reviewed in the New York Times in 2003, Nishigawara is attaining a more somber monumentality of form than Takamori, while giving up the narrative potential of color from which Takamori benefits. But then, polychrome sculpture has long been suspect in contemporary art despite the achievements of Viola Frey, Michael Lucero and others.
Many of the works consist of two parts. Dual identities? Split personalities? Gender conflicts? These and other possible interpretations emerge above and beyond the artist’s belabored, overly explicit explanations. Like much West Coast art, autobiography is assumed to be the key to intentions and the be-all, end-all criterion of content (see Robert Arneson, William T. Wiley, Howard Kottler, et al.); as if an artist’s life were the only level of meaning.
Domestic pits a half-torso Haniwa warrior figure complete with helmet against a bowing, debased female figure without arms or legs. In Itsuwari (Japanese for “disguise”), two animals without legs interlock tongues. Nishigawara calls them donkeys, but this is a stretch. Fantasy plush toys seem more likely possibilities, or eerie piggybanks. Yes, gold is often used as a sacralizing strategy, but it is difficult to see where its use leads here. Giddy-up extends the ancient Haniwa terra-cotta figure tradition even farther: horse and rider are stopped dead, black and inert, quite like funerary guardian figures. Princess is more tender. The somnolent seated figure beholds the cartoon-like animal. With such a restricted vocabulary of images, color and compositions, Nishigawara’s ideas eventually thin out.
Waikiyoku, which means “distortion,” and Star end the exhibition on a punchier note. In the former, the animal character is drenched in a mosaic of mirrors with silvered ears and eyes. Much closer to a devotional figure, Waikiyoku activates a pop-culture sensibility immediately, without the historical sobriety of the monochrome black-painted works.
Its companion is Star, a brilliant, if enigmatic, disquisition on the central core of popular culture, celebrityhood. A cartoon figure faces its own reflection in a huge black-and-white realistic oil painting on the wall that resembles a photograph or fan poster. The figure in the painting wears a Mike Tyson-like winner’s crown. Star aspires to fame yet seems mutely intimidated by it.
Truly dealing with cultural identity, but not those of Asian and American ethnic identities, Star crosses another cultural divide, that which goes from unknown nobody to instant famous person. One hopes Nishigawara will not face the inevitable result of instant fame, to become instantly forgotten.
“Cultural Identity” was recently on view at Winston Wächter Fine Art (www.winstonwachter.com) in Seattle, Washington.
the author Matthew Kangas, a frequent contributor to CM, also writes for Art in America, Art Ltd. and Sculpture among others.
All works by Nobuhito Nishigawara.
All images courtesy of Winston Wächter Fine Art.
Photos: Richard Nicol.
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The Fruits of Smoke.
| “The Fruits of Smoke,” a solo exhibition of work by Ángel Garraza, was on view recently at the Sala Luzán in Zaragoza, Spain.
“Time is precisely the fundamental key to the work of Ángel Garraza,” said Galder Reguera in the catalog essay “We Are What We Are.” “Time, yes, but in a personal code, that is, time incarnated in memory, in memories, in that which we call past and that is nothing other than what we really are, the road we have travelled to where we are now. The Fruits of Smoke, the piece that gives its name to the title of the exhibition, that we now focus on, represents the very same structure that reminds us of the brain, gradually submitted to a series of changes. It is, well, a metaphor of time, that is nothing if not change, in which the human—represented by the brain-like form of the pieces that make up the series, is subjected to a kind of natural time, passing through a series of evolutionary states that journey from the flowering of buds to the falling of leaves, the color changes they go through, that happen gradually in each piece. We see, therefore, that as in the medieval calendars that illustrate the porticos of churches, in this work time is represented through a natural image, of harvest time, of mother earth, of man-made time.”
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Amy Halko's Salt and
Pepper Shakers.
| “The Artful Tabletop,” an exhibition of contemporary tableware by over 100 potters from across the nation, will be on view from October 5–November 16 at Lyndhurst, A National Historic Trust (www.lyndhurst.org) in Tarrytown, New York.
The exhibition will be held in conjunction with Westchester Arts Council’s “All Fired Up!” programming. Julia Galloway, Department Chair of the School for American Crafts at the Rochester Institute of Technology, guest curated the exhibition. The potters she invited to participate work in a variety of different styles and represent a physical thesaurus of contemporary pottery today. All handmade, the unique pieces are both for service of food and decoration of the table.
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Intersections of Nature + Industry
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Mark Burleson’s Cache.
Timothy Van Beke's
Genetic Landscape.
| “Intersections of Nature + Industry,” curated by Merrie Wright, was on view recently at the Welch School Gallery at Georgia State University (www.gsu.edu/artgallery) in Atlanta, Georgia. The exhibition explored areas where nature and industry intersect and included works by A.J. Argentina, Mark Burleson, Timothy Van Beke and Wright.
“Burleson’s mixed media constructions capture a permanent record of his observations of contemporary culture,” said Wright. “His Sushiware Survivor Set is a ready made kit that includes traditional Japanese utilitarian wares along with survivor gear such as a pipe bomb and gas mask. Burleson’s reference to historic materials and processes alongside contemporary manufactured goods insidiously suggests how traditional customs and philosophies have changed over time.
“Van Beke’s mixed media wall panels are infused with color and imagery relating to chromosomes, molecular formulas and contemporary signage. Each panel exhibits an intimate ceramic sculpture that suggests, all at once, molecular models, sex toys and medical apparatus. While they reflect an impersonal, mass produced feel, they also suggest a seductive connection with the body, relating societies increasing desire to transform our bodies through a fusion of technology and physiology.
“While each artist brings a unique perspective to the theme of the exhibition, the use of clay and ceramic processes is inherent to each of their works. Each artist acknowledges the history of the material and processes, yet explores techniques and ideas unique to our time.”
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Wendy Walgate’s
Blue is Loyalty.
| “Handle With Care,” a group exhibition, will be on view through October 25 at the Pelham Art Center (www.pelhamartcenter.org) in Pelham, New York. The exhibition juxtaposes the work of ten ceramic artists with collectible figurines owned by people in the surrounding community.
“We are a community art center,” said Lisa Robb, Director of the Pelham Art Center. “The figurine is an art form that is in people’s lives, in their homes and is a wonderful bridge for people to get to the Art Center, a way for us to show some really outstanding contemporary work in an accessible way.
“If antique and high-end figurines are valued and reflect discerning taste on the part of the collector, and mass-or cheaply produced figurines are often dismissed as kitschy, sitting squarely at the center of this dialogue is the figurine-inspired work by the contemporary artists. ...Many of the artists [in the exhibition] play with the figurative in an expressionistic and grotesque style, working with color, texture and form to give pieces their character. The most recognizable qualities...are humor and subtle meanings that arrive in the form of political, religious or consumer-culture references.”
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Yuko Suzuki’s Pop.
| New work by Yuko Suzuki was on view recently at the ISE Cultural Foundation (www.iseny.org) in New York, New York.
“[My] ceramic artwork captures scenes of human relationships in daily life,” said Suzuki. “The playing field of each relationship, may it be in business, friendship or love, has certain rules and constrictions. Every day in life, people modify their behavior in order to be accepted by others, or to fit in. People often identify themselves with these altercations, which become part of their identity. [I] explore human relationships in various environments with humor and imagination, and create a story to project such familiar moments.
“The busts are molded from a pre-existing bust from which multiples are made. Before the replicas are dry, they are altered in shape to create a variety of gestures. The busts are then glazed and fitted with decals before the final firing.”
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| Six Ceramic Artists: Pioneers of the German Studio Craft Movement |
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Ursula Scheid’s
Conical Vessel.
| “Six Ceramic Artists: Pioneers of the German Studio Craft Movement,” a group exhibition featuring the work of Beate Kuhn, Gorge Hölt, Ursula and Karl Scheid and Gotling and Gerald Weigel, was on view recently at Pewabic Pottery (www.pewabic.com) in Detroit, Michigan.
Curated by Linda Ross, the exhibition included many works that were seen in the U.S. for the first time. “I am ecstatic at the opportunity to curate this show at Pewabic Pottery, a place that represents the birth of the studio craft movement in America,” said Ross. “This will certainly add a new and important dynamic to the history of those who pioneered the classical phase of modern ceramic art in Germany at the end of World War II.”
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Lynn Smiser Bower’s Compote.
| New work by Lynn Smiser Bowers was recently on view at Terra Incognito Gallery (www.terraincognitostudios.com) in Oak Park, Illinois.
“Inspiration for my surfaces is eclectic and varied,” said Bowers. “My recent work reflects influences from the textile world. African Asafo Flags, 18th century Japanese ikat kimonos and old pictorial Navajo weavings contain patterns and images that intrigue me. Since pottery is an ancient art form, I also look to the pots of yesterday for information. Lately, I’ve been studying the figurative scenes taken from daily life as depicted on early Greek vessels. They are compelling, for they give us snapshots and stories from a moment in time. These artistic footprints provide a path for me to follow, allowing past traditions to be carried forward, and new ideas are created from a mingling and blending of old expressions.
“As I reflect on my progression as an artist, I have consistently been motivated by experimentation, while always considering the functional aspect of my work important. I know many of my pieces will be used, so pitchers must pour well, teapots must lift with ease, cup handles must feel smooth and comfortable to the touch. I would describe myself as a functional potter who loves to embellish form and surface. I have discovered using repetition of the same form facilitates new ideas. You might compare it to an old Eastern view of life, as seen in Tai Chi (a repetition of sixty-four movements) that out of the repetition of the same form comes new form. The usefulness of my work is a touchstone from which new pots spring and which reinforces my belief that making pots is a great way to spend the day.”
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Installation views of
Molly Hatch’s
Salon Familiar.
| New work by Molly Hatch was recently on view at Vertigo Art Space (www.vertigoartspace.com) in Denver, Colorado.
“Hatch’s work has appropriated imagery from the French baroque rococo and European chinoiserie traditions,” said gallery director Kara Duncan. “ As a result of coming to ceramics via drawing and printmaking, Hatch engages representational drawing on the surfaces of the work. Hatch uses the traditional Japanese mishima slip inlay technique to create her detailed calligraphic line on the surface of the work. The use of the drawn line as an illusion or representation becomes instrumental in understanding the composition of the work as reference to a traditional salon. Her contemporary approach to historical form and pattern crops imagery and enlarges scale in pattern and form resulting in cups and plates that are contemporary counterparts to their historical precedents.”
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Ricky Maldonado's
Large Plate.
| “Glorious Glazes,” a group exhibition, will be on view through September 27 at Armstrong’s Gallery (www.armstronggallery.net) in Pomona, California. The exhibition features the work of Ricky Maldonado, Elaine Coleman, Tom Coleman, Emily Rossheim and Steven Hill.
Maldonado is known for his colorful, intricately decorated pottery. His pots are all hand coiled, slip decorated, burnished and then glazed with thousands of dots using a sable brush. “After building a piece, I will sand it smooth and then burnish it with my hands using the natural oils from my skin, then I polish it with soft plastic that I collect from the dry cleaners,” said Maldonado. “Only this plastic works in producing the soft luster that I look for. Not using rulers or templates, I work with a mirror in front of me so that I can get my shape and design as perfect as possible. After I’ve sanded and burnished the piece, I mark it using a soft pencil, and continue to mark as I rotate the piece in front of me. Then I draw from dot to dot until the design is finished. I apply black slip where I have drawn my design. Finally, I apply the glaze one dot at a time, using a small sable brush, and once fire the piece.”
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Hyun Kyung Yoon's
Cursive Line.
| Hyun Kyung Yoon recently exhibited new work at cross mackenzie ceramic arts (www.crossmackenzie.com) in Washington, D.C.
“My ceramic art works share a common interest in Far Eastern calligraphy, especially in the cursive style wherein kinetic tension of growth, as well as contrast between line and mass, elucidate the art of brush stroke,” said Yoon. “My interest in nature has helped me to discover a new way of seeing and a different approach to developing thematic issues for making of ceramics. ...The natural world is a constant source of wonder, inspiration and delight to me. I try to convey these feelings in my work.”
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Liz Lescault's Elegans.
| “Beauty and the Beast: Ceramic Vessels and Sculpture,” a solo exhibition of new work by Liz Lescault, was on view recently at Waverly Street Gallery (www.waverlystreetgallery.com) in Bethesda, Maryland.
In this exhibition, Lescault explores the two facets of the creative impulse that drives her work: the beauty and the beast. In one world, Lescault strives to capture beauty for beauty’s sake. In the other world, her work blatantly references organic entities, hybridizing animal, plant and the man-made, deliberately creating ambiguity. She crosses the line between beauty and ugliness, as the sculptures both invite and repulse.
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| Pamela and Vernon Owens: Potters of Jugtown |
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Pamela Owens'
Teapot.
Vernon Owens' Ovoid Vase with Shoulder Bosses.
| “Pamela and Vernon Owens: Potters of Jugtown,” an exhibition celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Owens’ ownership of the Jugtown Pottery, was on display recently at the Gregg Museum of Art and Design (http://gad.ncsu.edu) in Raleigh, North Carolina.
“The exhibition attempts to document today’s Jugtown, by highlighting both the utilitarian ware sought by consumers, and the startlingly original art pieces that Pam and Vernon also produce,” said Charlotte Vestal Brown, Director of the Gregg Museum. “Some of these utilitarian pieces may seem predictable—single-handled jugs, pitchers and bowls—but each is a paradigm of the form and each demonstrates how, within a single shape, minor variations differentiate good, better, best. ...Like many of their colleagues working today, the Owenses produce more work in a single year than most of us can imagine. What is truly important, however, is that the work is consistent—consistently well-made, well-designed and well-produced—qualities that attest to their skills and talents and are the reasons that their work continues to be sought.”
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