Welcome to NewsFile, a current events digest for contemporary ceramic art. We’re leading this week with news that Anders Ruhwald has left teaching to pursue a private studio practice full time. From Cranbrook Academy:
Cranbrook Academy of Art announced that Anders Ruhwald, Artist-in-Residence and Head of the Ceramics Department, will leave the Academy at the end of the 2016- 2017 academic year. Ruhwald notified the Academy of his decision earlier this week.
Ruhwald was appointed Artist-in-Residence and Head of the Ceramics Department in July of 2008. Born in Denmark, Ruhwald was educated at the Glass and Ceramics School in Bornholm, Denmark and at the Royal College of Art in London. Previously, Ruhwald was an Associate Professor of Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has held teaching positions at University of Colorado at Boulder and Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Canada.
Anders Ruhwald is recognized as one of the foremost ceramic artists working in the world today. Noted for large-scale installations that explore ceramic as both idea and material, he brushes aside the distinction between “art” and “craft,” emphasizing instead the disruptive and transformative capacity of objects in space. As the former Director of New York’s Museum of Arts and Design Glenn Adamson has said, “For all their compressed particularity, [his] sculptures are also enlivened by inexhaustible nuance. Ruhwald takes seriously the idea that surface is where form interfaces with spatial context, so his surfaces have an intensity in all registers.”
According to Ruhwald, “These last eight years have been exciting and wonderfully challenging. I am grateful for the time spent here, the talented students I had the opportunity to mentor and the wonderful community at Cranbrook and in Detroit that have supported me and become my friends. It is with mixed emotions that I have decided to leave. I will miss this place, but am excited for all of the opportunities that lie ahead.”
Allan Stone Collection at Cowan’s Auction Oct. 28, 2016
Cowan’s Auction is selling works collected by the late Allan Stone. From the auction house:
Click to see a larger image.
In it’s fifth year, Cowan’s in partnership with Mark Del Vecchio and Garth Clark, is proud to feature a fantastic selection of 60s and 70s ceramic work from the father of the ceramic Funk Art movement, Robert Arneson. Often focusing on humorous male profanity, Arneson’s work used blatant sexual references to remind the viewer they should not take themselves, or fine art for that matter, too seriously. This collection comes from the well-known and esteemed collector, Allan Stone, New York. An eclectic collector, Allan Stone (1932-2006) was a visionary, connoisseur and dealer. Stone promoted and collected work of young artists of the mid 20th century, including Robert Arneson, David Gilhooly. His collecting passions included tribal and folk art, Americana and industrial design.
Click to see a larger image.
Robert Arneson, Golden Rod, 1969, stoneware, 7.75 x 8 x 11.5 inches. Click to see a larger image.
The Modern Ceramics auction will also feature the work of the most highly sought after and collected ceramic artists; including Lucie Rie, Betty Woodman, Anne Kraus, Peter Voulkos and Michele Oka Doner.
Bee Breeders Announce Winners for Ugandan Asylum for LGBT Youth
The first prize winner for the refuge. Photograph courtesy of Bee Breeders.
Hong Kong architecture competition organizers Bee Breeders, recently announced winners of a concept project. The prompt: create a refuge for LGBT youth in Uganda. From ArchDaily:
Inspired by recent activism in Uganda, Bee Breeders sought the design of a community center to welcome those in the LGBT community who have been ostracized from their home environments. The judges said that they were looking for designs that focused on social integration, not isolation, celebrating those who created “a community center, not a prison.”
Within their brief, Bee Breeders acknowledged the hostility of the Ugandan social environment and the resultant need for a place of calm, refuge, and empowerment. The building needed to facilitate interaction between inhabitants so that those who have experienced adversity or aggression could meet like-minded individuals. The judges remarked that the chosen projects showed great foresight of a near future with improved social conditions for all.
The inspiration for the competition originally stemmed from the work of Kamoga Hassan and other Ugandan LGBT activists; the sole voices against a harsh, anti-homosexual regime. These individuals face persecution for their activism, yet continue to do so in a bold effort to promote equality. Hassan’s new documentary “Where is Home” follows the stories of Ugandan LGBT asylum seekers, and can be viewed here.
First prize winner. Click to see a larger image.
First prize winner.
Design for the second place winner. Click to see a larger image.
Second prize. Click to see a larger image.
The first, second and third prize winners were Enrico Chinellato and Jacop Donato of Italy; Marcelo Venzon, Julia Park, Guilherme Pardini and João Paulo Carrascoza of Brazil and Tatiana Ionnidou and Chariton Lazarides of Cyprus respectively. Some of the designs are featured here for lovers of contemporary brick architecture. We especially like Chinellato and Donato’s spiraling design in the top spot of this list. We have not heard any word about when, or if the asylum will be built.
Design for the second prize winner. Click to see a larger image.
Rare Hans Coper Bowl Purchased by V&A
Hans Coper, Bowl, 1955. Photograph courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Art Newspaper reported today that the Victoria and Albert Museum in London purchased a rare Hans Coper bowl with a bird design that was in danger of leaving the country.
The news is the latest in a series of events in which the government and art institutions are trying to keep rare artworks within the UK. There was a temporary export ban on the 1955 bowl as buyers scrambled to meet the former owner’s asking price of £92,291 ($120,385). More than £60,000 was raised by the Annabel Freyberg Memorial Fund, comprised of friends and colleagues of the late Freyberg, the arts editor of the Evening Standard newspaper from 1999 to 2002. Freyberg died of cancer in 2013 at the age of 52. From The Art Newspaper:
Alun Graves, the senior curator of ceramics at the V&A, says in a statement: “The bowl is a rare example that captures through its bold figurative design a lesser-known aspect of Coper’s practice.”
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