Welcome to NewsFile, your weekly resource for all things ceramic, including newsy tidbits and happenings from the worlds of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics. This week we jump in with Takashi Murakami’s personal art collection on display at Towada Art Center.
Personal Collection on Exhibition: Takashi Murakami
Renowned artist, curator and gallerist Takashi Murakami has given the public a sneak peek into his creative mind by exposing the world to his personal collection through his exhibition Superflat Consideration on Contemporary Ceramics at the Towada Art Center (March 11 – May 28, 2017).
From DesignBoom:
Superflat Consideration on Contemporary Ceramics’ hosts more than 1800 pieces by 28 different artists, putting the spotlight on traditional and modern handicraft as an important example of art.
Included in the collection of over 300 artworks from 28 artists are works from ceramic artists such as Ryo Aoki, Masanobu Ando, Shin Murata, and Aso Kojima as well as ceramic works by contemporary artists like Yoshitomo Nara, Naoki Koide, Chiho Aoshima, Otani Workshop, Gabriel Orozco, Rosemarie Trockel, and Klara Kristalova, among others.
The exhibition at the Towada Art Center marks Murakami’s first time curating a ceramics exhibition at an art museum, and is intended as a reconsideration of the ceramic context.
3D-Printed Conch Shell Technology
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a 3-D printing technique that can build composite materials with incredible toughness, The American Ceramic Society writes. Their inspiration: conch shells.
Conch shells are tough—10 times tougher than go-to-tough-biomaterial nacre (a.k.a. mother-of-pearl, and the subject of the oyster story linked above)—because they have a three-tiered architecture that contains layers of materials with opposing grain directions.
The team replicated the conch shell’s structure using a criss-cross formation of 3D-printed polymer, thus preventing cracks from happening because there is nowhere for them to go.
The 3-D printing technique deposits layers of polymer materials with opposing geometries—akin to the shell’s structure—to create a composite with layered organization.
Cool right? You can watch a short video of the process here:
Dirty Job: Ceramic Pipes to Clean up Wastewater
Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems (IKTS) in Hermsdorf, Germany have developed a way to clean-up wastewater through the employment of nano-filter membrane technology. It can even clean industrial sewage water. Check it out.
From The American Ceramic Society:
Fashioned into long white tubes that resemble fluorescent lightbulbs, the ceramic filters contain such tiny pores that pumping liquid through the tubes under pressure only allows water molecules to pass through the filter’s membrane, separating water from most all other dissolved molecules and contaminants. Completely clean water emerges on the outside of the tube.
Learn even more by watching a video of the ceramic tubes in action.
In other news, have you checked out our once-in-a-lifetime Global Ceramics Auction. All proceeds benefit Cfile.org. Up for bid are works by Bouke de Vries, Akio Takamori and many more!
Also, be sure to check back next week for updates to this NewsFile, we’ve made changes here at Cfile.org, but we’ll keep delivering the best from the worlds of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics. We got your back.
Do you love or loathe these newsy tidbits from the worlds of contemporary ceramics and contemporary ceramic art? Let us know in the comments.
I found ceramic items that look just like these tubes on a beach in Denmark, back in 2009. Are these tube filters already in use?