Jason Jacques Gallery is holding its second exhibition with contemporary ceramic master Michael Geertsen: Still Life, Still Lives (New York, May 21 – Jun 21, 2014). This follows a ceramic installation at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and a show at Puls Ceramics in Brussels.
I have followed his career closely (and showed his work during my gallery days) and this is his finest show to date. All the elements that have made up the last decade of his career have coalesced into a convincing whole. His alien-insect forms peaked a year or two ago and began to become a touch feral and too random.
A degree of order has turreted within the new works and that comes from their capricious play with the Greek form. Geertsen is always at his best when he is playful and his dialog with ancient pottery is remarkably fresh, delightful and Puckish. I do think that he should consider groupings for his next show without the possibility of acquiring the work individually. A grey group and white group are a comic symposium on classical form and pouting sexual interventions.
His whimsical and animated forms are hand made but executed with machine-like precision, thanks to his background in industrial ceramics. Geertsen claims American streamline design and Italian Futurism as his primary influences.
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’s use of gold and silver is a nod to Western decadence. He started using these elements in his work while exploring Soviet constructivism, adding a lustrous hedonism, excess and American kitsch.
The gold and silver is also a reaction against 1960’s naturalistic pottery, making the works cheeky and stylized. The artist and scholar Edmund de Waal 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.
Geertsen’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.
Jason Jacques published a catalog in conjunction with the exhibition that questions ceramics’ role in Geertsen’s sculptures and with a bravura we have come to expect from this gallery, boldly contextualizing it against the high fashion magazine culture, expressed through surreal acid photography. CFile will explore this with other new photography styles next week.
Garth Clark is the Chief Editor of CFile.
Above image: Michael Geertsen, Yellow Standing Object #4, 2011, earthenware, yellow glaze, gold, 10.5 x 15.75 inches. Photograph courtesy of the gallery.
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(Left) Michael Geertsen, Black Heat Standing Object #6, 2012, earthenware, black glaze, platin, 16.25 x 8 inches
(Right) Michael Geertsen, Black Standing Object #1, 2011, earthenware, black glaze, platin, 15.25 x 7.75 inches
(Left) Michael Geertsen, Red Standing Object with Platin and Gold, 2013, earthenware, red glaze, platin and gold glaze, 10.4 x 8 inches
(Right) Michael Geertsen, Red Standing Object with Platin and Gold, 2013, earthenware, red glaze, gold and platin, 7.5 x 6.5 x 6.5 inches
Michael Geertsen, Red Standing Object, 2013, earthenware, red glaze and gold, 6 x 9 x 5 inches
Michael Geertsen, White Crawling Object with Platin, 2013, earthenware, white glaze and platin, 8.75 x 15.38 x 6 inches
(Left) Michael Geertsen, White Sculptural Vase with Gold #4, 2014, earthenware, white glaze and gold, 14 x 11.3 x 7.5 inches
(Right) Michael Geertsen, Sculptural Vase with Gold and Platin #5, 2014, earthenware, white glaze, gold and platin, 16 x 12 x 10.8 inches
Michael Geertsen, Gray Sculptural Vase #4, 2014, earthenware and gray glaze, 9.3 x 10.3 x 10.4 inches
(Left) Michael Geertsen, Grey Standing Sculpture with Platin #6, 2014, earthenware, gray glaze and platin, 18.5 x 6 x 7 inches
(Right) Michael Geertsen, Grey Standing Sculpture #7, 2014, earthenware, gray glaze and platin, 19 x 10 x 5 inches
(Left) Michael Geertsen, Gray Sculptural Vase with Gold #2, 2014, earthenware, grey glaze and gold, 5.5 x 5 x 6 inches
(Right) Michael Geertsen, Gray Sculptural Vase with Gold #5, 2014, earthenware, black glaze and gold
Michael Geertsen, Grey Standing Object with Gold Lustre, 2013, earthenware, gray glaze and gold, 7.1 x 8 x 5 inches
Michael Geertsen, Monumental White Standing Object with Platin and Gold, 2012, earthenware, white glaze, red glaze and platin, 32 x 20 x 21 inches
Michael Geertsen, Monumental White Standing Object with Gold, 2013, earthenware, white glaze, red glaze and gold, 33 x 17 x 21 inches. Pictured with detail. Photographs of works courtesy of the gallery.
Michael Geertsen, Monumental White Standing Object with Gold, 2013, earthenware, white glaze, red glaze and gold, 33 x 17 x 21 inches. Pictured with detail. Photographs of works courtesy of the gallery.
Geertsen at work in the studio.
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