In space news: A colony of rock-camouflaged parasite aliens recently bombarded a planet of beefcakes. The rocks latched onto their faces, took over their brains, and they are now wandering the planet blindly, gently bumping into each other. Chaos.
Above Image: Andy Storchenegger, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015
Contemporary ceramic art is penetrating the world of dada fashion. Andy Storchenegger, one of this year’s graduates of HEAD Geneva, has created these euro-fashion head accessories as props for a series of portraits. The images feature clean, ripped men wearing the strange ceramic forms. The masks have little slits where one can see beady eyes peering out.
Andy Storchenegger, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015. Click to see a larger image.
The beautifully sculpted bodies are stripped of their humanness, replacing their faces with psychedelic space rocks. It is a comparison of objects where the bodies make the rocks more based in the real, a context they welcome as their ambiguous origins cause the viewer to search for their story. They are Nick Cave with a sexy Euro-pop twist.
This material and process ambiguity is one trait that connects the artists coming out of Geneva University of Art and Design’s (HEAD – Genève) ceramics and polymer program. The artists here are HEAD’s 2015 graduates. Kate Langrish-Smith questions material and physical laws in her sculptures and Laurin Schaub dips into the realm of absurdity. In one of her sculptures a clearly functional banana tries to communicate with a distressed apple, presumably on some risky moon-landing mission.
Laurin Schaub, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015
What’s striking about the work coming out of HEAD is how not-American it is. The work is better suited for the pop-surrealist Magazine Toilet Paper than an art gallery or stage performance. Where U.S. artists like to follow the “rules and format of art” these makers are irreverent and bold in their approach to creating. It is rock-and-roll spirited contemporary ceramic art ready to be shared both in galleries and on all the edgy, fringe Tumblr blogs.
Justin Crowe is a Writer and Director of Operations at CFile.
Any thoughts about the contemporary ceramic art coming out of HEAD? Tell us what you think in the comment box below!
Andy Storchenegger, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015.
Andy Storchenegger, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015
Andy Storchenegger, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015
Andy Storchenegger, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015. Click to see a larger image.
Danielle Camer, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015
Kate Langrish-Smith, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015
Kate Langrish-Smith, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015
Kate Langrish-Smith, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015. Click to see a larger image.
Laurin Schaub, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015
Laurin Schaub, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015
Laurin Schaub, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015
Thomas Bonny, HEAD’s Diplôme REAL 2015
Add your valued opinion to this post.