Welcome to NewsFile, your weekly round-up of news tidbits and happenings from across the worlds of contemporary art and contemporary ceramic art. Art fair season is underway and we have a lot to cover and share, so lets jump right in.
NCECA: 2017 Annual Exhibition – The Evocative Garden
Thousands of ceramists are pouring into Portland, Oregon this week for The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts‘ (NCECA) 2017 Annual Conference (March 22 – 25, 2017). The conference features an annual exhibition, The Evocative Garden, which is shown at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center (Portland, Oregon, March 8 – April 1, 2017). The exhibition is one of dozens that will be sited throughout the greater Portland area as part of the organization’s 51st annual gathering.
Jenni Ward, Hive Series Installation, 2015
Santa Fe, New Mexico’s Gail M. Brown curated the Garden, shaping the exhibition around the works of invited artists such as Megan Bogonovich, Jess Riva Cooper, Kim Dickey, Linda Sormin and Dirk Staschke. Brown then reviewed some 1,000 additional works to expand her vision:
“…a garden allusion, as subject, context or setting according to each personal narrative and individual ceramic vocabulary. I anticipated a breadth of implied and articulated dramas staged as personally de ned natural landscapes or more formal, cultivated gardens. From objects-as-metaphors with subtext, choreographed scenes with figuration or implicit figure/s in a verdant location, in vocabularies from nuanced realism to personal symbolism… Each having been made to explore and define, to introduce and suggest a scenario inviting the larger experience, to reference contrasting views of personally significant aspects and issues— nature’s fragility and/or seasonal sustainability, the wild and the tame, life’s sensual appetites and emotional dilemmas, the everlasting and the temporal—of the natural world and the all- too-heavy, ever encroaching human footprint…Artists remind us that nature and a chosen, articulated garden, as context, is a seductive, universal, ever present enticement, motivation and subject for interpretation.
Ceramist Jenni Ward’s hive installation was one of several works selected for the Garden.
I am so thrilled to be participating in the annual exhibit of the 2017 NCECA conference and I can’t wait to get up to Portland next week to see the exhibit in it’s entirety. The piece accepted for this show is my Hive Series Installation which is comprised of approximately 200 individual pieces that are nested together in a cluster to create a dynamic structure resembling an abstract hive.
This year’s conference will explore social, technical, pedagogical, aesthetic, historical and other aspects of clay work and its incumbent processes. In addition to The Evocative Garden, NCECA will situate nearly 90 exhibitions throughout the greater Portland, Oregon area.
Cfile has folks on the ground in Portland, so be sure to check out our conference reflections and musings throughout the week.
Text (edited) from NCECA
NCECA: Dining in Style – Unique Pairings
As our NCECA coverage continues, we’re getting a bit peckish! Thankfully MatchMaker Suppers is presenting a dinner March 21 with top Portland chefs Justin Woodward and Ryan Roadhouse featuring a 15-course tasting menu served on the utilitarian ceramics of Lilith Rockett, Lindsay Oesterritter and Careen Stoll created specifically for the conference.
We offer a carefully curated tasting menu of 15 courses, co-created by Chefs Woodward and Roadhouse that takes inspiration from the compositions of dishes created by the potters. Woodward was nominated for the James Beard Award of Best Chef of the NW in 2015 and 2016. Portland Monthly named Roadhouse’s restaurant Nodoguro 2015’s best restaurant. Both of them are excited to work with full-time studio potters Stoll, Rockett, and Oesterritter. Rockett in particular has focused on offering her luminous porcelain ware to fine dining establishments across the country. Stoll has been focused locally, providing dishes to Langbaan and Biwa and designing for production. Oesterritter recently left a professorship to return to her studio practice and woodfiring kiln.
Reserve tickets here. Bon appétit!
Around the Corner: Ceramic Art London
Sophie Southgate
Returning for its 13th year, the world’s leading ceramics art fair Ceramic Art London (CAL) begins next week (March 31 – April 2, 2017).
[The] always popular artist-led fair showcases the work of 90 makers in the light-filled atrium of Central Saint Martins. Truly international in scope – with exhibitors from the UK, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Denmark, South Korea and Japan – the fair sees the return of renowned makers such as Akiko Hirai, Sophie Cook and James Hake, as well as first-time exhibitors and rising stars including Ben Arnup, Rachel Wood, Silke Decker, Mathew Horne and Lauren Nauman.
Nichola Theakston
A key theme for this year’s gathering is the natural world full of creatures and curiosities, so be sure to check back next week for exciting CAL previews and coverage.
Crafting Resistance: Ceramists Help Raise Money for Immigrant Rights
Support the ACLU’s Immigrant’s Rights Project by participating in the one-day-only cash and carry Crafting Resistance fundraiser April 2, 2017. The philanthropic endeavor features hundreds of ceramic pieces (costing $100 or less) made onsite as well as works donated by regional artists.
Crafting Resistance is a community of artists and craftspeople supporting organizations that resist the erosion of freedoms granted by the U.S. Constitution. All proceeds of the fundraiser will benefit the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an organization that works to defend and preserve individual liberties guaranteed by the United States Constitution.
Learn more about the organization and available wares for the April 2 fundraiser.
Stolen Artifact Returned to Italy
The New York Times writes a stolen amphora featuring a nude satyr and draped youth has been returned to Italy. The vessel was recognized and spotted by a researcher specializing in looted artifacts.
[Christos] Tsirogiannis, of the Scottish Center for Crime and Justice Research in Glasgow, combed through an archive of 13,000 photos and documents seized in 2002 from an Italian antiquities dealer, Gianfranco Becchina, who was convicted in 2011 of trafficking in looted objects. He spotted several photos of the very same vase.
The vessel, which dates from 470 B.C. and is valued at $250,000, had been in the possession of the Manhattan district attorney’s office since it seizure from a New York gallery. The item was relinquished willingly to the New York-based Italian consulate, where it will be displayed until returned and housed permanently at the Polo Museale del Lazio in Italy, the Times writes.
“When looters overrun historic sites, mine sacred spaces for prized relics, and peddle stolen property for top dollar, they do so with the implicit endorsement of all those who knowingly trade in stolen antiquities.” – District Attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr.
3D Printed Ceramics Company
French 3D printing company 3DCeram has renewed its 7-year partnership with the Science of Ceramic Processes and Surface Treatments research unit for an additional three years, trade publication 3D Printing Industry writes.
3D printed ceramics have a multitude of applications due to their high heat resistance and significant strength. The material is used heavily in the dental and biomedical fields for various procedures.
3DCeram uses a laser stereolithography process to create their 3D printed ceramics. Once lifted from the resin, 3DCeram cure the objects with heat in order to produce a strong, dense part. This partnership extension will enable 3DCeram to advance their understanding of the material in order to develop the 3D printing application.
15 New Gallery Spaces to Open in Chelsea
Comprising of 15 new gallery spaces in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood at the base of late British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid’s residential building, the ‘High Line Nine’ project aims to shore up the area’s cultural character further enriching the gallery corridor to the Hudson Yards District, Designboom writes.
The new spaces will accommodate a range of domestic and international institutions. the Paul Kasmin Gallery…will anchor the collection with a 5,000 square foot gallery and an additional exhibition space in the ‘High Line Nine.’ Spaces in Zaha Hadid’s 520 West 28th will open in the Spring of 2017, while the adjacent stand-alone galleries and the ‘High Line Nine’ complex are scheduled to [be] complete later in the year.
ArchDaily writes, the galleria draws from the tradition of European gallery spaces, but takes the concept to a new level with the addition of onsite amenities including a centralized wine bar/cafe and catering kitchen, a concierge and event space, as well as cleaning and security services.
Opening: Tate St. Ives’ Ceramic History Exhibition
Jesse Wine, I think you ought to know, I’m going through a creative stage some people find easy to connect to, 2016
Tate St. Ives Gallery is opening its months-long exhibition That Continuous Thing: Artists and the Ceramics Studio, 1920 – Today (St Ives, England, March 31 – September 3, 2017). Attendees will be able to explore 100 years of ceramic art in the exhibition which looks at the rise and evolution of studio pottery in Europe, North America and Japan throughout the early 20th century to today.
Highlights include ceramics from studio potters Bernard Leachand Shoji Hamada, shining a spotlight on the relationship between Japan and the UK from the 1910s to 40s. Discover the Californian ‘clay revolution’ of the 1950s and 60s, showcasing sculptures from Peter Voulkos, Ken Price, Rudy Autio and Ron Nagle, alongside a new commission by contemporary British artist Jesse Wine.
Check out Cfile’s write-up of Jesse Wine’s collaborative exhibition with late artist Peter Voulkos’ work.
Aaron Angell, Flower, Bread Knife 2015, Photo courtesy: Andy Keate
Do you love or loathe these news tidbits from the worlds of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics? Let us know in the comments.
Thank you so much for including my work in your post on The Evocative Garden at NCECA!
I love the great variety of news items, always interesting things I don’t learn anywhere else! Keep it up!