Welcome to NewsFile, your resource for top pots, news-y shards and current events from the world of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics. We launch our latest NewsFile edition with a Grant Gibson’s new podcast, Material Matters.
Podcast: Grant Gibson’s Material Matters
We‘re pleased British design writer and critic Grant Gibson joins us as a fellow podcaster, and we’re honored to periodically feature his podcast Material Matters.
In one of his latest episodes, he interviews New York-based author, historian, curator and critic Glenn Adamson.
Adamson talks about his latest book, Fewer, Better Things and discusses the importance of ‘material intelligence’ to a culture in thrall to all things digital. En route, he touches upon his family background, his love of the Irish pipes and the importance of museums.
Ceramic Bone Replacements
Ceramics can have so many uses from the obvious teapot, to the more technological space shuttle exterior, to now: ceramic bones.
As the American Ceramic Society reports a new study in regrowing bone with ceramics may replace the bone graft as a procedure for repairing damaged bones.
A team of researchers and surgeons from the New York University School of Medicine and NYU College of Dentistry demonstrated a new method of growing bone using 3-D printed ceramic scaffolds. When implanted, the scaffolds dissolve as new bone growth takes over.
>Learn more about this new medical technology.
An Argument for Provenance
We previously featured in an earlier edition of NewsFile that this terra-cotta sculpture The Virgin with the Laughing Child may very well be attributed to none other than Leonardo da Vinci––if true, that means it’s the artist’s only surviving sculpture.
Despite the art world’s skepticism, Jonathan Jones of The Guardian argues, the claim is much more believable because the work isn’t up for grabs.
No one is playing the market; it feels more like pure love by the experts who believe in it. And the fact is, it’s a much lovelier thing. The terracotta is well preserved – fired clay is tough stuff – and you can practically feel the artist’s fingers shaping it. It’s clearly influenced by Verocchio, the sweetly graceful artist of tender Madonnas and frolicking cupids. But at the same time, it has a wild touch that’s different from his. So what makes more sense than for it to be the work of a student of Verocchio’s – who also happened to be a genius? Leonardo is the obvious candidate.
American Art Pottery
The Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection of American art pottery, a recent gift to the Metropolitan Museum, is celebrated by a new book on the subject. Spanning the period from the 1870s to the 1950s, American Art Pottery chronicles the history of American art pottery through more than three hundred works in the outstanding collection of Robert A. Ellison Jr.
In a series of fascinating chapters, the authors place these works in the context of turn-of-the-century commerce, design, and social history. Driven to innovate and at times fiercely competitive, some ceramists strove to discover and patent new styles and aesthetics, while others pursued more utopian aims, establishing artist communities that promoted education and handwork as therapy. Written by a team of esteemed scholars and copiously illustrated with sumptuous images, this book imparts a full understanding of American art pottery while celebrating the legacy of a visionary collector.
Grayson Perry’s Brexit Vases Acquired by V & A
Contemporary British artist Grayson Perry‘s ceramic crowdsourcing experiment Matching Pair (2017) Brexit vases have been acquired by The Victoria & Albert Museum in London, The Guardian reports.
They have been acquired for the permanent collection and go on display in the museum’s ceramics galleries on Friday. “They are amazing pots which we just felt were too important not to bring into the collection,” said Alun Graves, the V&A’s senior curator of ceramics.
Their making and the issues they address were explored in Channel 4’s 2017 documentary Grayson Perry: Divided Britain.
Northernness: Johan Tahon Ceramics
Designed by Cedric Verhelst, Northernness accompanies the MONK exhibition of the Belgian artist Johan Tahon, at the National Museum of Ceramics in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
>Explore more of Tahon’s work.
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