NewsFile | New World Throwing Record, Donatello Sculpture?, 100 Art Power List, More!

Welcome to NewsFile, our weekly roundup of various goings-on in the world of contemporary ceramics and contemporary ceramic art. We’re starting off with a mea culpa for missing this the first time around, but it would be a bigger crime to miss it entirely: In March potter Joel Cherrico became a Guinness World Record holder for throwing the most pots in an hour.

The number to beat was 150, but Joel, armed with a kickwheel and some serious skill, did that number nine better. The following video was shot at his alma mater: St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. (An aside: Do we have any Johnny readers? Let us know in the comments.)

Possible Donatello and Verrocchio works in Terracotta

Scholars will soon be at war and oceans of ink will likely be spilled over this art bombshell that just dropped in Florence. According to the New York Times, two works in terracotta have surfaced and they could be linked to the great masters Donatello and Verrocchio. From the NYT:

The Museo dell’Opera del Duomo here presented two little-known 15th-century terra-cotta sculptures on Thursday as the possible work of Donatello and Verrocchio (with, perhaps, the help of Verrocchio’s erstwhile assistant Leonardo da Vinci), proposed attributions that are expected to stir debate in Renaissance art scholarship.

Both of the works — a terra-cotta bust of St. Lawrence and a terra-cotta relief of the beheading of St. John the Baptist — belong to the Paris-based art collectors Peter Silverman and Kathleen Onorato, who lent them to the museum to encourage the discussion over their pedigrees.

The sculptures are being shown with a question mark next to the attribution.

We’ll be noninterventionist until we know more, but if you’ve read the article please post here and let us know whose side you’re on.

ArtReview Gives Hans Ulrich Obrist Top Spot in “Power” List

Fortune magazine has it so easy with the 500 list. You can organize the whole thing by dollar amount. Big deal. Hats off, though, to ArtReview, which ventures into some foggy qualitative territory with their “Power 100” list. The list, according to the publication, “reflects the power of the transmission of ideas as well as objects.” Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist is currently leading the planet by these standards and he’s joined by luminaries such as Ai Weiwei. They state of Obrist, who apparently never sleeps:

Hans Ulrich Obrist is artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries in London but his official role tells you very little about what it is that this Swiss curator actually does. When Obrist last topped the Power 100, in 2009, ArtReview quoted the opening point of the curatorial statement from his Beijing Mini Marathon of ideas: ‘Don’t stop. We never stop.’ And Obrist singularly has not. The curator is famous for ignoring traditional constraints of both time (he works nearly constantly, and famously founded the Brutally Early Club, an open-to-all discussion group that meets at 6.30am) and geographic place (he is in perpetual motion, giving talks and doing interviews at nearly every significant art event around the globe), and a single institution could never hope to house the full breadth of his activities.”

Ceramic Jobs Coming to Stoke-on-Trent

We consider it part of our mission to alert our readers to any job openings in the contemporary ceramics field. We feel bad on occasion that long stretches of time are broken by a lone assistant professorship somewhere remote, but we’ll make that up to you with this news. Stoke-on-Trent is in the midst of an economic plan targeting its ceramics industry and it’s apparently taking off. From Ceramic Industry.

Over 1,000 jobs have been secured in the last six months at the UK’s first Ceramic Valley Enterprise Zone. Expressions of interest reportedly have also been received from more than 40 other businesses about moving onto the site. The official launch of the Ceramic Valley Enterprise Zone took place October 14 at the Moat House Hotel on Festival Park, Stoke-on-Trent.

The Ceramic Valley is one of only 44 Enterprise Zones across the country and is designed to accelerate growth in a range of employment sectors. It comprises 4 million sq ft of commercial floor space and has the potential for 9,000 jobs. The zone covers six key sites along the A500 corridor, five in Stoke-on-Trent and one in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

“We know the potential of the Enterprise Zone is huge, and the success in attracting businesses so far is fantastic,” said Councillor Abi Brown, Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s deputy leader. “This has come through really close work with developers from a very early stage to understand their needs, as well as widespread and innovative ways of promoting the benefits that it has to offer–this includes at international ceramic trade shows and even advertising on a local haulage company’s trucks. This hard work is paying off, and the interest we have received from national and international businesses is really positive. It clearly demonstrates the confidence that is growing in the local economy.”

“Enterprise Zone” is one of those vague business terms that make our eyes glaze over. We prefer numbers in our economic news, and they led with that by saying there are 1,000 jobs. We have more questions. Hires? Actual people? The passive voice phrasing of “have secured 1,000 jobs” leaves us scratching our heads, but there it is. If you have any more information, please send it our way. Be sure to post in the comments.

In the meantime, enjoy these pictures of Stoke-on-Trent, so unmistakably British in it’s presentation.

Do you love or loathe these missives from the world of contemporary ceramics and contemporary ceramic art? Let us know in the comments.