NewsFile | Opening Night, Voulkos + Fontana in Upcoming Auctions, NYU Job Alert + more!

Welcome to NewsFile, your weekly round-up of newsy tidbits and happenings from the world of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics. This week we highlight upcoming auctions featuring works by Peter Voulkos and Lucio Fontana, a job opening and more!

Voulkos + Fontana at Phillips Design and Bukowskis Auctions

Two major auction are around the corner:  Bukowskis begins December 5 and Phillips’ Design auctions begin December 12. Each features pivotal ceramic works including Peter Voulkos’ monolithic Rondena (1958), “a groundbreaking work created at the apex of the artist’s career. The work is monumental not only in scale, but in the extent to which it breaks from the norms of ceramic forms of its time, ultimately redefining the use of the medium in art history.”

Phillips’ estimates the sculpture between $300,000 – 500,000. We’ll be sure to check-in with Phillips to find out the hammer price for these art works.

Also available is Voulkos’ painting Flying Red through Black. It’s estimated between $20,000 – $30,000.

Bukowskis’ Important Winter Sale includes Lucio Fontana’s Concetto Spaziale, which is estimated between $1 million and $1.5 million.

NYU Hiring Asst. Professor of Studio Arts

New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development invites applications for a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor position in Studio Arts to begin in September 2018. The appointed faculty member will be part of the Department of Art and Art Professions. We are committed to substantially increasing the proportion of our faculty from historically underrepresented groups as we strive to create the most intellectually diverse, inclusive, and equitable institution that we can, and especially encourage candidates from historically underrepresented groups to apply.

Research focus in the area of Studio Art, including research focusing on interdisciplinary practices within ceramics and sculpture practices.

Sounds like the job for you or someone you know? Apply here.

Warren MacKenzie: A Master’s Hand

Though having occurred earlier this year, we didn’t want you to miss it. The Driscoll Babcock gallery presented the exhibition Warren MacKenzie: A Master’s Hand, which shows the expertise of the North American potter, and disciple of Bernard Leach, the gallery writes.

Throughout the past 65 years MacKenzie has been America’s greatest exponent of the art of the studio potter. His work has earned iconic stature through its quiet and sustained power manifest in the subtle innovations of shape, surface, and form of his articulate hands.

MacKenzie’s work is venerable. His choice, however, is for his work to be venerated through daily, practical, simple use. His bowls are to be eaten from, his jars to store and his teapots to pour. Pottery is perhaps the most ancient of all the world’s expressive traditions. It has always been a direct expression of the physical body of maker and beholder – a connection with another person through form, design and purpose. MacKenzie offers his work as a palpable connection to the union of art and utility through a creative beauty found only in a master’s hand.

Check out more of this exhibition here.

Opening Night at Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel

Group exhibition Opening Night at Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel (Nov 28, 2017 – Jan 27, 2018) proposes a dialogue between three artists from different generations including American artist Lynda Benglis, Brazilian Erika Verzutti and English artist Jesse Wine.

Juxtaposed with each other, the works by Lynda, Erika and Jesse are transmuted into powerful allegories of the condition of sculpture in the contemporary world – laden, in this reflection, with artifacts such as irony, experimentalism in the manipulation of materials, and a vast lexicon of references, direct and indirect, to the history of art.

Learn more about this exciting exhibition here.

Martin Brothers Stoneware Auction

Several Martin Brothers stoneware objects went to auction through Waddingtons Dec. 6, including the historic London-based sibling-run, pottery manufacturer’s Stoneware Face Jug and several Stoneware Bird Tobacco Jars.

See more of what sold at the auction here.

Kathy Butterly Represented by James Cohan Gallery

Congratulations to ceramist Kathy Butterly, who is now represented by James Cohan Gallery in New York. You can check out her gallery artist page here.

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