We’re excited to announce that our member Campus is live! Through the rest of the week we will publish a series of articles that explain this exciting new chapter in Cfile’s development. We will describe the unique tools our Campus offers to its members (which we have dubbed Cfilers, a term picked by our readers). With your support we can build a global community that will sculpt the future of contemporary ceramic art.
Campus membership comes in two classes: Individual and Institution (for art schools, museums, etc.) Individual Cfilers can join for as little as $7.50 a month, Institutions for as little as $299 annually.
Click here to sign up for a free 30 days of access!
When you join you literally get a key to the future, a gift of a key-shaped thumb drive, containing a 298-page limited-edition catalog, Alev Ebuzziya: Siesbye, which is not available in any libraries or bookstores. The thumb drive also provides gigabytes of additional storage. To learn more, download our free 2017 Program Guide here. Below are brief descriptions of each of our six tools available to Campus members along with links to more information.
Click to see a larger image.
The Campus consists of six tools:
1). Our hugely successful cfile.daily, read in 196 countries and with an audience of 75,000 people a week. Subscription is free but Cfilers alone will receive full access to an archive of more than 2,000 reviews, articles and videos.
A selection of just a few of our online catalogs. Click to see a larger image.
2). The weekly C-Catalog Service, providing current, valuable print catalogues from leading galleries and institutions worldwide. These catalogs are converted into a glamorous digital format, accessible on your electronic device.
To date, our members have received more than 80 publications, which are stored in our online library. In addition to the free eBooks we offer through C-Library (which are anywhere from 200 to 600 pages in length) the number of publications we’ve shared with our members has quickly reached 100 in less than one year!
This treasure trove of ceramics literature alone would make the cost of membership a bargain. But there is much more.
3). Ostracon Journal of Criticism and Issues. Special guest writers publish this massive single, in-depth issue periodically throughout the year. In particular, we showcase the work of young critics such as Mary Callahan Baumstark. Her piece, Rehashing Modernism: Pitfalls of Popular Pots, is the highlight of our first issue. Her essay deals with the mainstream media’s often bizarre take on handmade pottery and it’s a delight to read.
In December we will publish our “Power Issue,” naming the 25 most influential figures in contemporary ceramics. It will be followed by the “New Books” issue, which will feature detailed scholarly reviews of Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years from the Museum of Arts and Design, New York and The Ceramic Presence in Modern Art from the Yale Art Gallery.
4). C-Folio is a 200-300 page hybrid, an online monograph and virtual exhibition, which combines writing with high-resolution video and images twice a year. The first edition is an homage to Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, celebrating its 100th birthday as the world’s most famous ceramic art object. It will be followed by Raw: Terra Cruda, Unfired Clay in Contemporary Sculpture.
Raw clay sculpture by Adrián Villar Rojas. Click to see a larger image.
5). C-Forum is a members-only chat room and anyone can establish and moderate a conversation of their choice. In addition, leading authors will be available each month to answer questions and provide insights into their recently published books. Learn more here about the upcoming schedule of participating writers; Martha Drexler Lynn, Glenn Adamson, Jennie Sorkin and others.
6). Every month C-Podium will offer videos of full-length, illustrated lectures by prominent thinkers, artists and others that deal with subjects of creativity, professional practice, history and scholarship. Click here to read Justin Crowe’s description of this service.
Keith Brymer Jones.
With your support Cfile’s Campus will grow to fill yawning gaps of knowledge about the world of contemporary ceramics. It will give you the information that is essential to function in today’s art market. It will support educational activities and provide new creative paradigms to the field’s writers, curators, collectors and —of course— creators. Curator Cindi Strauss said it best when she described the project as “the GPS to the future of ceramics.”
We are a nonprofit, so the overwhelming bulk of funds raised by the Campus will go directly to producing new content for our members. For last three years fewer than 20 cents per dollar of our funds have gone to administration and development. We spend 80 cents of every dollar on providing our readers with news, reviews and tools. We are absolutely committed to keeping this balance. The bigger our membership grows, the more we will provide.
Cfile Foundation’s Campus is the most important professional membership you can have. By joining you gain the support of an exciting global community of the top creators and thinkers within the field of contemporary ceramic art.
And finally, your membership has a pro-social dynamic. Cfile will offer free institutional membership to students of clay in disadvantaged nations. Our Campus is not just for those in relatively affluent countries, but for all who have been caught up in the thrall of the kiln. Help the community thrive. Join the revolution here. The first 30 days are on us.
Click here to start your free 30-day trial!
Garth Clark is founder and Chief Editor of cfile.daily.
What do you think of this development for contemporary ceramic art? Let us know in the comments.
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