Kitsch as Avant-Garde 1 2 3 4 5 - PRINTER VERSION
Published in New Art Examiner, Sept 1988.
Clay Revisions—Plate, Cup, Vase is the latest in a plethora of exhibitions attempting to provide intellectual and institutional credibility for the vacuous, insipid, and cliché-ridden ceramic art that has portrayed itself as the cutting edge of contemporary ceramics. The title is appropriate, since the exhibition's aim, clearly, is to provide a "revised" formalist version of the plate, cup, and vase that will be palatable to the fine arts establishment—kitsch as avant-garde. There are, however, no startling new works in Clay Revisions nor any recognizably new directions. In fact, one-third of the work was made before 1980 and over half of the artists included have been well known and established members of the field's inveterate avant-garde for the past 15-20 years.
On view at the Renwick Gallery through September 5, the show was organized by the Seattle Art Museum and curated by Vicki Halper, a professional ceramist and its assistant curator of modern art. Jay Gates, the museum's director, sets the tone for us in his catalogue introduction when he proclaims, "The new context [for the plate, cup, and vase] is 20th-century painting and sculpture —nonfunctional, innovative, and exploratory". Halper, in the first paragraph of her essay, expands on this theme by telling us that the artists in Clay Revisions adopted the vessel format for a variety of purposes: "for sheer love, for dismissal, for metaphor, for comment, for play, for structure ‚ but not for use". The rather specious premise for Clay Revisions appears to be that a ceramics artist, if he/she wants to be considered a "serious artist", can and should make use of any reference, device, or aesthetic component in the long history of ceramic art except one ‚ function. Halper's view seems to be that no matter how "innovative", "exploratory", or unique a ceramics artist's vision is, the moment function enters the equation the work becomes tainted and artistically suspect. The work ceases to be considered "art", and becomes merely pottery. Halper makes much ado about this rejection of function and seems intent on portraying the nonfunctional plate, cup, and vase-euphemistically referred to in the field as the "vessel"— as a watershed in the history of ceramic art.
There is a joke that goes like this: "What is the difference between a pot and a vessel? The answer, 'about $4,000'." The vessel is a curious postmodern hybrid that is neither a pot—because its makers proudly assert that it is not functional—nor sculpture-because they self-righteously insist that it should be seen as part of the history of ceramic vessel making. In Clay Revisions, Halper seeks legitimacy for the vessel by trying to make it analogous to the post-Impressionists' rejection of realism. "The potter's dismissal of function as a governing premise in the construction of vessels," she tells us, "is analogous to the painter's and sculptor's abandonment of realism early in the twentieth century." Photography, she explains, created perfect, cheap images that freed the painter from realism while mass-production created perfect cheap forms that freed the potter from utility. It is a superficial and seriously flawed analogy, though. Pottery, for example, has never been solely about function, any more than painting has been entirely about the realistic depiction of objects or the human form. Picasso's Guitar, Boccioni's Development of a Bottle in Space, and Brancusi's Cup are examples Halper gives of how artists freed from realism turned to household objects as subject matter. Picasso's Guitar, she notes, "released the instrument from its utility as a music maker and divorced it from all motives ulterior to its service as an
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© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign
Published in New Art Examiner, Sept 1988.
Clay Revisions—Plate, Cup, Vase is the latest in a plethora of exhibitions attempting to provide intellectual and institutional credibility for the vacuous, insipid, and cliché-ridden ceramic art that has portrayed itself as the cutting edge of contemporary ceramics. The title is appropriate, since the exhibition's aim, clearly, is to provide a "revised" formalist version of the plate, cup, and vase that will be palatable to the fine arts establishment—kitsch as avant-garde. There are, however, no startling new works in Clay Revisions nor any recognizably new directions. In fact, one-third of the work was made before 1980 and over half of the artists included have been well known and established members of the field's inveterate avant-garde for the past 15-20 years.
On view at the Renwick Gallery through September 5, the show was organized by the Seattle Art Museum and curated by Vicki Halper, a professional ceramist and its assistant curator of modern art. Jay Gates, the museum's director, sets the tone for us in his catalogue introduction when he proclaims, "The new context [for the plate, cup, and vase] is 20th-century painting and sculpture —nonfunctional, innovative, and exploratory". Halper, in the first paragraph of her essay, expands on this theme by telling us that the artists in Clay Revisions adopted the vessel format for a variety of purposes: "for sheer love, for dismissal, for metaphor, for comment, for play, for structure ‚ but not for use". The rather specious premise for Clay Revisions appears to be that a ceramics artist, if he/she wants to be considered a "serious artist", can and should make use of any reference, device, or aesthetic component in the long history of ceramic art except one ‚ function. Halper's view seems to be that no matter how "innovative", "exploratory", or unique a ceramics artist's vision is, the moment function enters the equation the work becomes tainted and artistically suspect. The work ceases to be considered "art", and becomes merely pottery. Halper makes much ado about this rejection of function and seems intent on portraying the nonfunctional plate, cup, and vase-euphemistically referred to in the field as the "vessel"— as a watershed in the history of ceramic art.
There is a joke that goes like this: "What is the difference between a pot and a vessel? The answer, 'about $4,000'." The vessel is a curious postmodern hybrid that is neither a pot—because its makers proudly assert that it is not functional—nor sculpture-because they self-righteously insist that it should be seen as part of the history of ceramic vessel making. In Clay Revisions, Halper seeks legitimacy for the vessel by trying to make it analogous to the post-Impressionists' rejection of realism. "The potter's dismissal of function as a governing premise in the construction of vessels," she tells us, "is analogous to the painter's and sculptor's abandonment of realism early in the twentieth century." Photography, she explains, created perfect, cheap images that freed the painter from realism while mass-production created perfect cheap forms that freed the potter from utility. It is a superficial and seriously flawed analogy, though. Pottery, for example, has never been solely about function, any more than painting has been entirely about the realistic depiction of objects or the human form. Picasso's Guitar, Boccioni's Development of a Bottle in Space, and Brancusi's Cup are examples Halper gives of how artists freed from realism turned to household objects as subject matter. Picasso's Guitar, she notes, "released the instrument from its utility as a music maker and divorced it from all motives ulterior to its service as an
>>
© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign