Kitsch as Avant-Garde 1 2 3 4 5 - PRINTER VERSION
>> art object". She goes on to describe Boccioni's Bottle as "a vision of the vessel as a fluid form", and Brancusi's Cup as "displacing space rather than embracing it". She concludes from all this that the vessel had become a form for contemplation rather than use. She does not come right out and say it, but the implication seems to be that if Picasso, Boccioni, and Brancusi can use the vessel in this manner then why shouldn't contemporary ceramics artists' "vessels"—which also reject the idea of utility—also be considered "art".
Perhaps Halper does not understand that sculpture, with the vessel as subject, is an entirely different proposal than the original proposition of the vessel itself (Picasso, Boccioni, and Brancusi certainly understood this and signaled the viewer by using a material that was not just different but entirely inappropriate to the original vessel's function). Possibly she believes that real vessels, with their con-notations of utility, cannot be legitimate vehicles for serious artistic expression. Whatever the case, it is clear that Halper feels that a European Modernist pedigree is essential if the new ceramic vessel is to become a viable member of the fine arts fraternity.
It is not surprising, after all of this posturing, that the work in Clay Revisions has more to do with the conscious reflection of fine arts trends in clay than with the vessels on whose surfaces those trends are illustrated. Viola Frey, Michael Moran, and Stan Welsh "decorate" their plates with incised, attached, and molded Neo-expressionist imagery. Why they have chosen the plate form and clay to make these renderings is unclear. The concave circular format seems arbitrary and is distracting. The use of clay not only limits the size of their work, but also, because of its inherent romance and tactile nature, diverts one from their visual proposals. This problem is exacerbated in the vases of Rudy Autio, Kirk Mangus, Patrick Siler, and Howard Kottler. The application of trite, tired, and derivative imagery over ambiguous shapes results in objects whose form is in constant battle with its surface imagery. It is hard enough for painters—who don't have the added complexity of the ceramic medium and the three-dimensional format of the vase —to carry off this kind of imagery.
Patrick Siler comes closest to succeeding. His vigorously thrown forms covered with thickly brushed white slip are perfectly integrated with their minimal surface imagery: black silhouettes of a spiky-haired man and a rabbit. Despite the staleness of these motifs, the piece achieves a conceptual and visual integrity, balancing material, technique, tradition, and personal vision. At the other extreme is Howard Kottler. In Portrait of a Vase, for example, Kottler abuts two profiles of himself to form a void that resembles a vase. This kind of jejune visual proposition might be rejected out of hand if Kottler was not a skilled ceramist using clay to make a pun on the vase inside the safety of the ceramics field.
The paradigm for this kind of obsessive reliance on material and technique, however, is Richard Shaw. His Cubist Coffee Cup, a figure assembled from what appears to be an old basket, twigs, a chair leg, the body of a ukulele, and a commercial coffee cup, in fact consists of carefully modeled clay replications of these objects. Halper tries to justify Shaw's work by comparing it with Picasso's. But, whereas Picasso relied on his vision and aesthetic sensibilities to achieve his aims, Shaw panders to the popular and provincial idea of art as technical achievement—making his considerable technical skill rather than any kind of serious commentary the focus of his work.
>>
© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign
>> art object". She goes on to describe Boccioni's Bottle as "a vision of the vessel as a fluid form", and Brancusi's Cup as "displacing space rather than embracing it". She concludes from all this that the vessel had become a form for contemplation rather than use. She does not come right out and say it, but the implication seems to be that if Picasso, Boccioni, and Brancusi can use the vessel in this manner then why shouldn't contemporary ceramics artists' "vessels"—which also reject the idea of utility—also be considered "art".
Perhaps Halper does not understand that sculpture, with the vessel as subject, is an entirely different proposal than the original proposition of the vessel itself (Picasso, Boccioni, and Brancusi certainly understood this and signaled the viewer by using a material that was not just different but entirely inappropriate to the original vessel's function). Possibly she believes that real vessels, with their con-notations of utility, cannot be legitimate vehicles for serious artistic expression. Whatever the case, it is clear that Halper feels that a European Modernist pedigree is essential if the new ceramic vessel is to become a viable member of the fine arts fraternity.
It is not surprising, after all of this posturing, that the work in Clay Revisions has more to do with the conscious reflection of fine arts trends in clay than with the vessels on whose surfaces those trends are illustrated. Viola Frey, Michael Moran, and Stan Welsh "decorate" their plates with incised, attached, and molded Neo-expressionist imagery. Why they have chosen the plate form and clay to make these renderings is unclear. The concave circular format seems arbitrary and is distracting. The use of clay not only limits the size of their work, but also, because of its inherent romance and tactile nature, diverts one from their visual proposals. This problem is exacerbated in the vases of Rudy Autio, Kirk Mangus, Patrick Siler, and Howard Kottler. The application of trite, tired, and derivative imagery over ambiguous shapes results in objects whose form is in constant battle with its surface imagery. It is hard enough for painters—who don't have the added complexity of the ceramic medium and the three-dimensional format of the vase —to carry off this kind of imagery.
Patrick Siler comes closest to succeeding. His vigorously thrown forms covered with thickly brushed white slip are perfectly integrated with their minimal surface imagery: black silhouettes of a spiky-haired man and a rabbit. Despite the staleness of these motifs, the piece achieves a conceptual and visual integrity, balancing material, technique, tradition, and personal vision. At the other extreme is Howard Kottler. In Portrait of a Vase, for example, Kottler abuts two profiles of himself to form a void that resembles a vase. This kind of jejune visual proposition might be rejected out of hand if Kottler was not a skilled ceramist using clay to make a pun on the vase inside the safety of the ceramics field.
The paradigm for this kind of obsessive reliance on material and technique, however, is Richard Shaw. His Cubist Coffee Cup, a figure assembled from what appears to be an old basket, twigs, a chair leg, the body of a ukulele, and a commercial coffee cup, in fact consists of carefully modeled clay replications of these objects. Halper tries to justify Shaw's work by comparing it with Picasso's. But, whereas Picasso relied on his vision and aesthetic sensibilities to achieve his aims, Shaw panders to the popular and provincial idea of art as technical achievement—making his considerable technical skill rather than any kind of serious commentary the focus of his work.
>>
© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign