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Centers and Edges:
Smart Museum of Art
Dancing between functional and sculptural, studio and mass-production, clay's protean plasticity is seen here reflecting the diverse aesthetic and functional directives of the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- directives as disparate as the German Modernist focus on utility and machine-duplicability, and the 1960s experiments in sculptured objects of highly individual ultra-realism. Centers and Edges: Modern Ceramic Design and Sculpture, 1880-1980 presents over 120 works, including clay 'sketches' by Rodin, Maillol and Moore, examples of Art Nouveau tabletop sculpture, a number of formal works of the 1960s with a focus on shape and glazing, and several sculptures by Chicago's own resident ceramist, Ruth Duckworth. The exhibition touches on six major movements that reflect the sweeping changes of attitude toward ceramics in Europe and America over the past one hundred years, beginning with the pottery of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the late 1800s, closely followed by Modernist Sculpture (Art Nouveau, Art Deco), then the retreat into a utilitarian ideal as represented by German and Austrian Modernism and the ceramics productions of the Bauhaus in Germany of the 1930s. Each movement ultimately evoked its opposite: presented as parallel and yet opposite to the functionalism was a studio movement, the mingei or Japanese folk craft movement, in which British pottery studios sought to recapture the rough vessel forms and glazing of the Japanese Edo aesthetic. The formal work of European emigrès to America mid-century, and the freewheeling sculptural explorations of the 1960s and beyond, round out the exhibition, bringing it into the present day. The shortcoming of this exhibition is its annotation, which is limited to a brief introduction to each segment. The transitions between the six movements are only loosely explained, leaving puzzling gaps as to how the works on display make the aesthetic jump from, for example, the Ming-inspired Arts-and-Crafts-Movement vessels of The Rookwood Pottery, through the graceful terracotta of mother and baby by an anonymous Art Nouveau artist, to the rank-on-rank of identical cocoa-pots included in the display of German functionalism. As one gallery-goer, himself a worker in ceramics, noted after viewing the exhibition, its narrative fails to capture the excitement and interest of what is going on here. Not only the main transitions, but an individual explanation of the aesthetics of what is being offered -- details of glazing, of handling of form and shape, a greater exposition of the artistic intentions -- would have greatly enhanced this exhibition for the casual viewer. Some of the most dramatic formal work in Centers and Edges is that done by European emigrès artists such as Marguerite Friedlander-Wildenhain, Maija Grotell, and Gertrud and Otto Natzler, all of whom came to America in the 1940s, bringing the tenets of Modernist ceramics with them. Whereas the appeal of the sculptors of the late 1800s, such as Maillol and Rodin -- possibly the other segment of this exhibition of greatest immediate appeal to the casual viewer -- lay in sculptural representations of other objects, mainly the human form, the European Modernists of mid-century offered a focus on aesthetics rooted in clay's shaping as a functional vessel, and as a support for subtle applications of glazing effects. Gertrud Natzler's Bowl (undated, ca. 1960) is one example, a small, modest, footed bowl of smooth black earthenware, with an asymmetrical application of red-ochre glaze: fully quoting its presence as a vessel, while presented as an artistic object of exquisite beauty. The generation of American ceramists who followed, in the 1950s and 60s, departed from formalism as well as from the potter's wheel to pursue more freewheeling visions, a parallel to painting's similar interest in spontaneous gesture and self-referential works of personal expression. The sixth and concluding segment of Centers and Edges presents ceramic sculptural works from the 1960s to the present, including experiments in realism, conceptualism, and abstraction, and closing with several pieces by resident Chicago artist Ruth Duckworth (an echo of her recent retrospective exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center). These include Duckworth's maquette for Earth, Water, Fire, the ambitious installation, for four entire walls as well as the ceiling, which she designed in 1968-9 for the University of Chicago's own Geophysical Sciences Building at 5734 South Ellis Avenue. The maquette, made of glazed stoneware and wood, is a four-foot cube, freestanding, its open top inviting a look inside. The freely-worked stoneware effectively evokes the primal forces of nature; gazing into the maquette, one feels a little like a deity, marshaling the forces at one's command. What Centers and Edges most highlights, aside from providing specific examples of movements in ceramics within the past century, is the way in which clay can fulfill nearly any vision imposed upon it. That vision travels briefly toward an ideal of machine manufacture and mass-accessibility; but for the most part begins and remains rooted in studio work and expressions of aesthetic depth or individual vision. Over 120 ceramic works are on display. While sections of this exhibition may seem pedestrian to anyone save the dedicated ceramics-lover, there are quite a few offerings, such as the Modernist sculptors or the mid-century experiments of the European emigrès, that invite and reward contemplation. One wishes only for a more detailed and thorough guide. Centers and Edges: Modern Ceramic Design and Sculpture, 1880-1980 will be at the Smart Museum through September 18, 2005. --Katherine Rook Lieber Katherine Rook Lieber has edited ArtScope.net's Visual Arts reviews since 1998. Ms. Lieber is Editor and Associate Producer for ArtScope.net. Editorial Note: Ruth Duckworth's retrospective, Ruth Duckworth: Modernist Sculptor, was on exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center from April 30 - July 10, 2005 and was reviewed by ArtScope.net (http://www.artscope.net/VAREVIEWS/duckworth0705.shtml) |
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