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NEW CERAMICSThe European Ceramics Magazine

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Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage 2 Am Stadtgarten D-69117 Heidelberg

www.galerie-heller.de [email protected]: + 49 (0) 6221-6190 90

12.Juli bis16.August 2009Eröffnung : Sonntag, 12.Juli 11.30 Uhr





12.Juli bis16.August 2009Eröffnung : Sonntag, 12.Juli 11.30 Uhr

Galerie Marianne HellerFriedrich-Ebert-Anlage 2 Am Stadtgarten D-69117 Heidelberg

Opening hours:Tue - Fr 11.00 - 13.00 & 14.30 - 18.00Sat 11.00 - 18.00

Tel.: + 49 (0) 6221-6190 90www.galerie-heller.de [email protected]

Galerie Marianne Heller shows

„LE GESTE“Jean-François Fouilhoux, France

Porcelain & Seladon

24 April to 19 June 2016

2 / 2016CONTENTS

NEW CERAMICS NEW CERAMICS

04 NEWS International

PROFILES08 Peter Callas USA

12 Shin Yeon Jeon Korea / USA

14 Evelyne Schoenmann Switzerland

17 Christoph Möller Germany

20 Dagmar Larasser Germany

22 Gilles Suffren France

26 Valery Maloletkov Russia

28 Robin Hopper Canada

30 Gabi Erminger Germany

32 Ekaterina Ominina Russia

FORUM / EDUCATION 35 What it Takes to Make Art Tom Supensky Philosophy of Art

EXHIBITIONS / EVENTS

38 Karima Duchamp – Artist in Residence – Philadelphia USA

40 Christina Bolborea – Lisbon Portugal / Romania

42 Ortwein Schule – Graz Austria

44 Ceramics Biennial – Stoke on Trent UK

48 Ceramics Biennale – Cluj Romania

50 Die Präsenz der Keramik in der modernen Kunst – New Haven USA

52 A Dozen Teabowls to Korea – Mungyeong Korea

54 German Ceramics Towns – Mettlach / Höhr-Grenzhasuen Germany

55 5th International Ceramics Symposium – Tunis Tunesia

56 “On Centre” – Certaldo / Toskana Italy

58 Byzantine Ceramics – Kardamili Greece

ARTIST JOURNAL60 Kouzou Takeuchi / Peter Pincus – Shao Ting-Ju Japan / USA

IN STUDIO62 Antoinette Badenhorst – Evelyne Schoenmann Interview / Developing skills

DATES / Exhibitions / Galleries / Museums64 Exhibition Diary International

68 COURSES / SEMINARS / MARKETS International

74 ADVERTISEMENTS International

80 PREVIEW Information

COVER:Peter Callas“Hot Pocket 208” page 8 ff

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CLUJ INTERNATIONALCERAMICS BIENNALECLUJ-NAPOCA, ROMANIA

EDITOR’S NOTES2/2016

Dear Readers of NEW CERAMICS

With Shao Ting-Ju, Taiwan, during the Cluj International

Ceramics Biennale in the I.A.G.A. Gallery in Cluj-Napoca, Romania

beside a piece by Shao.

Contrary to the current trend in the major media at the moment, whoever decides these things, we try to include coverage from regions of the world that are regarded critically in a political context, at least

here in western Europe. In the present issue, we have two reports from Russia. I wish our relations with that country were closer so

that we could present artists from this nation with its traditional culture more frequently. Regrettably, there were only a few images available for the report on Valery Maloletkov. I would have liked to show more of his architecture-related work, which is described by Elena Noskova in her article. Perhaps another opportunity will arise under different circumstances.

Fortunately, we do have a cultural exchange that is not so susceptible to disturbances as the political arena is, and the second report on a Russian artist presents Ekaterina Omnia, whose work will be on show at the Töpfereimuseum Langerwehe until 13 March 2016.

I hope that we will be able to extend this coverage in future, even if we cannot expect such colourful and spectacular results as from the West, but conversely, in the East, things usually go deeper into spiritual and religious matters, and if we refer to the remarks made by Maloletkov, art still has something to do with crafts-manship there.

To keep our gaze directed towards eastern and southeastern Europe, we have an article from Poland in the next issue, about an exhibition of the collection of Iwona Siewierska and about her as a collector (cf. p. 80 in the Preview section). And in this issue, we cover the Biennale in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, on p. 48, and in the photographs on the opposite page.

Another focal point of the currently dominant international chaos was Tunisia, and here sculptor and ceramist Waleed R. Qaisi, who lives in Jordan and Qatar, reports on last year’s Symposium in Tunis. As we see, therefore, there are definitely positive things to report from this region – ceramists from various cultural spheres maintain their artistic and cultural contacts on an international level!

I recently heard on the radio that a Soyuz capsule is to be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station with a Russian, and American and a German on board. It is not very spacious, ei-ther in the capsule or in the Space Station, and yet the cosmonauts seem to get on well enough and they have a shared aim. One wonders why this only seems possible in the context of art and science.

I have worked together with Shao Ting-Ju from Taiwan frequently for many years. Shao is an interesting woman, a fantastic ceramist, an artist with intellectual depth, who also writes and draws. We have published several articles by her in the past, mainly artists’ profiles on ceramists from Asia, especially from Japan. Also, from Taiwan Shao looks after the English Facebook page on NEW CERAMICS.

Shao has now suggested a new series of articles for NEW CERAMICS. I was pleased to follow up the idea and on p. 60/61 you will find the first edition of the Artist Journal. Shao briefly presents two young art-ist here, one from Asia and one from the “West”. If you feel this is for you and would like to contact Shao: http:// web.me.com /shao36

The year is still young and many events lie ahead of us, both in Europe and internationally, which are worth covering and are perhaps also worth a visit: first and foremost, the AIC Conference in Barcelona, which we mentioned in the last issue. For me, there will also be the 50th NCECA conference in Kansas City and the ICMEA Conference in Fuping and Peking, apart from events in Germany and various European countries.

In this (European) issue, there is a flyer for the event and the competition in Fuping, China, an interesting opportunity for young ceramists to present themselves and their work to the interna-tional ceramics press, apart from the fact that there are cash prizes and residencies in Fuping to be won!

Best wishes, and until next time in May.

Yours,Bernd Pfannkuche

MARCH / APRIL 2016 NEW CERAMICS� 3

DIE NEWS INFORMATION / EXHIBITIONS / PRIZES

4� NEW CERAMICS MARCH / APRIL 2016

Permanent Exhibition of Ceramics at Schloss Doberlug

Schloss Doberlug, which belongs to the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation, is the only Renaissance palace in the Foundation. It was built in 1551 on the site of the abbot’s house of a Cistercian monastery from 1165, whose late Romanesque church still stands beside it. Both were lavishly restored after reunification. This palace is now to house the complete work of Gustav Weiß in a permanent exhibi-tion. The exhibition opens on 19 March at

3 p.m. with a talk on “The vast wonderland of art and what it offers humanity in the digital age”.

FASCINATING SUMMER COURSES IN SEOUL, SOUTH KOREAJuly 4th to 29th, 2016Hanyang University, one of the many universities in Seoul, has been organizing summer courses for many years. They offer various ceramics courses but you can also participate in other courses re-lated to Korean art and culture. Classes run from Monday to Thursday, so you have a long week-end to explore the cosmopolitan city of Seoul and oth-er parts of Korea. Participants come from all continents and ages are very diverse. It is also fascinating to establish in-ternational networks. Over the past two years, quite a number of students from Europe participated in this programme. Every-one returned very enthusiastic, full of inspiration and impressed by the rich Korean culture and art, both traditional and con-temporary. Korea has a lot to offer and is still rather unknown to many people in the West. Are you interested to join in 2016, please feel free to contact me and I will provide you more in-formation. Interested participants who register through me get 50% discount on the tuition. More info: [email protected] - www.hanyangsummer.com

MISHAPS – Production Faults and Their CausesSlumped pots, pots that have stuck together, cracks, glaze that has run off, bubbles and holes – these are only some of the possible production faults in ceramics. The exhibition shows historic and contemporary ex-amples, explaining the causes. For centuries, potters and factories based their work on experience. Recurrently, there were high percentages of rejects. This only changed with the development of ceramic science to-wards the end of the 19th century. But even today in the age of sensitive

measuring devices, purest raw mate-rials and sound scientific knowledge, surprises still occur in the production of ceramics. As the examples on show demonstrate, however, rejects do have their own aesthetic appeal. In addition, new decor and pro-duction techniques have frequent-ly developed from random errors. The exhibition, curated by Dr Sally Schöne, has been taken over from the Hetjens-Museum – Deutsches Keramikmuseum Düsseldorf and is complemented by a number of local exhibits. Until 30 November 2016.Keramikmuseum Staufen, Wettel-brunner Str. 3, 79219 Staufen i. Br., Germany

13th INTONATION – Room 13 in hotels often does not exist, and neither does the 13th floor in high-rise buildings. But the 13th edition of Intonation is taking place and a number of innovations are to be introduced in it. The artists participating will be presenting their work on the last weekend and visitors will be very welcome. A detailed programme is to be published on the website. This year’s participants are: Simon Zsolt József from Hungary, Svein Narum from Norway, Inger Södergren from Sweden, Myriam Jiménez from Spain, Simon Horn from Germany, Juan Orti from Spain and Friederike Zeit from Germany. In 2016, the focus is on working with architec-ture. As usual, the participants will be bringing finished pieces with them that will be on display in the accompanying exhibi-tion. And once again, the symposium in its 13th edition is being organised by the municipal authorities with great commitment. Intonation - Deidesheimer Kunsttage 2016 from 8 – 17 April 2016 open daily for visitors from 3 – 6 p.m. Talks by the artists on 16 and 17 April. Details on www.intonation-deidesheim.de Closing ceremony 17 April 12 noon. Contact: [email protected]

TONY MOORE - Tony Moore’s Flower of the Godchild, 2015, wood-fired ceramic, slip and glass, 56 cm wide, is currently exhibited in Down the Rabbit Hole, Side-show Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY (Jan 9 – March 20, 2016). In the title of this work I was thinking of God and child as two entities, but child as also god-like. Children represent an essence of purity and innocence, perhaps vulnerability, requiring our pro-tection. But, are we not all children and in Christian theology “in the image of god”? A “godchild” is a child we may be ordained to care for, to be responsible for as a godpar-ent, although in a secular view the individual/s may be chosen by the parent to take an interest in the child’s well-being – to care for the child if anything should happen. Though abstract, the sculpture might be viewed as a shrine, a place of contemplation or remem-

brance. Within a presidium, molten glass flows, as water or energy, into a well. Growth-forms rise. Another form is open. Perhaps, all evocative of the cyclical nature of giving and receiving: a moment in time. On the other side, energy flows down a jagged cliff. Tony Moore’s work is represented in international collections, including the Guggenheim, Brooklyn, Derby and Yorkshire Museums. www.TonyMooreArt.com www.TonyMooreKiln.com


DIE NEWS EXHIBTIONS / EVENTS / PRIZES / OBITUARY

BEATE KUHN 1927 - 2015In 2012, the Keramikmuseum Westerwald in Höhr-Grenzhausen honoured Beate Kuhn on the oc-casion of her 85th birthday with a major exhibition. Pieces from all periods of her work and recent ab-stract compositions on the themes of Nature, Movement and Rhythm marked pioneering stages in her career. For a time, it was evident how alive and inspiring art can be, a feature of Beate Kuhn’s work. It was to be the last major exhi-bition in her lifetime; Beate Kuhn died on 10 December 2015. She was born in Düsseldorf in 1927 and after studying art history for two years, she began her ceram-ics training at the School of Ap-plied Arts in Wiesbaden in 1949. After qualifying, she continued her studies from 1951 – 1953 at the School of Applied Arts in Darmstadt. Even as a student, and later in her studio in Lottstetten (jointly run with Karl Scheid from 1953-56) Beate Kuhn was work-ing as a designer for Rosenthal Porzellan. With her Kummet Vase (“Horse-Collar Vase”), today one of the earliest icons of the canon of forms of the 1950s, she struck a chord with contemporary taste. The young artist’s reputation began to grow internationally; her first solo exhibition was in 1957, in the famous gallery belonging to Dr Adriano Totti in Milan. With Fausto Melotti, Pietro Melandri and Nanni Valentini, she was one of a circle of young avant-garde artists who were adding new dimensions to the way ceramics was perceived internationally. Beate Kuhn’s painted figural vessels were defining artefacts for a certain movement in German ceramics at that time. In the harmony of form and brushwork, the specifically ceramic aspects of sculpture in colour were revealed. In 1957, she set up a studio in Düdelsheim in the state of Hesse, close to Karl and Ursula Scheid, with whom she was linked by a close friend-ship. It was there that in the early 1960s, she discovered her own unmistakable style based on a design principle influenced by the Bauhaus of the addition of individual forms: mainly similar forms of varying sizes , assembled to form sequences or compositions that suggest movement. Aural impressions and natural forms were the source of her inspiration for her creations. Parallel to this, she was making work for public spaces from 1959. Jakob Wilhelm Hin-der, the doyen of West German ceramics, was convinced of the vast potential of these unique creations and exhibited them in his permanent exhibition from 1958 on, thereby opening up a point of access to her work for many people interested in ceramics. In her lifetime, her work was held in great esteem and was highly respected at home and abroad. Leading museums in Europe and overseas made purchases of her work. She received many distinc-tions and prizes. .Beate Kuhn was a member of the Académie In-ternationale de la Céramique in Geneva and was a founder mem-ber of Gruppe 83. Besides their lifelong friendship, she was also linked with Margarete Schott, Ursula and Karl Scheid, Gotlind and Gerald Weigel by mutual esteem based on the quality principle. Following a highly praised exhibition at Henry Rothschild’s Primav-era Gallery in London in 1968, they frequently exhibited together under the name of the London Gruppe. With her complex and innovative work, Beate Kuhn showed that movement can be rep-resented in clay and that rhythm can be made visible. That was unprecedented in contemporary ceramics. The German art scene has lost a major voice. © Ingrid Vetter

TONJUWELEN – “CLAY JEWELS II“at the Keramikmuseum WesterwaldEight artist exhibit top class ceramics: Jimmy Clark, Karl Fulle, Sigrid Hilpert-Artes, Angela Klärner, Guido von Martens, Martin Möh-wald, Judith Püschel, Antje Scharfe. In collaboration with the Märkischer Künstlerhof in Brieselang near Berlin, which showed this exhibition in similar form in May 2012 under the title of Tonjuwelen I (“Clay Jewels I”), the show has now been brought to the Westerwald. The works that are now going on display at the Keramik-museum Westerwald in Höhr-Grenzhausen represent the ideas and style of internationally renowned artists. The title is a play on the expression “crown jewels” – made from purportedly base material. The 153 exhibits speak for themselves: – of splendour and history, of gold and of love, of ornamentation and bewilderment as well as elegant technique and even the use of modern high-tech materials. The artists in this group have known each other for many years, have roots in major schools like the Hedwig Bollhagen studio in Marwitz and Gertraud Möhwald at Burg Giebichenstein in Halle. Friendship and exhibi-tion projects continue to bring the eight artists together. Their profession-al work and aesthetic is in evidence, as is the infinite creative potential in ceramics, glass and porcelain. The exhibits can all be purchased!The exhibition runs until 3 April 2016Keramikmuseum Westerwald / Lindenstrasse 13 / 56203 Höhr-Grenz-hausen / Germany / 0049 (0) 2624946010 / www.keramikmuseum.de

Etiyé Dimma Poulsen at the Galerie für GegenwartskunstThe artist’s proximity to the aesthetic can-on of African art, she says, stems from an innate power of memory inherent in her work. But echoes of Greek, Far Eastern and pre-Columbian forms also play an im-portant part. All of these cultures share a ritual, religious function in their art. Etiyé Dimma Poulsen’s figures symbolise arche-types of elemental emotions such as fear, longing or loneliness. In the quiet digni-ty that they display, a mysterious force is manifested that totems also possess. It is an important concern to the artist to leave behind a mark of human culture on the

Earth. Her figures, which are highly individualised in spite of a substantial stylisation in their portrayal, are such marks, marks of joie de vivre and joy in making. The exhibition runs from 27 February – 3 April. Galerie für Gegenwartskunst, Elfi Bohrer, Bonstetten, Switzerland. www.ggbohrer.ch Brigitta Vogler-Zimmerli, lic.phil.

DIE NEWS INFO / EXHIBITIONS / PRIZES


Petra Bittl in Manises - On 13 November 2015, the XIIth International Ceramics Biennial was opened in Manises, Spain, and at the same time the names of the win-ners were announced. The judges, who includ-ed Ken Eastman along side Maria Bofill Fransi and Rafael Pérez Fernandez, awarded the main prize, the President De La Generalitat Valencia-na Award worth EUR 5,000 to Petra Bittl, for her entry Pair of Vessels from 2015. Besides the corresponding use of different ceramic bodies, this work is characterised by the porcelain lines encircling the body of the pots. Frank Louis, Pro-fessor at the Akademie in Linz, Austria, received an Honourable Mention for his piece, Matter. Further prizes went to Concepcion Arjona Torres from Spain (Deputacio de Valencia Award worth EUR 3,000), Carlos Martinez Garcia from Spain

(City of Venessieux Award worth EUR 1,800) and Sonia Ferragut, also from Spain (José Luis Díez Botet Design Award Worth EUR 3,000). In all, 251 ceramists submitted their work to the Bi-ennial, from whom 68 were admitted to the exhibition.

Nikolaus Steindlmülleris showing recent work from his Bizen anagama and from the first firing in his new anagama in his exhibition at the Bayerischer Kunstgewer-beverein, Pacellistraße, Munich, from 8 April – 14 May 2016. This exhibition presents a representative cross-section of his woodfired work, medium and large plates, geometric platters, teabowls (some with shino and hagi glazes), and cylinders. With the change to his new anagama, Nikolaus Stein-dlmüller works increasingly with untreated natural clay that he finds in special clay pits in northern Bavaria. Of these, some tsubo, cylinders and small sculptures are on show. The opening ceremony is to be conducted by Herr Prof. Raff, chair of the Bay-erischer Kunstgewerbeverein, and Willee Regens-burger. Opening: 7 April at 6 p.m.

Pair of Vessels

About the Egos Of - The Battle of Mind- The solo exhibition of Ting-Ju SHAO Keifu Gallery, Kyoto, Japan. March 15th - 27th, 2016We moderns are constrained by our minds. Our egos that cannot be satisfied always urge to meet the need for more desires. Through contemplation of stillness in every present moment, I want to search the original joy of being as well as the link to our inner peace, which has been lost for generations. In my work "About the Egos Of", two boys in uniform, symbols of constrained egos, reveal the collective anxiety of this generation. They, who follow the endless command by their ego longing, chase blindly and anxiously for insatiable desires with stream flow confusion. Through constant reflection and awareness, this work together with another series work, About Children Meditating with Closed Eyes, goes straight into one's conscience to remind us by recording the two stages from revealing the collective anxiety of this generation with constrained egos to contemplating the stillness in every present

moment. I applied the Japanese traditional glaze Black Oribe, an uneven colour of black and green, on the surface of the uniform. It looks like they dressed in camouflage to symbolize the battle in their mind.

ZEUGHAUSMESSE - BerlinOn 10 December 2015, four artists were awarded the Modern Craft Prize sponsored by the Berliner Volksbank at the 19th Zeughausmesse in the Schlüterhof of the Berlin Zeughaus ("Armoury"). The prize for outstanding achievements was presented for the 12th time. The first prize went to metal and jewellery artist Ludwig Menzel. Artist Alexa Lixfeld took the second prize. The third prize was awarded to Korean ceramic artist Kiho Kang. His handbuilt vessels work with the interplay of a certain precision and irregularity. They are simply good and uncompromis-ing: a masterly treatment of the material. The emerging artists prize worth EUR 500 went to Korean Jewellery designer Saerom Kong. She makes unconventional but impressive jewellery from rice, which looks like coral and is refreshingly floral and promising.

Work by Kiho Kang photo: Zeughausmesse

11th Pottery Open Day - Sat. 12 March and Sun. 13 March 2016 from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. For more than ten years now, a large number of potteries in Germa-ny have invited visitors to attend the nationwide Tag der Offenen Töpferei (Pottery Open Day) on the last weekend in March. Besides presenting their various works, they also offer an insight into their world of work, everything from throwing at the wheel to firing the raku kiln. Films about the craft of pottery as well as pottery with children are being of-fered. The website www.tag-der-off-enen-toepferei.de provides full details of the programme and the potteries taking part. Work by Frank Schillo

DIE NEWSPRIZES / COMPETITIONS / EVENTS


The Solo Exhibition of Ruriko Miyamoto – Harmony in the Diversity – Oneness March 15-27, 2016 - Gallery Keifu, Kyoto, Japan. The concept presented in "Harmony in the Diversity" – Oneness is our spirituality and its relationship to our global condition. How do these two factors relate to humankind’s ego? Has it created boundaries for countries, races, and creeds? The world is congregated with diverse cultural expression through personalities and motives, yet mother earth displays harmony and unity. Light is infused as a visual symbol that expresses the various religious affiliations and personal faiths found on our planet. Pebbles, earth, and found objects from Sacred Places will visually express the essence of the specific places represented in the artwork. These items are placed in a translucent ceramic box and fired in a kiln. The firing process symbolizes the items’ transformation into pureness. During the exhibition, the ceramic boxes will be exhibited on an “altar” with a light below each box. Participating viewers will see the fired remains through the lighted translucent boxes. As people attend the exhibition, join, and share Harmony in the Diversity – Oneness, “the gathering of sacred spaces”, their reflec-tion, contemplation and their connection become the essence of the art-work’s purpose. Audience engagement completes this artwork’s purpose. Ruriko Miyamoto

The modernisation of

Torre Arcobaleno(Rainbow Tower) at Porta Garibaldi has been completed under the pa-tronage of Milan City Council and in association with the Rete Ferroviar-ia Italiana and Gruppo FS Italiane railway authorities. Dating back to 1964 and once upon a time an anonymous water reservoir on the site of the important FS Milano Por-ta Garibaldi railway station, the Tow-er was first renovated ahead of the football World Cup held in Italy in 1990, a project that turned a down-trodden public building into a highly recognisable urban beacon. Since

then, the Torre Arcobaleno has been a highly significant building for the city, a distinctive symbol of Milan’s colour and creativity, and has gradually become known as a major landmark. A number of top companies came together with those handling the first refurbishment since 1990 to enable this unusual urban structure – clad with more than 100,000 coloured ceramic tiles - to regain all its original brightness of 25 or so years ago to mark the amazing presence of Expo 2015. Now as then, in 1990, the project was prepared and the works organised by the Architecture Division of the Milan firm "Original Designers 6R5 Network", represented by Francesco Roggero, Albino Pozzi, Rita Alfano Roggero and Kiyoto Ishimoto.

Shards in theKeramikmuseum: Artist Petra Weifenbachexhibits her workDeceiving the senses, the manipulability of perceptions and optical illusions have been the subject of study for Cologne artist Petra Weif-enbach (*1961) for several decades. She continually finds and invents new approaches to confuse the observer and to make them question what ap-pears to be an unambiguous reality. And her latest exhibition at the KERAMION in Frechen proves that she uses a great deal of wit, humour and imagination. From 22 January – 8 May, around 100 individual pieces from her series "Keramiks" are on show. In 2012, Perta Weifenbach began to shift move frag-ments from their original context of meaning with additions she has drawn, in a humorous, ironic fashion. Finely drawn lines, often accentuated in colour, create an entirely new se-mantic environment for these ceramic fragments. A catalogue has been published for the exhibition.KERAMION, Bonnstraße 12, 50226 Frechen, Germanywww.keramion.de

Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre invites ceramic artists to participate in the

1st Latvia International Ceramics BiennaleThe event is aimed to develop and strengthen the role of contemporary ceramic art in Latvia and the region, as well as to commemorate Peteris Martinsons (1931-2013), the best renowned Latvian ceramist, who in 2016, would celebrate his 85th birthday. Since 2013, Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre holds the largest selection of artworks by Peteris Martinsons in its Contemporary Ceramics Collection. Major events of the Latvia International Ceramics Biennale will take place in Daugavpils, Latvia, on 15 – 22 July, 2016. Several exhibitions of contemporary ceramics, as well as a conference, lectures, performances and other activities will be held during the Biennale. The key event will be the Martinsons Award - the biennial international competition implemented within the Latvia International Ceramics Biennale. Ceramic artists worldwide are invited to apply for the Martinsons Award’ Competition by 1st April 2016. It is a unique opportunity for artists to have their artworks displayed at Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre, Latvia’s most renowned and largest centre for contemporary art located in the Dinaburg Fortress, the historical part of Daugavpils, as well as to benefit from promotion, publication in the Biennale catalogue, and a chance to win a cash prize. The international jury will select 6 Martinsons Award-winning works in two categories: 3 award winning works will be chosen among national nominees and 3 award winning works will be chosen among international nominees. The International Jury for the Martinsons Award Competition: Ilona Romule (Latvia), artist, member of IAC; Elaine O. Henry (USA), artist, editor of Ceramics: Art and Perception and Ceramics TECHNICAL, member of IAC; Bernd Pfannkuche (Germany), artist, editor of Neue Keramik/New Ceramics, member of IAC, Simcha Even-Chen (Israel), artist, PhD, member of IAC, Jane Jermyn (Ireland), artist; Sirin Koçak Özeskici (Turkey), artist, PhD, academic member; Valentins Petjko (Latvia), artist, curator of the Biennale. More information on entry conditions and application procedure can be found on www.rothkocenter.com

PROFILE


It’s straight from New York City across the densely populated yet green “garden state” of New Jersey, from the urban sea level Jersey City on Upper New York Bay to the Delaware

Water Gap and Belvidere, New Jersey. It takes about two hours by car to the home, studio, botanical garden and kiln of one of Amer-ica’s foremost artists dedicated to wood fired ceramics and builder of the first anagama Japanese inspired, climbing kiln in the USA.

This relatively short journey for the visitor represents a trans-formative, ongoing event in the life of the artist whose flight from the city to the country and whose connection to nature seems to be, to me, the essence of his art, his inspiration and his primary preoccupation. Having been born and raised in the city, Callas’ move to the country as an adult was a necessary step to nurture his understanding and heightened appreciation of the forces of nature within and surrounding him.

On a recent spring visit to Callas’ home, I was immediately struck, noting a marvellously gnarled and knotted trunk of a tree in Callas’ expansive yard, a “Weeping Cherry,” Callas informed me, as I compared it almost identically to his recent sculptures – in the complexity of this old tree’s twisted form and the dark, rough, contorted surfaces of its trunk.

In the same yard moments later, I remarked upon a large, seven foot, vertical jagged stone next to his swimming pool, comparing it to the “scholar rocks” or “artificial mountains” so venerated in China and Japan for their inherent sculptural qualities and repre-sentative symbolism as part of the earth.

Callas, a very articulate artist, considers that he is working within the “tradition” of the abstract expressionists. In a prepared artist statement, he writes, “rustic imagery engages the subtle po-etics of nature” and “amplifying its irregularities and suggestive

Ronald Andrew Kuchta

The Ceramic Art of PETER CALLASRomancing the Mud

Teabowl - 2014, 10 x 13.5 cm

PROFILEPETER CALLAS

mysteries that challenge one’s expectations of perfection”, and further on, “while at the same time addressing the concerns of my chosen tradition: abstract expressionism”, and finally, “In the end I suppose I am only answering to my own ego. But more impor-tantly, I think I am enriching and expanding the parameters of my tradition.”

So the question is, should we consider Callas, the ceramic sculp-tor, a second or third generation abstract expressionist or a neo-abstract expressionist coming after an older “guard” composed of

ceramist friends such as Peter Voulkos (like Callas of Greek herit-age and whom Callas worked extensively with from 1979 through 2002), John Mason, Paul Soldner and Don Reitz? All of these art-ists’ abstract expressionistic works paralleled, although somewhat later in the very late 1950s and 60s and 70s even, the best known abstract expressionist painters such as Jackson Pollock, Hans Hoffman, Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, Philip Guston etc. of the 50s and early 60s.

And then somewhere after these canonized abstract painters

“Hot Pocket 208” - 2011, 38 x 18 x 40 cm

PROFILE


there were a host of artists such as Nor-man Bluhm, John Grillo, Stephen Pace, Angelo Ippolito, Jim Forsberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, etc., known as the “second generation, abstract ex-pressionists”, all of whom worked subjec-tively expressing, essentially, their “inner visions” on canvases, inspired internally or externally by their rich imaginations and/or by their own natural environ-ments.

Hans Hoffman, for instance, perhaps the greatest teacher of so many younger abstract painters of the fifties, advocated looking always to nature for inspiration. Conversely, Jackson Pollock proclaimed that he “was nature”, and so expressed himself vigorously and automatically as if outside inspiration were irrelevant.

In Peter Callas’ case, carrying this abstract tradition in to the 21st century, the emulation of nature as it appears in the wildest possible environments seems to be the primary achievement and pro-cess of Callas’ art-making pursuit, as it has always been with most Japanese art; of which Callas is a firm advocate and natural admirer with frequent visits to Japan over the years. Callas also seems to embody a 21st century romantic sense in that the natural environment, the hills, the mountain strata, the streams, (such as the one that flows through the east-ern side of his property, The Pequest), the trees and the mature landscape in general are his vital sources of inspiration. He responds to the wild and bucolic nature he emulates, especially in his most recent sculptures. This is not so different from how the romantic poets of the early nine-teenth century reacted to nature, such as William Wordsworth’s famous poem, Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tin-tern Abbey (1798), that reflects Callas’ emotional reaction to natural phenom-ena, something he intuitively embraces as an understanding that “natural objects have souls which may exist apart from their material bodies; the doctrine that the soul is the principle of life and death.”

This aesthetic attitude seems to per-vade Callas’ sculptures in addition to his various vessel related works such as his Flasks, Switch Plates, Double necks and his Maquettes, all of which vibrate with a certain energy, informed by an animis-tic approach inherent in the formation as well as the process of their firing.

The Callas style of wood fired art, which he has practiced and refined for over three decades has influenced many

PROFILEPROFILEPORTRAITPORTRAIT

PROFILEPETER CALLAS


artists through the years and has now become ex-tremely popular worldwide as has the Japanese aes-thetic influence on American ceramics in general. While looking at the earth’s crust as a geological meta-phor for environmental concerns a new romance with the earth’s surface is reflected in the works of many outstanding contemporary ceramic artists internation-ally (I think of Claudi Casanovas in Spain for instance, of the same generation as Callas in this context). Thus many of us “collectors” and viewers in general are ad-mirers of the works of Peter Callas – the gritty, native, expressionistic “Bruce Springsteen” of New Jersey’s Ceramic avant-garde – for his compelling and endur-ing focus on nature and the outstanding results it has produced, sustaining a romantic collaboration with that most tactile material, clay.

Ronald Kuchta was editor of American Ceramics and is one of the most notable authorities on ceramics world-wide. For nearly two decades, he served as the director of the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York. Kuchta is also a curator and writer whose articles have appeared in magazines, books and catalogues throughout the world. For over ten years he was active with Loveed Art Associates, NYC.

“Peter Callas is one of America’s foremost expressionist sculptors working in clay”Andrew Glasgow - Former Executive Director: American Craft Council, NY. NY

Following college I was a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT from 1973-1974. That autumn I spent two months in Japan and travelled 2500 miles vis-iting temples, gardens and ceramic centres. During that trip I helped build an anagama kiln at Rakusai Takahashi’s studio in Shigaraki. This proved to be a life changing event where I transitioned from decorative porcelain to a career intertwined with wood fired natural ash anagama kilns spanning the next 40 years. Returning home to the NY area I built the first US anagama circa 1976, then in 1979 forged a collaboration and partnership with Peter Voulkos, which lasted 23 years. It was a tumultuous time when marathon, all night work sessions were not an un-common bi-coastal event with Voulkos in the San Fran-cisco area, whereas all my studios were close to New York City. During the heyday using the Belvidere, NJ anagama we produced an enormous body of artwork coupled with extensive world travel. Extremely focused, it was a period where I fired my 6 metre kiln twenty-five times in three years. A 2003 exhibition at a NYC Gallery punctuated my 30 year career with a retrospective and catalogue that led to a National Museum tour of large scale sculptures in 2007-2008. Over the last decade I have been concentrat-ing on new work and continue to exhibit worldwide. In 2014 an exhibition in Osaka, Gallery Syoh celebrated my 40 years of travelling and exhibiting in Japan.

Upcoming Exhibitions are scheduled in 2016 with the Marianne Heller Gallery in Heidelberg, Germany, July 03 as well as the Clara Scremini Gallery in Paris, France, at 21 October.

opposite top - Hot Pocket Untitled #4, 2006, 36 x 36 x 18 cmbelow - Hot Pocket Untitled #2, 2006 , 36 x 41 x 15 cm

right - Vase - 2014, 24 x 14 x 14 cm

PETER CALLASOne Orchard StreetBelvidere, NJ 07823Home 908 750 4588Cell 908 303 [email protected]


PROFILE

L ooking at art and experiencing art, in my mind, are two very different things. I frequently view art. I try to get into the artist’s head and under-stand what they are saying, exploring, or trying to demonstrate. I often

see references to other artists and thinkers of our time, and before long, have found the perfect mental compartment to trap the art in. Strangely, I can’t seem to do that with Shin Yeon Jeon’s work. Every time I view her ceramic sculptures, I realize that I am having an actual emotional experience; that the artist has superseded her own rational thoughts and presented us with something deeply human.

I recently viewed a solo exhibition of hers at Howard Community College in Columbia, Maryland. It was titled From Invisible to Visible. Had I not been immedi-ately pulled into the exhibition itself, I would have noticed that title. It gives insight into an underlying theme of Jeon’s work; the idea that she is making the small, fleeting, scary, transitional thoughts that we normally keep hidden, visible.

As I walked into the gallery, I felt as if I had left the community college altogether and had stepped into a carefully curated porcelain collection/drawing room/parlour of some ancient and eccentric collector. The gallery, a very intimate space with soft warm light, gray walls, and glowing hardwood floors, was sparkling with reflections of light. It was an immersive experience. As I looked around, I softened my step, becoming more and more aware of the fragility around me and how my body (sud-denly feeling heavy and oafish) could so easily knock over and destroy these fragile things. I began to walk toward the Head Totem pieces. As I did, I felt a slight loss of my own equilibrium. Their delicate balance challenged my own. Essentially, they are heads and sometimes breasts, stacked (seemingly precariously) atop each other, to form semi-vertical columns. There were different types of totems, some a matte finish and others with a shining glaze. As I viewed them, I was given one surprise after another: a shocking difference in texture here, a tiny painted face embed-

SHIN YEON JEONThe Ceramic Sculptures of

ded in the glaze there, an abrupt shift in the form’s direction. There is some peace, but little rest, in these pieces. The viewer has no choice but to move into and over them, looping around the sculpture, care-fully investigating, knowing all the while that they are just starting to unfold.

Another group of sculptures Jeon has developed, and my personal favourites, appear as groups of faces merged to-gether, usually at the rear or side of their heads. The connections between faces are often obscured by a breast or an unruly coil of clay. The faces (the true beauty of her work) often show subtle distinctions between related (and sometimes terrify-ing) emotions, though occasionally quite different in appearance or presentation. These pieces demand you walk around them, and you are rewarded for your ef-fort. The process of watching them un-fold as you circle them and come to un-derstand the relationship between front and back, side and side, is part of what makes them so intriguing.

Jeon also creates functional ware. What

Crowd-I - 23× 62 × 26.5 cm, Ceramics, 2009

Gregory McLemore


PROFILESHIN YEON JEON

Shin Yeon Jeon is a ceramic artist and writer, living in Tahlequah Okla-homa, was born in Seoul, Korea, and came to America in 1996. She received B.F.A. in oriental painting from Ewha Womans Univer-sity and earned her M.F.A. from Towson University. Since 2004, Shin Yeon has authored over fifty six articles pub-lished for the Ce-ramic Art Monthly in Korea, Ceramics: Art and Perception in Australia and Ceramics Technical in the U.S., introducing the American ceramic art world and well-known indi-vidual artists. Summer 2013, she was invited to present “American Ceramic Artists and Their Works – I, II” and led a workshop “Narrative Portrait Bust” to the inter-national audiences at the Ceramic Creative Center, Clayarch GimHea Museum in Korea. She is an Assis-tant Professor of Art at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma. Her work can be seen at www.shinyeon.com

is most interesting about this work, in my opinion, is how it relates to her sculpture. She imbues cups, bowls, and other vessels with a similar feeling of strangeness, alienation, sorrow, and sensual pleasure that is found in the sculp-ture. Like in the sculpture, the colours are fantastical and complex, and are the mark of an artist that has spent a great deal of her life’s energy devoted to her task. Her unique visual language permeates everything she does.

As a painter, I fully admit my limited understanding of the various processes involved in the medium of clay. I understand color and form much more than the mechanics of hand building, throwing pots, and all the complexities of glazing. What I can speak to is the effect of the work on my senses, and the technical skill of her forms and figures.

Jeon’s faces, usually female, let us experience the gravity and complexity of life. They hold sadness and beauty, darkness and light. Even at their most sin-ister, they still hold compassion and softness, while at their most delicate, there is at least a hint of fear or danger. Occasionally, I see glimpses of a face that is no longer a part of the human race, and has moved into some unknown place, likely to never return. The intersections of different forms, the secret places, are always surprising. An unlikely nipple, skull, or gaping dark hole may confront you as you transition between the multiple faces of one work. Often these transitional spaces are echoed in the faces and thus given meaning. In this way, the sculptures act like paintings. The physicality of Jeon’s sculptures is also no-table. The forms, whether they are feet, breasts, or faces, are clear and striking. The underlying muscular and structural integrity of the figures makes them very much alive. I am reminded both in spirit and structure of Paula Rego, the Portuguese painter of powerful but sometimes demonic, sometimes victimized, often tragic women. Jeon doesn’t go into the territory of fables and fairy tales like Rego. Rather her work exists in a space we, the viewers, create. Jeon’s in-tense psychological explorations help us explore our own mental landscapes, our fears and our memories, our desire to feel the depth of life.

Gregory McLemore is an artist, adjunct professor, and occasional writer. He currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

SHIN YEON JEON76 Cherrywood Ct.Cockeysville, MD 21030, USAtel. +1-443-995-3673www.shinyeon.com

Recollection-I - 29.5 × 24.5 × 21cm, Ceramics, 2012 Two Heads - 58.5 × 37 × 32 cm, Ceramics, 2007

PROFILE

The less perfect an object seems, the more honest it is.” Evelyn Schoen-mann assigned this quote from a Scandinavian designer to her series, Chawan. These vessels inspired by traditional Japanese teabowls are

neither regular nor uniform. On the contrary, they sometimes have fissured rims, rough surfaces, and in places, no glaze, revealing the clay beneath. No two of her chawan vessels are alike. One opens out like a red-brown bud, another has a cracked surface like an old map, another has the appearance of a blue-white karst mountain range. In Japan, making a chawan is among the highest-ranking tasks of the potter and it is one of the rules of the tea ceremony that the guests admire the beauty and uniqueness of the drinking vessels. Also, their value does not decline with use. Cracks and chips are even sometimes repaired with gold, raising the value of the piece.

The perfection of a chawan thus does not lie in its symmetry but in the unique-ness of its form. A part of this is the divergence from a regularity in its dimensions, which precludes production in series. All of Evelyne Schoenmann’s chawan are hardened with a traditional primitive firing technique, which makes every one of them unique. Such firing techniques, which are dependent on the weather, the fire and the fuel, by nature never produce identical results. Form, surface and glaze are subject in varying degrees to random elements. Irregularities in varying degrees, unforeseen patterns and colours are the characteristics of this process. Individual pieces emerge through the unrepeatability of each attempt. And if we take the quote mentioned above seriously: is there not a greater degree of honesty in the individuality of the one-off piece?

A major characteristic of Evelyne Schoenmann’s work is a sense of the aesthetic of the ceramic raw material. The various kinds of clay and its additives, its colours and its plastic qualities inspire her and often influence the making of her artefacts directly. Notches, marks of flow and cracks are haptically perceptible for the eye, so that it can actually feel the surface like a hand. Schoenmann says that even in her first encounter with clay, she was aware that she had found the only true medium for her artistic language. But it is not only the malleability and cohesiveness of clay that suit her so well but also the expressiveness of the material itself. Her work

EVELYNE SCHOENMANN

The Aura of Ritual

shows that she is guided by this just as much as by the manifold impressions of the world of nature and of things to inspire her imagination.

Schoenmann’s career as a ceramic artist was not predetermined from the outset. She trained as an interior designer and subsequently as an export manager, where she could benefit from her organisational talent. She also learned to play the piano, achieving a professional quali-fication. An injury to her hand made it impos-sible for her to continue her career as pianist. From 2002, craft ceramics became her pro-fession. Schoenmann took courses in leading studios at home and abroad and studied the technical and artistic subtleties of making and decorating from scratch. In her two studios, in Basel and Liguria, she has since developed a unique series of artefacts in which ancient models and rituals have been expressively combined. International workshops and the membership of American, Spanish and Swiss ceramists’ associations have established her work internationally.

Viewers of her works, their colours, mys-terious patterns and markings from the fir-ing wonder how they have been achieved – a branch and a leaf have been delineated on a vessel, like a shadow, or there are fine, black curls forming an irregular pattern. Both motifs are a result of guiding random outcomes using additives in the pit. Minerals, plants and hair

“

Maria Becker

THE CERAMIC ARTEFACTS OF

photos - Stefan Schmidlin


PROFILEEVELYNE SCHOENMANN


are added during the firing in a pit, which leave marks on the clay after they have burned. To a certain extent, the effect can be controlled by altering the time this material is added to the kiln or the way it is fixed to the pot. The final appearance of the vessel or the artefact still remains a surprise, however. It is always an expressive decor that lends an auratic quality to the work. The firing and the smoke marks are like an alchemical process that the body is subjected to and that it retains in its form and surface.

The aura of the ritual plays an important part in all of Evelyne Schoenmann’s work.

However, she does not reference specific rituals from archaic cults or civilisations but she creates her own mystique and function. Among her latest works are the series of Tri-pods, which Schoenmann is currently develop-ing further. She took the main inspiration for this from drinking vessels from various Chinese dynasties, but also from ancient Egyptian civi-lisation. These are pairs of vessels in manifold variations of clay colours and sculptural orna-mentation: black Spanish clay and white por-celain, for example, are combined to produce a marbling effect, or perforations, leaf forms and skin-like textures are used as decor. For the art-ist, the tripod vessels are a field of experimen-tation, more than with any other forms. Their forms and variations are as elemental as they

“Buffalo Ark” - stoneware, pitfiring, 39 x 12 x 10 cm

“Ritual Vessel” Mixture of stoneware, sand, powdered marble, tenmoku glaze, 32 x 20 cm, Ø 13 cm

PROFILE

Evelyne Schoenmann was born in Basel, Switzer-land. After training as an interior designer, she stud-ied music. In 2002, she discovered the medium of her passion and trained as a ceramist in Switzerland, Italy and Spain. In 2009, she set up a studio in Basel, where she makes her ritual vessels. She fires them in her second studio, in Liguria, Italy in a primitive, tra-ditional firing process. The series Tripods, modelled on ritual Chinese wine vessels, has occupied her at-tention for some years. In future, further versions of these cultic objects will be seen. The artist uses her wide network of contacts with ceramic artists all over the world to prepare specialist articles for NEW CERAMICS. She also helps interested ceramists to run courses, participate in symposia and to appear in international exhibitions.

Dr. Maria Becker is an art historian and writer, who contributes to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. She writes for institutions and private clients. Her freelance texts go into the interface between art, literature and science.

are inexhaustible. And are not the male and female principle implied by the act of filling and pouring? In these pieces, the function has acquired the aura of a symbolic action.

Buffalo Ark is the title of a piece with which Schoenmann has largely aban-doned the fundamental principle of shaping in ceramics. Here, it is no longer the vessel that served as a model but the ancient symbol of the ark. Black fire marks weave over the uneven surface, on which a migrating herd of buffalo has been impressed as a patterning band. What function may be enshrined there? The ark is a symbol of life, but at the same time it also stands for the transition from

one form of existence to another. Many things are referenced by this piece, perhaps even myths from the New World. The narrative qualities of the artefact are some of Schoenmann’s finest achievements. Navette, for example, is reminis-cent of a kind of bowl with a perforated collar decorating the rim, a sacramental vessel for ritual acts. The formal tension between the curve of the bowl and the applied collar form, reminiscent of an ancient crown, is superb. This piece is a vessel and a work of art in one.

Like Buffalo Ark, the Ritual Disks are pure artefacts. Schoenmann drew her inspiration for these pieces from Chinese work that she saw in an exhibition. The discs were badges of rank of powerful Chinese officials and were placed in these men’s graves. They were laid on the breast of the deceased. In the middle of the disc, there was a hole. If the circle was the symbol for the self, the middle here represented the human form. The disc is also an ancient symbol of the sky, where heavenly bodies follow their course across the firmament. These artefacts thus also gain a stellar meaning. The artist has made not only richly decorated versions but also purist ones, in which it is the beauty of the material that ap-peals. Each disc is unique and has the perfection of a unique object. It is a cultic object, a symbolic form and a focus for emotion: it is this balance in which the works of Evelyne Schoenmann move.

Bi-ritual disc “Constellation” - stoneware, pitfiring, Ø 27 cm

Ritual vessel “Chi&Naa” - fireclay, oil-drum firing, overall 50 x 25 cm, Ø 15 cm each

EVELYNE SCHOENMANNschoenmann ceramicsNeubadstrasse 134 / CH-4054 BaselSwitzerlandart@schoenmann-ceramics.chwww.schoenmann-ceramics.ch



PROFILE

S carcely anything exists that has a similar metaphysical attraction to the beginning, then and there at the point of the greatest potentiality, when things began to be,

this is where their essence lay, this is where meaning and truth of a phenomenon or of a life, of life itself, history and all stories sprang from. It is retold thus by religions and philosophies, sciences or arts, even when the latter do not narrate representationally. The modern imagelessness of the avant-gardist secretion of superflu-ous subjects, media, techniques and rules is targeted towards the fundamental, the presuppositionless absolute zero of creation. Yet time cheats this striving for the elemental: fatefully, there is no way back to an ideal beginning – ultimately because time never runs backwards. Having recourse to the innocence of a beginning becomes entangled in paradoxical temporality: having recourse to the past aesthetically is in fact a progressive process, which does not restore primeval unity, but which through repeated starts and stops ultimately only dissects again, but perhaps more finely and more thoroughly. Thus the dwindling “beginning” remains merely another desire rather than ever becoming or having become real-ity. Nevertheless: in the unexpected appearance of the products of art, a hint of the beginning always shines out. But primal states are never sweet and charming, they tend to be ugly. All aesthetic recourse demonstrates this: the more primally, irregularly, funda-mentally freely a work is approached – not to be confused with casually – the more disconcerting its essence finally appears, the more nameless its truth, the rawer and rougher its beauty. This improbable phenomenality distinguishes the radical sculptures of Christoph Möller to a particular degree.

This tendency to revert to the beginnings has been present in his work from the start, but goes back to a varying extent, as it were: born in Frankfurt in 1952, he was originally a potter, became a ceramist and finally a sculptor. He encountered the craft of pottery in Jörg von Manz’s workshop in Gottsdorf, an imposing, strong-willed, outstanding figure in German ceramics, a solitary renewer of the centuries old tradition of Lower Bavarian Kröninger Hafner-ware (pottery from Kröning) as well as a cheerful modeller of fig-ures – this was a formative encounter. On fire for the profession, Möller began an apprenticeship with Horst Kerstan in Kandern in 1975, who infected him with his enthusiasm for the millennia-old vessel traditions of China, Japan and Korea. After two years’ ap-prenticeship with the Far-East enthusiast from Kandern, Möller re-turned to Manz’s pottery and continued to throw traditional pots, unambitious but happy, and then in 1979, together with his wife Mary, he took over the well-established pottery. But over the years,

CHRISTOPH MÖLLER

... from the beginning ...or the Seeker of the Origin

Walter Lokau

A potter, ceramist and sculptor delving into the past

untitled - 2014 - l 30, w 26, h 42 cm

PROFILE


this recourse to historic wares, how-ever authentic they may have been, no longer satisfied Christoph Möller, and he relocated to Diessen am Ammersee in 1993. In a sudden liberating leap, the faithful repetition of functional craftsmanship made way for imagi-nary archaeology: strange, non-func-tional cultic objects emerged, defa-miliarized through their interpretation in ceramics, tools implements, vessels and housings, assembled, thrown, modelled, handbuilt, model thrones, palanquins, weapons, shields, funnels, sieves emerging from a carbonizing, magically patinating black-firing, a technique adopted from the ceramic tradition of Hungary, auratic relics of a nonexistent, preindustrial culture, presented as installations filling whole rooms, cult site, constructs of archaeo-logical sites, aesthetic assemblages of man-made relics. But as if these his-torical phantasies of vanished cultures no longer sufficed to correspond to the draw of the beginnings, Möller looked back first to an organic-creaturely state, the biology of a lower class of fauna, then, ontologically, before all time, as a sheer sketch of creation of mythical landscapes, frozen creation scenarios in miniature. The still black-fired shells of burst larvae, scarred pu-pae, split pods were followed in time by double-walled, matt-white engobed mushroom shapes, bulbous husked plants, distending their swelling insides outwards, festering capsules, tubers or cobs, until finally, elongated colourless islands of matt, naked matter remain from which isolated stems spurt forth or entangled tracks, turning back on themselves, sensually and hesitantly kneaded like doughy sketches of a mute childlike demiurge testing rough-ly and on a small scale how the crea-tion might look: futile models of a pri-mal scenario, unnamed and frozen in a state of nascency, before completion, growing and forming without imag-ined goal or evolutionary line, simplest effect of upwards striving, pressing, kneading force on bare, yielding, sub-missive matter like in the beginning of all beginnings. That Christoph Möller now uses coloured clays in his latest work makes it all the more creational – as if the uncultivated, tangled gardens were growing on the second day of the Creation.

What looks so awkwardly formless, untitled - 2002 - l 20, w 19, h 28 cm

PROFILECHRISTOPH MÖLLER


Christoph Möller was born in Frankfurt in 1952. After graduation from school in 1972, he performed community service as a conscientious ob-jector and from 1975 he did an apprenticeship with Horst Kerstan in Kandern. In 1977, he joined Jörg von Manz’s pottery in Gottsdorf, which he took over with Mary Möller in 1979. In 1992, they relocated to Dies-sen am Ammersee. Christoph Möller’s work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions.

CHRISTOPH MÖLLERAm Kirchsteig 24 I 86911 Diessen I GermanyTel. +49 • 08807 • 91385www.moellerchristoph.de I [email protected]

Under the title … von Anfang an ... (“... From the Beginnings ...”), a retrospective of Christoph Möller’s work will be shown at Galerie Metzger Johannesberg, Germany, from 3 – 24 April 2016. A catalogue is to be published.Further details on www.galerie-metzger.de

even childishly bizarre, causes immense difficulties in the making. Firstly there is the deregulating, deculturising one’s own body: what has been tamed and trained for a whole lifetime, shaped to the very bones, instructed and defined by culture, must to take this dare renounce and refrain, shrug off, forget in the moment, deny oneself the knowledge of what he is doing, not listen to any voice, become blind and deaf toward his own skill, knowledge and ability, as well as to all demands, objections, precepts, towards propriety and shame. Venturing to dare approach the beginnings, already being lifetimes away from the origins, is bitter. And then, there is the making itself: only a small action – an addition, a pressure, a kneading, here or there, more or less, firmer or softer, slower or quicker – without imposing an act of will on the whole, with-out having in the remotest an overview of these minute branchings from the possible, not to mention in detail. In a state of judgement-free, evenly floating attention, one remains poised in the moment, little by little creat-ing minimal differences, making moments of past time, deciding the future that, scarcely has it begun, remains close and unpredictable because of its possible branch-ings. Whatever is afterwards, it continues to vibrate with improbability. The pleasure, against all the ballast of ego and culture, the joy of permitting oneself the greatest po-tentiality in microcosm is sweet. It requires willingness to be able to appreciate such bitterness and sweetness.

Dr. Walter H. Lokau has a PhD in art history. He currently lives in Bremen as a freelance writer.

untitled - 2009 - l 60, w 36, h 30 cm


PROFILE

I n the market town of Diessen am Ammersee pottery has been going on since the 11th century. One of the stalwarts of pottery in Diessen is Töpferei Lösche in the St. Georgen district, and in this location

relics from earlier times have repeatedly been found, and have then been carefully cleaned and restored for display in the pottery’s own museum. And yet Töpferei Lösche has “only” been there for seventy years.

Ernst Lösche not only set up the pottery in Diessen, where the typi-cal local blue-and-white faience is made. He also founded the Galerie Handwerk (“Crafts Gallery”) of the Chamber of Skilled Trades for Munich and Upper Bavaria together with the brother-in-law of his daughter Dag-mar, who was heavily involved there for many years.

Dagmar Larasser (née Lösche) had previously trained as a potter at the Staatliche Fachschule für Keramik (State Technical College of Ceramics) in Landshut and qualified as a journeyman potter. Parallel to this, she actively assisted her father in the pottery. After qualifying, she worked in

the gallery in Munich for seven years, where she met and has remained friends with many craftspeople, not only from Germany.

Finally in 1977, her husband Josef, who has a back-ground in constructional steelwork, encouraged her to set up her own pottery and abandon the traditional faience from her father’s pottery. This was a process that lasted several years and was not always painless. She has now developed a complete, independent range of pottery that bears no similarity to what is produced in her father’s former pottery next door. In her stu-dio, vases are thrown or handbuilt in a wide range of variations, along with mugs, bowls or jugs. They are white or coloured, often multi-coloured. Larasser fre-quently sprays on several layers of various glazes, thus achieving greater depth of colour. What is absolutely characteristic for everything made in her pottery is the simple, straightforward clarity of form, without frills or gimmicks. This is true of the small vases for the table – now available in fan shapes, like in Dutch tulip vases – or floor-standing vases and large planters for gardens and patios.

But parallel to this, she also makes figural pieces, suitable for the garden, such as fish, mermaids or sea-gulls, or roosters for the kitchen windowsill, filled with parsley. It is especially with these roosters that dem-onstrate the close cooperation with her husband. The design of the head and the coxcomb is conceived in metal and executed in clay. The origins of her large, rectangular slabs, on the other hand, with their subtle relief pattern are not so easy to define. In the devel-opment of her products, Dagmar Larasser draws her inspiration from nature with its inexhaustible range of forms and structures. You only need to look closely to discover it, which Larasser obviously does. This can be seen in the impressions she takes of fishing nets, fish scales, snake skins or wood grain in the clay surfaces. But the play of the waves on the nearby lake, the Am-mersee, can also be intuited, as can the woven pattern of wicker baskets, or of fishnet stockings.

Of herself and the philosophy of her work, Larass-er says, “My work as a ceramist is defined by the art and craft traditions of my family. I feel an obligation to consummate form. Small series, sculptural pieces and functional one-off pieces are either thrown or handbuilt, and with their surface textures, they can be experienced haptically. With their complex glaze treatment, the pieces develop depth and vividness of colour. My son Andreas gave my work new impetus. In my cooperation with my husband Josef, I conduct an exciting, creative dialogue that stimulates me to further creativity.” It is important to realise how close and fruitful the cooperation with her son was – he had qualified as the youngest master ceramist in Bavaria. They influenced and complemented each other’s work, forming a genuine symbiosis. Larasser once called her son her keenest critic. Tragically, he met his death in 2012, a painful loss for this sensitive artist.

Like all ceramists and potters, Dagmar Larasser is caught in the tension between giving her attention to the classic form of her pots as well as taking their eco-

Antje Soleau

THE CERAMIST DAGMAR LARASSERThe Long Road to Independence

PROFILEDAGMAR LARASSER


Dagmar Larasser was born in Diessen am Ammersee in 1950. She attended the Staatliche Fachschule für Keramik in Landshut from 1966 – 1969, where she qualified as a potter. Since 1966, she has been a member of the arts group, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Diessener Kunst. She worked for the Galerie Handwerk in Munich between 1969 and 1970. She has had her own pottery in Diessen since 1977 and works together with her husband Josef. She has frequently exhibited in Munich and other Bavarian towns as well as Frechen, and has participated in major craft shows in Frankfurt, Bolzano, Florence, Graz, Trieste and Rennes. She regularly takes part in the Diessen Töpfermarkt.

nomic viability into consideration. This is why she decorates her vases and bowls with flowers and fruit, especially when she is participating in the Diessen Töpfermarkt, to demon-strate their practical functionality to potential buyers without restricting their imagination too greatly.

Media designer Karina Hagemann from Munich wrote in her graduation paper in communication design, “The elegant form and restrained colour of Dagmar Larasser’s vessels em-phasise the importance of architectural criteria such as func-tion and truth to materials for the handicrafts … With her ceramics she fulfils the desire to own something personal. In addition, the user is at liberty to use these functional items individually, thus completing the work. If the user handles Dagmar Larasser’s works and examines them more closely, they will sense the character of the material and how sensi-tively the maker has worked with the clay.”

Dagmar Larasser, who grew up among historic pottery finds and classic Diessen Faience, has distanced herself from these models over the years of her arduous life, not always without problems or pain, and has gone on to develop her own style and her own repertoire, always with the support of her husband. It took a lot of strength but she has achieved the desired and deserved success.

Antje Soléau lives in Cologne. She writes as a freelance jour-nalist for German and international arts and crafts magazines.

opposite page – White Earthenware Vessel: detail of the rim with dark glaze inside, merging into a rich red on the outside

Origami Bowl, white earthenware, handbuilt, white base glaze sprayed with blue décor glaze, 38 x 48 cm

Structured Vase, white earthenware with white zirconium glaze, handbuilt


PROFILE

Sculptures by Gilles Suffren have many layers, one can say that they are studies in form and balance. Many of them have two separate clay parts and often these

two parts are united with and held together by the help of an-other material.

Gilles Suffren is an architect who works in clay. He has cho-sen clay as his material because of its workable, plastic qual-ity which enable him to shape what he has in mind. While studying architecture, he used to walk in and out of the ceramic department, which was next door, because it attracted him. He uses iron or steel bands to position his clay pieces in their an-gle. This is necessary in order to support the clay parts in their intended stance. Gille’s work stand on points or edges.

The metal links between the two parts of the sculpture help the balance, in this manner the heavy inclining clay mass seems to defy the force of gravity.

When the two clay parts are united with the metal part, the space thus created in between becomes very much part of the sculpture. We have then two parts in clay, a thin line in metal with its own design and the empty space that visually is an es-sential part of the whole. In all of this composition, there is the material element of clay, of heaviness, and the element of the iron binding, of lightness, and the space between these parts, fullness and emptiness. The iron binding lines in the space, besides being a new material with a different feel, also tell us about stability and equilibrium.

These abstract, geometric objects have curved and straight lines. The interplay of materials are almost poetic. According to Gilles a good piece must have a wholeness of form, balance, and space. Architectural principals and natural observations lead him to construct his work, the way he does. If and when he achieves in his work what he seeks; and if he gets feedback

GILLES SUFFRENBalance and Harmony Nesrin During

terre et fer - 37 x 24 x 35 cm


PROFILEGILLES SUFFREN

terre et fer - h 160 cm


PROFILE

from those whom he admires and respects, then he is content. The surfaces of the clay parts are sometimes bare and some-times coated with layers of engobes; they have a strong and aged presence; they resemble stones, with memories of their own. These sculptures standing on points, leaning at an angle, have no flat bases; sometimes one of the sides has a slight curve. Another piece with a curve looks sliced, as if cut with a sharp knife.

Trained in architecture, Gilles begins with the concept of the

sculpture. He makes small scale models to assess the sizes, pro-portions, relationships of the parts to each other. These small models enable him to change, add, take away, till Gilles is one hundred percent convinced. Only then is an actual piece made. Even then, some pieces never leave the studio. The shelves in the studio are packed with small size models. This preliminary research is for him the most satisfying part of his quest. This is the time of creation, of play with form and balance. He uses clay with different sizes of grog, depending on the size of the

ressort - terre et fer - 51 x 11 cm


PROFILEGILLES SUFFREN

GILLES SUFFREN2839 Route de GrasseF-83300 Draguignan / FranceTel / Fax : +33 (0) 4 94 85 02 52

work, sometimes composed in his pug mill. After the actual building, and hopefully satisfaction with the work, the surface treatment follows. He constructs with slabs, using self-made wooden forms as moulds. Often coils are added to continue. The surfaces are sometimes left as clay, sometimes covered with layers of black and white engobes. He fires in a self-built down draft gas kiln, with eight small burners that stand at an angle, to 1160 C degrees.

Gilles studied architecture in Marseille, then stud-ied at Ecole des Beaux Arts in Marseille with Rene Ben Lisa, later on at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Aix en Provence and joined the ceramic atelier of Jean Biagini. In 1980, Gilles and Daphne Corregan, Amer-ican-born ceramic artist, started a studio together. Later in 1992 he and Daphne bought a piece of land in the Var, in the Provence, south of France, and he realized the dream of every architect: he designed and built their studio and home. He first built their studio, and the couple lived above the studio for a while. Afterwards, he built their home.

The grounds, with their magnificent view over the Mediterranean mountain range, old olive trees, stone walled terraces and its own water source is a joy for Gilles to tend to. He says building dry stone walls, caring for the land, working in the vegetable garden interests him very much and even inspires him with his sculptural work.

The studio is a separate building, spacious and light; Daphne and Gilles work in the same space, us-ing the same surfaces, clay and kiln; one can see the works of Gilles and Daphne in the show room above the studio. Their works stand harmoniously next to each other, proud and strong.

And in the garden stand big work by Gilles like modern menhirs.

Gilles Suffren was born in 1953 in Aix en Provence. He studied at the Ecole d’árchitecture in Marseille, at Ecole des Beaux Arts de Marseille and Ecole des Beaux Arts at Áix en Provence. He exhibits in Europe, Asia and USA. His work is in many museums and public collections. He lives in and works in Draguignan together with Daphne Corregan. Gilles Suffren is a member of the IAC.

Nesrin During is a ceramist. Beside her practical and edu-cational work, she writes for KLEI (NL), Ceramic Review (GB) and NEW CERAMICS (D).

Gilles Suffren will be exhibiting together with Daphne Corregan at CCCLB LaBorne (Fr) 11 june - 19 july 2016

2 cubes - 75 x 35 x 30 cm

terre et fer - 50 x 7 x 31 cm


PROFILE

C eramics has been one of the favourite materials for Valery Maloletkov (Moscow) for many years. Working with ceramic material is extremely interesting and incredibly complex. A deep technical knowledge, practical skills, maximum concentration,

patience, daily, sometimes exhausting work are required for it. A true artist is an example of a harmonious fusion of Soul and Mind – artistic talent and sensuality, bright creative personality with a carefully considered thought, subtle intelligence, a thirst for experimentation, a desire to systematize professional knowledge and experience.

The thematic range of works by Maloletkov is extremely varied: he reinterprets mythologi-cal, religious, historical, literary and personal stories using the language of polychrome sculp-ture, filled with spiritual symbolism, philosophy and metaphors. The artist is also concerned about the tragic fate of prominent personalities who have left a deep mark in the history of the world.

The artist not only managed to convey an individual portrait of the characters, but also sig-nificantly change the traditional idea of their artistic images, owing to his own interpretation. The sharpness of the composition idea, multilayer figurative structure, emotional intensity and narrative details are interlaced with each other in a new way in these works.

Maloletkov transforms pottery into a sophisticated tool for transmission of human emotions;

Emancipation, 2015

Ceramics of VALERY MALOLETKOV's creative work

Elena Noskova

he wonders about substitution of spiritual values, the problem of good and evil, life, beauty and harmony.

In recent years, the artist has been successfully ex-perimenting with faience. In this snow white material he seeks to discover other plastic and structural quali-ties which are necessary for a new interpretation of the features of ceramic sculpture. Simultaneous work on several complex compositions led him to an idea to use plaster moulding methods that allow him to ob-tain thin-walled porcelain casts. The plastic and col-our design of recent works has become more compact; the whiteness of porcelain allows one to fully express the diversity and richness of form.

The artist's desire to seek new possibilities of vari-ous materials has recently led Maloletkov to the crea-tion of sculptural works in bronze. The artist has been long attracted with a desire to realize his dreams in this material.

In addition to creating unique exhibition works, the artist successfully works in the field of monumental and decorative art. He has never been interested in the beaten paths of creative work, in the repetition of what has already been found by other artists. He wants to return the lost features of great art, of which pottery was part in the days of ancient Assyria and Babylon, to the narrowly-common “decorative" tradi-tion of previous years.

At different periods V. Maloletkov performed a number of monumental works. Among them, there is a series of reliefs for Hotel Moscow (Sochi), reliefs for the BRAS Palace of Culture (Bratsk), Molodejnoye


PROFILEVALERY MALOLETKOV


Elena Noskova (Moscow), art critic. Stroganov Moscow State Art Industrial [email protected]

ARTIST‘S STATEMENTArtistic goals, reflecting creative ideology of an artist, and not the external "corporate" tasks have always worried me more than anything in the arts. Such an approach requires a constant thirst for discoveries, a desire to master the entire arsenal of plastic, design and colour possibilities of clay.The true artist is the one who is a talented, deeply educated, intelligent and sensual personality, able to realize his gift in various fields and materials. He must know and love the related art forms: music, ballet, theatre, architecture, literature and cinema. The most promising discoveries in the field of fine arts, in my opinion, will occur at the interface between different types of creativity.The creative process of creation of ceramic work de-mands a lot of time and the received art result does not always coincide with an initial plan. As an artist, I don't accept a narrow, household applied approach to ceramics at all, after all our ancestors successfully used ceramics for the creation of unique monuments monumental and decorative ceramics.With all due respect for technology, art advantages of ceramic work, first of all, are important for me. How-ever, poor quality of skill, as well as bad taste, also cause rejection. It is sure that the professional artist has to be not only a source of new creative ideas, but is obliged to embody them at the highest craft level.

Valery Maloletkov (Moscow) - 7 January1945 - was born in Kiev. Education: Moscow highest art and industrial school (b. Stroganovskoye). Member of the Moscow Union of Artists, People's Artist of Russia, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, Doctor of Arts, Professor at the Stroganov Academy and International Academy of Architecture.He is a constant participant and winner of inter-national competitions and symposia in the cities of Faenza (Italy), Vallauris (France), Sopot (Poland), Bechyne (Czech Republic), Vilnius (Lithuania), Delhi (India).Awards: Award “For Merits before Academy”, Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Arts, Gold Medal of the Creative Union of Artists of Russia, Honoura-ble Medal of the Union of the Polish Artists. Awards and diplomas of the Moscow Union of Artists “For the best work of year”, the winner of the Award of the city hall of Moscow.

Cafe; a volume-spatial composition for the Embassy of the Republic of Cuba, decorative masks for the facade of the Film Actor Theater Studio, compositions for the L. Tolstoy State Literary Museum (all in Moscow), works for the Palace of Russian Science and Culture (Berlin) ...

The monumental composition The Birth of the Sea for the Paleontology Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, architects Y. Platonov and Y. Kogan) was a unique project. The artist created a wall relief, the centre of which was ceramic shell, the symbol of underwater palaeontology. It is lo-cated in the middle of a five-metre circle consisting of gyrating natural proto-forms supplemented with huge wings outstretched in opposite directions. This large-scale project was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest product of monumental and decorative ceramics of the twentieth century.

Besides monumental and sculptural plastic arts, the artist realizes his crea-tivity in painting, drawing, art photography and art theory. In these fields, Maloletkov remains true to his passion for the search for new means of art.

Today it is incredibly difficult for a true artist to maintain his own identity and loyalty to his convictions on the thorny path of art. Valery Maloletkov successfully manages in it.

VALERY MALOLETKOV115184, Moscow, Pyatnitskaya St, 76 - 71Tel. +7 915 080 40 [email protected]

In the Park, 1973


Remember the “clay story” evening at NCECA Providence, where people could go up on the stage and tell their clay story? And suddenly, on a big screen, there was Robin Hopper, saying hello

and talking about his lifetime with clay. We were all in awe, some were smiling, and some even had tears of joy in their eyes. Since Robin was too ill to travel to Providence, he talked to us via video about two Hans Coper pieces he once bought from the artist himself. Robin was sitting in the gal-lery in his Vancouver Island (CA) home, and round his neck he was wear-ing his pendant from Northern China, the three characters on it meaning “Hundred Family Protector”.

Born 1939 in London during WWII, his earliest visual memories were gas masks for children, dodging bombs, dealing with images of death and destruction and a sense of abandonment brought on by the removal of his siblings and friends. Strangely enough, the falling bombs exposed the blue clay on which London is built. After the war ended, primary educa-tion began for the boy at Woodside Green Elementary School, where much attention was paid to the arts, and little Robin learned to express himself through various art media.

At the age of seven he started his first business, making and selling jewellery made from self-hardening clay. Since he was living a short bus ride from many museums, he spent his weekends looking at art and geol-ogy. It was at the Horniman Museum that he first experienced ceramic objects from different cultures, and he was fascinated by their patterns and symbolism. Black, red and white became his favourite trio of colours and remains so to this day. For him, pots were the connecting rods between na-tions. Entering secondary education, he was put into the academic stream choosing arts and humanities.

It was at this time that he also developed a strong interest in theatre, hence his short professional acting career later. Education continued at Croydon College of Art, where Robin, accidentally, discovered the pottery department and was soon hooked on the cyclical nature of the material. He now had touched base with the clay of his early childhood. His instincts told him that this would become his life’s direction. Soon he became the first student member of the British Craftsmen Potter’s Association. The ten years Robin worked in England after college, he was continually changing from theatre to travel to pottery. In 1964 the time was ripe to open up his first pottery studio. It was almost impossible to sell one-of-a-kind artwork at that time, so he started to design and produce a range of functional pottery that continued for over 45 years. He began to feel claustropho-

ROBIN HOPPERLife as a Journey:Clay and Imagination as the Fuel

by Evelyne Schoenmann

bic in England and dreamt of moving to Canada. He was convinced that a headstrong young artist might be able to make his mark there. He applied for and received a teaching position in Toronto and in June 1968 he and his young family arrived in Canada. He became a member of the Potters’ Guild and started selling his ware at craft markets and in galleries. Later, he was offered a position at Georgian College in Barrie to start a ceramics programme to train young artists as entrepreneurs.

Calendula

photos - Judi Dyelle


PROFILEROBIN HOPPER

Bridge

Robin Hopper was born and raised in England. His interest in pottery started already in college. At the age of 25 he opened his first pottery studio there. In 1968 he moved to Canada to be a teacher in schools and colleges. Later he opened up studios, first in On-tario, then in Metchosin (BC) and quit teaching for studio work. Over 30 years he gave multiple inter-national workshops, wrote books about the ceramic spectrum, functional pottery and how to make marks, followed by educational videos and his au-tobiography, A Lifetime of Works, Ideas and Teach-ings. During his career he got prizes like the Saidye Bronfman Award and got invited to China to teach ceramic techniques lost during the Cultural Revolu-tion. His work can be found in collections all over the world.

ROBIN HOPPER4283 Metchosin Rd - Victoria, British ColumbiaCanada V9C [email protected] I www.chosinpottery.ca

Evelyne Schoenmann is a ceramist. She lives and works in Basel, Switzerland and Liguria, Italy. www.schoenmann-ceramics.ch

Axe Jar

Then, in 1977, the big move to Metchosin on Vancou-ver Island, where he developed his home and studio from a derelict farmhouse and outbuildings. He received the Saidye Bronfman Award, Canada’s highest visual arts award and became the first president of Ceramic Masters Canada. After 25 years of intense personal research on ceramic materials he was asked to write about it. This became his first book, titled The Ceramic Spectrum. He later went on to write Functional Pottery, Making Marks, and his autobiography, Ceramics, a Lifetime of

Works, Ideas and Teachings. Unfor-tunately his first marriage broke down, but after a time of reflection came a time of new love, and he married his second wife, Judi Dyelle. After a year in Montreal they moved to Robin’s Victoria home and renamed the pot-tery studio. Chosin Pottery was born and the chore-ography of life was recharged with new enthusiasm and energy. They started Fired Up – Contemporary Works in Clay, an annual show and sale by fourteen of British Columbia’s top ceramic artists, which continues to excite. MISSA, the Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts followed, a high-energy, alternative art school that has made a difference to many peo-ple, from teachers to students and full-time professional artists. Finally, in 1993, came the call to produce educational videos. There is so much knowledge that Robin Hopper has passed on to other ceramists that we all have a personal debt to him; let us help others develop when the op-portunity arises!

Robin says, “My life seems to have been a journey over which I have had only limited control. There was someone else pulling the strings and leading me to all the places that I was supposed to go, helping me learn an odd and diverse assortment of skills that I would need on the journey and making me do things that I was meant to do. Accident, luck and the ability to spot opportunities have been my greatest allies, but you have to learn to read the signs as they come along.”

glazed slip trail


Even as a child, she wanted to be a potter. But if Gabi Ehrminger had become one, with an apprenticeship and qualifications in her pocket, she probably would

not be doing what she does: producing ceramic beauty, taking time and trouble, like a sensible potter would scarcely do any more. This special kind of beauty is not sensible, does not ask about work or time, which it needs plenty of to be born. This kind of beauty demands passion, obsession, even love, as well as mastery that cannot be taught from the one affected by it: only those affected by it in this way have an inkling of this beauty and then makes every conceivable effort to help it to come into existence as a beautiful vessel, more akin to the idea of perfec-tion than a useful thing. So Gabi Ehrminger became a potter after all – but a different kind of potter, following a different path …

She was born in 1957, and her childhood wish was put on hold as she trained to be a handicrafts teacher – but subsequent-ly, she had no wish to bend to fit in as a teacher. Strong-willed as she was, she worked modestly in social services for a few years. But her true destiny was lying in wait for her: a potter’s wheel at her workplace lured her as if it had been waiting only for her. Gabi Ehrminger joyfully offered less and less resistance. And thus, fate took its revolving course: as a practiced thrower, she gave up her job and set up her first pottery in 1984, mak-ing functional pots – although this was not yet truly her thing. The ceramofanatic, who had now relocated to the Black For-est, devoured all the literature she could lay her hands on, and finally she came across something she was fully in tune with:

Walter Lokau

“LABOUR OF LOVE”

Ceramist Gabi Ehrminger

Double-Walled Vessel - h 13.5 cm, ø 32.5 cm

Double-Walled Vessel - h 20 cm, ø 20 cm

PROFILEGABI EHRMINGER


primitive firing techniques with an open flame, used in African tribal cultures or in the European Neolithic and Bronze Ages, pit firings in which the stone-burnished pots bake and smoke. She was attracted by the simplicity and primitivity, the supposed lack of sophistication of these techniques. She began to experiment with smoke firing herself, not suspecting what would transpire: in contrast to the unsightly products of the bonfire of enthusiasm that had spread among pyromaniac ceramics amateurs at that time, she took her time, devotedly, patiently, industriously, year

by year, learning more and more for herself, uncompromisingly immersing herself ever deeper in the seemingly simple technique: beneath the effective but roughly carbonised surface, she sensed a beauty that paradoxically was the precise opposite of primitiv-ism, in spite of the unprogressive means employed: it was the highest possible measure of refinement, achieved laboriously and time-consumingly, of consummate form, lustrous burnished surfaces and the steeped-in, inimitable marks of the flames, an indissoluble, silky unity, the result of uncommon sensitivity that compellingly emerges in the work process itself. She refines and simplifies – Gabi Ehrminger’s own aspirations literally grew in her hands. Today, now living in Radolfzell since 1998, she re-fuses to compromise an inch. Her burnished double-walled vessel sculptures – and occasional mural objects – from low-temper-ature woodfirings are among the most outstanding things this special genre has to offer.

Perfectly thrown in one piece on the wheel – uninterrupt-ed volumes, with infinitely soft reentrant curves and a mini-mal footprint – these floating forms are burnished with select-ed, smooth, shiny pebbles when they are scarcely leatherhard, smoothed to remove any hardly detectable unevenness, but also compressing the material: hand burnishing is not abrasive, it compresses and hardens the minutely yielding clay by millionths of a metre, again and again, hour after hour. Fired for twelve

hours in a primitive kiln with sawdust, wood and vegetable fibres at barely 900°C, reduction and oxidation alternating – this too is an art! – so that these ennobled pots receive their unique mark-ings ranging from a mirror-finish coal black to a delicate rust – if everything goes smoothly – before they are smoothed again to achieve their final sheen. Through all the beauty, who sees all the years, the hard work, the labour of love…?!

Gabi Ehrminger was born in Radolfzell on Lake Constance in 1957. In 1979 she qualified as a handicrafts teacher in Stuttgart and worked as an occupational therapist for several years. In 1984, she opened her first ceramics studio with functional pottery. In 1987, she moved to the Black Forest and opened her second pottery in Schonach, where she began to experiment with smoke firings and bonfire firings. She has lived and worked in Radolfzell-Reute since 1998, specialising in burnished ceramics from low-temperature woodfiring. Gabi Ehrminger is a member of the crafts organisations Bundesverband Kunsthandwerk and Bund der Kunst-handwerker Baden Württemberg as well as the Bavarian Kunstgewerbe-verein. Her work is represented in public and private collections.

GABI EHRMINGERReute 20 - 78315 Radolfzell GermanyTel. +49 - (0)7732 - 988553www.ehrmingerkeramik.de [email protected]

Recent work by Gabi Ehrminger will be on view at the Diessen Töpfermarkt from 5 – 8 May 2016and at the Töpfermuseum Duingen from 22 May – 28 August 2016. Further details on www.toepfermuseum-duingen.de

Dr. Walter H. Lokau has a PhD in art history. He lives in Bremen as a freelance writer.

Double-Walled Vessel - h 17 cm, d 21 cm


C eramic artist Ekaterina Ominia is currently exhibit-ing in Germany for the first time. The Applied Arts Group of GEDOK* in Bonn invited her to take part

in their exhibition "Auf dem Weg …" (“On the Way …”) at the Töpfereimuseum Langerwehe. For the exhibition, Ekaterina has brought only painted porcelain with her, although naturally she makes and fires other clay objects too.

The work on show in Langerwehe is made of industrial por-celain on which Ekaterina has painted folk-art scenes, or has made collages with found objects. These found objects mainly

come from beaches in Montenegro, where the artist spends a lot of time. The sea defences in Montenegro were originally made of bricks, which have now been replaced by concrete. Small remaining fragments simply lie scattered on the beach.

Ekaterina Ominia was born in St Petersburg (formerly Len-ingrad) in 1957. She is from a long-established family of artists and architects and still works in the studio of her grandmother, a painter. Since her mother was a textile artist, Ekaterina decid-ed consciously to go into ceramics. She studied at the Muchina School of Art in her home town, where she graduated in 1979.

EKATERINA OMINIA

A Breath of Russia

Antje Soléau

C E R A M I C A RT I S T

photos - Ekaterina Ominina


PROFILEEKATERINA OMINIA

opposite page - In Love - 2015, porcelain, clay, onglaze brushwork found objects, 17 x 12 cm each

above l. to r. - The World of Children - 2014 - clay, grog, saltfire - Ø 34 cm- Africa - 2014 - porcelain, onglaze brushwork, found objects, 16 x 16 cm- Interior - 2012 - clay, porcelain, onglaze brushwork, lustre, found objects, 25 x 25 cm- Teenagers - 2010, woodfired porcelain, onglaze brushwork, h 30 cm

Her course included painting on porcelain, which is unfamiliar in this part of the world (cf. NC 6/15, p. 38 ff.) After the col-lapse of the Communist regime, she went on to study Christian archaeology at the College of Religion and Philosophy of the Association of St Petersburg Academics.

The theme of Ekaterina’s work is people – but always in the context of their immediate environment. Especially at the numerous international symposia, where she likes to participate on a regular basis. In the former Eastern Bloc, symposia were the only way for many artists to enter into a cross border dia-

logue with colleagues from other countries. They offered Ekate-rina the opportunity to familiarise herself with several different firing techniques. She fires at home in a simple wood fired kiln and an electric kiln, but she was able experiment with raku and anagama in Estonia and more recently in Austria.

Ekaterina mixes most unusual techniques, saying this is how she can express herself best. For instance, she composes ce-ramic reliefs on painted canvas; painting and drawing have been further fields of activity for her ever since she was a stu-dent. Ekaterina travels a lot – back and forth across Europe –

PROFILE


Ekaterina Ominina was born in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) in 1957. She studied at the Muchina School of Art in her home town, graduating in 1979. She has been a member of the St Petersburg artists’ association since 1984. She has participated in many international symposia and has been awarded distinctions and diplomas. She has exhibited frequently either alone or in group exhibitions in Russia and elsewhere. Her work is in the collections of museums in St Petersburg, Novgorod, Omsk, Riga /Latvia), Kohila (Estonia) and Gradec (Slovenia). She lives and works as a freelance artist in St Petersburg.

Antje Soléau lives in Cologne. She is a freelance journalist, writing for German and international arts and crafts magazines.

EKATERINA OMININA [email protected]/ekaterinaominina?fref=ts

not only to symposia. She talks vibrantly about her experiences and encounters on her travels. When she is on the move, she makes sketches that are then turned into new artwork back in her studio in St Petersburg. She also takes old family photos to model her relief collages on, working like a child who must first de-stroy a thing in order to be able to ex-amine it. The forms that she then makes are stylised, reduced to essentials, some

Important Meeting - 2010, woodfired porcelain, onglaze brushwork 16 x 12 cm

The exhibition at the Töpfereimuseum Langerwehe entitled “Auf dem Weg …“ runs until 13 March 2016. Further details on www.toepfereimuseum.de and [email protected]

*GEDOK–Gemeinschaft der Künstlerinnen und Kunstfreunde Deutschlands e.V. (women’s arts association).

cheerful, others thought-provoking, like the three-dimensional hare or a pair of billing ducks that she puts in a soup plate with the appropriate comments spelled out on the rim, sometimes in Latin.

Through her numerous symposia, she has often exhibited in other countries, in-cluding Finland, France, Austria, Latvia, Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania and Estonia. Her work is in the collections of museums in St Petersburg, Moscow, Novgorod, Omsk, Riga (Latvia), Gradic (Slovenia), Varazdin (Croatia) and numerous private collections in Austria and Germany.


FORUM

W hat we need to make art might be quite basic or it may in-

clude a broad list of requirements. Those requirements are based on how we define art. Let us take a look at some of these essential elements to making art. It is difficult to prioritize them. However, for the sake of comparison, we might look at what it takes to bake a cake. First of all, one must want to bake a cake. In both in-stances, one needs an appropriate place. To bake a cake there must be an oven, all the ingredients, certain equipment, a recipe, time and a minimum amount of ability or skill. Any additional element will enhance the nature of the cake, but is not necessarily important to the outcome. In making art, the place could be almost anywhere. To make art there has to be a desire to create. We assume that most art is made in a studio.

However, art has no specific place of origin. The ingredients for art can be as simple as pencil and paper, or extremely complex. Art can be the product of all forms of equipment. Some forms of art in-clude recipes such as that of a clay body for ceramics. The time it takes to make art can be almost instantaneous or may be decades. Making art requires only that amount of skill necessary to meet the final objective.

When we look at the Abstract Expres-sionist paintings of Jackson Pollock, we might think that it took little skill to pro-duce. The ability to drip paint across a can-vas may be relatively easy to accomplish.

However, the choices of what colour, where to drip the paint, and how much and so forth, are the important factors in Pollock's work.

The skill necessary to make this piece of ceramic art by the author is based on the knowledge and ability to deal with many techniques. Once these skills are learned they are used to produce any number of ideas. In this case, the author took license with Gauguin's painting and added a con-temporary touch of humour.

The initial step in producing art is hav-ing an idea. It takes a creative translation of the idea. In order to successfully make such a translation there are numerous in-gredients that can play a part. They are

not all needed, but any one can be used and often many are incorporated. Intent to make art is important. There will al-ways be a certain amount of time required. Most art employs some materials, tools or equipment. Certain skills may have to be learned. The natural talent of an individual will play a part. Art can be spontaneous or well planned. It takes originality, in-ventiveness and imagination coupled with problem solving abilities. Experience is an important factor and it is accomplished through education, travel, and an open mind. In some instances, new insights into a subject can happen by way of naivety; an innocent look at a topic is not bur-dened by tradition or habit. Art is often born out of playfulness, motivation, per-sistence and a dream or vision. Knowing one's self, one's limitations, and express-ing through art an honest response to who we are is very important to making art.

What are the essential ingredients for making art? What is it that art cannot exist without? First, it must be rooted in aesthetics, an ingredient that defies a def-inition. Secondly, art must have purpose as art. Finally, art must have a communi-cative nature. Beyond these three items, there are certain elements that, while not totally essential to art, are very important to the final product, whether an object or a concept. I strongly believe in the in-gredient of making special. I also cannot see art without honesty. Let me now ex-pound on these proposed essential items for making art.

AestheticsThe foundation of the concept of aes-

thetics is related to all cultures and so-cieties. It blossoms into countless forms. Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that studies and explains the principles and forms of beauty especially in art and lit-erature. In today's world we include a very diverse and broad definition of beauty. Much of what is considered beautiful in art is learned with experience. The marks on a painting of Jackson Pollock are beau-tiful only if one has investigated his work. It is similar to jazz music. At first, much of what one hears in jazz is unfamiliar to the ear. We try to find elements of music that

gives us a sense of completion which jazz often fails to do. In fact, that jazz gives us just the opposite. But we eventually discover that the sounds we hear in jazz music have their own kind of completion and, in time, we develop an understand-ing of jazz to the point where we can call it beautiful. If beauty were the same for everyone, everyone would want the same mate, the same clothing, the same home, or the same automobile. Yet, just as in-dividualistic as we are, so is our defini-tion of beauty. In fact, what we include as aesthetic (beauty) in art today is often not beautiful when taken out of the context of art. Those same marks on the canvas of a Jackson Pollock painting may seem ugly if found on any surface other than a painting. If we open our visual approach to any number of natural marks in nature, we might find them beautiful. The transfer from nature to art can be a positive step in broadening our understanding of beauty. Beauty is born out of many sources, some quite unexpected. It can be associated with danger, sex, speed, calmness, and even death. The flowing lines of a dolphin racing through the water are beautiful. A quiet, moonlit evening by a lake is beauti-ful. We have learned to view the image

What It Takes To Make ArtTom Supensky

Jackson Pollock. Sentieri ondulati. 1947. The National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome, Italy.

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of Christ on the cross as beautiful. Beauty is simply a matter of translation. Beauty is non-verbal communication. It gives pleasure to our senses.

We can substitute the word beauty with the word aesthetic and artists today are more inclined to use the word aes-thetic rather than the word beauty. This is partly true because the artist wants to discriminate between the layman's defini-tion of beauty and the artist's definition of beauty.

Beauty has been defined as that some-thing which makes the incomplete in us complete. We strive to find beauty, aes-thetics, as our means to know the truth, who we are, from where we come. Our continued struggle to find beauty will never end. As a means to justify our as-sertion that there is indeed a true and measurable beauty, we have suggested that there is an almighty power that will eventually reveal the answer. We look to our gods for anything we cannot fully comprehend.

The central focus on almost all early art is spiritual or religious in nature. The con-tinued search for life after death and relat-ed aspects of human existence prompted the production of images in a vast array of media. The importance of religious belief led to the perfection of skill and the use of a variety of materials. Common utili-

tarian objects, such as wine storage jars, were used as the vehicle for more creative directions.

One's understanding of aesthetics will become clearer at certain moments in life, moments that we should cherish as those few times when life is really fantastic. Try not to define the moment, simply enjoy it. Maybe within that moment is true aes-thetics. I like to think of aesthetics as hav-ing some magical, mysterious, indefinable quality about it.

There are those who avoid the topic of aesthetics. They might refer to the con-cept of taste. We could describe taste as having to do with being informed as to what is aesthetically pleasing. Aesthet-ics and taste are interchangeable; they are either the head or the tail of a vis-cous circle that is art. We often say that some people have good taste while oth-ers have poor taste. Does that mean that those with good taste have better insight into the concept of aesthetics? Taste re-fers to judgment about what is suitable at the moment. Taste usually comes with a set of rules. We all have a certain taste in clothing, music, television programs and so forth. Having good taste usually means one is following the current style or rule. Taste is usually locally connected rather than universally dispersed, although taste can pervade beyond narrow boundaries as today's communication and marketing technologies grow. It should be noted that when taste becomes the norm, quality is lowered. Good taste in art may mean that

someone has the ability to select quality art over poor art. Good taste in art to one may be bad taste to another. Taste is as-sociated with one’s background, environ-ment, education, experiences and preju-dices. It might be better to say that one person has different taste to another. Most artists avoid the concept of taste in rela-tion to their art as they are looking for innovation that normally lives outside the realm of current taste.

Anything that is art is aesthetic, or it is aesthetically arranged or formed. From nature the artist selects a subject and gives it aesthetic form. This is the differ-ence between the beauty of nature and the beauty of art. Art is nature formed into an aesthetic symbol. In that sense, aesthetics cannot be a part of raw nature until that particular aspect of nature has been given an intentional form by an artist.

It seems that one definition of aesthet-ics contradicts the next definition. The foundation of the concept of aesthetics is related to all cultures and societies, re-gardless of how we define art or if there was even a word for it. The Greeks had no word for art. Aesthetics blossoms into countless forms.

The more we develop how we see the world around us the more we develop our aesthetic insight. How we see the world remains quite different from one individu-al to another. It depends upon the purpose for which we look at something. What do we see when we see a stone? Some may imagine it as a weapon, some as a chemi-cal compound, some as an obstacle to traverse, some as a decorative garden ob-ject and others as an aesthetic possibility for art. As would-be artists, we must learn to see the world with aesthetic intentions.

PurposePurpose and intent are similar. There

is normally a primary purpose for a work of art. Purpose can be based on what the artist wants the viewer to know or feel when looking at a work of art. The in-tent of art in general can have a variety of objectives or aims. The purpose in art is driven by the desire to create some-thing. Once we have stepped into the act of making art, we must contemplate what our aims are. They can be quite noble or even underhanded. Whatever purpose we engage, it should be directed at producing the best art we can. Financial returns are always an important issue. Any work of art made solely for monetary gains may overshadow the inclusion of other pur-

Greek Amphora - The Struggle between Her-cules and a Centaur. National Archaeological Museum, Greece.

Author Words of the Devil, after Gauguin - 1972


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poses and therefore, lessen the aesthetic quality of that work. There are those of us who never really understand why they make art. There can be a host of reasons and their chosen order can vary according to any given moment. If anything, give some consideration to motives, intent, or purpose from time to time. It may help in the long run.

Art and its Communicative NatureCommunication is yet another essen-

tial ingredient in making art. Art is sim-ply another form of language, a message. Art uses symbols to express a message. In fact, art has been described as a more per-fect and higher form of communication than the spoken or written word. We need to learn how to read art. It is something that we do subconsciously and we are not always prepared to let our subconscious and intuition take over our rational side of reading communication methods. Gen-erally, art as communication is more per-sonal, meant for one-on-one rather than for the masses. Even in musical, dance or theatrical performances, each person in the audience has to read the content of that art form on his or her own. Quite often the artist forgets about the message and gets too involved with skill and tech-nique, time and money.

However I try to describe the meaning of the communicative nature of art, I will possibly fall short of an accurate defini-tion because art itself could speak more clearly on its own. Let art speak for itself.

When reading art, where symbols are the words, one must be able to recognize one thing as standing for another. An ob-ject may have many symbolic interpre-tations. Early forms of expression used symbols to convey a message. Later, these symbols were reduced to hieroglyphics; a pictographic script that eventually be-came individual letters to form words that meant the same as the original symbol. We might believe that art had its beginnings when humans first began to use symbols.

How do we read those symbols em-ployed by artists in their work? It is im-portant to understand that the image, the symbols used to create the image, is not necessarily the message. The viewer must avoid a literal translation and look for a symbolic translation. The transla-tion is not normally expected to be the same for all. In fact, many artists ask each viewer to come up with their own indi-vidual interpretation of the art. The true test for a work of art is if one can even-

tually find some meaning within while a sense of mystery continues. This unsolv-able element of any artwork is what keeps its audience involved. It is suggested that any meaning searched for in a work of art come naturally and allowed to develop over time. First impressions can be mis-leading even if they are captivating. Enjoy the image at the level it presents itself to you. Later it might speak further.

Making SpecialI attribute my findings on this subject

to Ellen Dissanayake who has written extensively on art from the anthropolo-gist's point of view. In her publications, she focuses on an anthropological look at art and culture. A major premise is that it is in our very nature, in our genes so to speak, to have the natural desire to make things special. We do this to ideas and ob-jects. At some point those ideas or objects, when combined with other important fac-tors, become art. That quality of making special can be compared to the concept of aesthetics. Although early cultures may not have yet developed the world of art as we know it today, within each human being that ever existed resides a special gene that has been passed on throughout the ages. We can call that gene the gene of creativity. While that gene may remain dormant in many of us, when stimulated it is what pushes us to make things spe-cial, to create. How one decides to make anything special is never clear.

The best answer is that it is a funda-mental part of our survival instinct. With-out the need to make things special, we would have soon become yet another ex-tinct product along with the dinosaur.

The French painter, Sisley, took the subject matter of a landscape and made it special with his particular style of paint-ing. What might have been a rather banal view was portrayed in a special manner.

HonestyMy final ingredient for making art is

honesty. Sincerity in art depends on other things besides the mere desire to be sin-cere. One can have all the sincerity that can be mustered up and still not be suc-cessful. However, without honesty art will eventually fail. We may be deceived from time to time when looking at a work and blindly accept it to be art. After the test of time, we may discover that the work has not met any aesthetic standard. Some-times, the failure of a work of art can be attributed to not working according to who we are. You cannot be someone else, and, if you try, you will only produce work that is less than your true capabil-ity. Be inspired by others, but do not copy them. Be yourself. Be honest and commu-nicate truth in your art.

Alfred Sisley. Flood on the Road to St Ger-main. 1876. The Museum of Fine Arts, Hou-ston, Texas.

TOM SUPENSKY is Professor Emeritus at Tow-son University in Towson, Maryland, where he taught for over thirty-five years. During his tenure, he taught on Fulbright exchanges in Bristol, England, and Oldenburg, Germany. He also taught in Florence, Italy, and Tasmania, Australia. He is presently living in Aiken, South Carolina, where he continues to make his clay sculpture. www.tomsupensky.com

This text is one chapter of his book Looking At Art - Aesthetic Concepts Fundamental To Being An Artist, Tate Publishing and Enterprises, LLC


In August 2014, I received the NEUE KERAMIK / NEW CERAMICS prize at

Oldenburg International Ceramic Fair in Germany. Besides a solo exhibition of my works entitled The Visible and the Invisible lasting several weeks at the Landesmuseum fur Kunst und Kulturgeschichte in August 2015, part of the prize was a bursary for a study trip, e.g. to Denmark, Italy, China or the USA. I followed my intuitions and Bernd Pfannkuche’s advice (publisher of the ceramics magazines NEUE KERAMIK/ NEW CERAMICS who donates the prize) and chose one of the best residency places in the USA: The Clay Studio in Philadel-phia. I was thrilled to go there as an inter-national perspective and very honoured to be selected as a Guest Artist in Residence for one-month stay in May 2015.

Settled in the Heart of America close to Liberty Bell and with the oldest city street in the United States at next corner, The Clay Studio is a world-renowned ceramic arts learning centre located in Philadel-phia; the majority of art galleries are cen-tred around the Old City district.

Many of the most influential ceramic artists have come through the Centre. This year, artists have come from all over the world for one or two months’ stay: Petra Svoboda from Australia in January, Tet-suya Tanaka from Japan in February, Hao Luo from China in February, Carrie Reich-ardt from England in March/April, Ibra-him Said from North Carolina and Egypt in June/July, Antonella Cimatti from Italy in August, Jillian Schley and Naomi Cleary from the United States.

Running up the Rocky Steps as im-mortalized by Sylvester Stallone in the 1976 movie Rocky and taking a picture at the top is a must on a visit to the fa-mous Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA). Inside, the third largest art museum in the country has masterworks from Marcel Duchamp's radical Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors to Impressionist master-pieces. In the city, both the PMA and the Barnes Foundation have impressive Im-pressionist collections. Matisse's Dance is a monumental work commissioned spe-

cifically by Barnes himself.Much of the city has been transformed

into a canvas with the Mural Arts Program focusing on neighbourhood revitalization. Several thousand works by local graffiti and mural artists adorn formerly industrial buildings and brick-walled homes.

The Clay Studio provides studio spaces, classes and a Gallery. Special events such as introductory classes, date night work-shops, family workshops and special occa-

sion Sunday brunches are always sold out. On the ground floor is the gallery and

the shop where many American ceramists’ works can be found.

The Clay Studio strives to support art-ists and provides an environment that accommodates artists at many levels of commitment and accomplishment. The programme housed on the first floor of the studio is called the Associate Programme. Its aim is to expand the associates’ skills and to develop their own artistic voices. They can remain up to five years with the possibility of one five-year renewal.

On the top floor, freshly graduated stu-dents can apply for a studio space as long-term Resident Artists. Providing studio spaces and facilities takes away the over-heads artists would face in starting their own studios. They can develop their work,

and establish professional contacts. Very cheap renting spaces and their contribu-tion to the course programme allow them to work within the community up to five years.

Philadelphia, nicknamed Philly, is a fantastic place for human and cultural meetings. During my month’s stay, I ex-perienced the “First Fridays”: on the first Friday evening of every month, the streets of Old City fill with art lovers of all kinds

who wander among the neighbourhoods of more than forty galleries.

I was invited to several events organized by The Clay Studio. The first one was at a venue called The Crafted Table, an evening dinner party hosted by an Italian chef. The dinner was entirely served on artist-made tableware represented in The Clay Studio Gallery. The concept represents a new vi-sion of art engagement: making craft ac-cessible by using hand-made ceramics for practical purposes to create a different ap-proach to bring in unfamiliar visitors to this niche art form.

The second event I was invited to was an amazing workshop bringing to-gether for the first time Tomoo Hamada and Simon Leach, the grandsons of Shoji Hamada and Bernard Leach. Organized by The Clay Studio in partnership with Tyler

by Karima Duchamp

BACK FROM A RESIDENCYat the Clay Studio in Philadelphia

ARTIST IN RESIDENCEPHILADELPHIA


School of Art, the workshop consisted of a demonstration workshop by two ceramic artists with fascinating family legacies. The introduction about the History of Craft by Jennifer Zwilling (curator of the artistic programme at the Clay Studio) was espe-cially interesting, with the Arts & Crafts Movement in Europe and North America and the Mingei Movement that emerged in Japan in early 20th century.

Another creative programme I focused on is a mobile arts programme called the Claymobile, with “ceramic education for everyone!” as a motto. This is dedicated to bringing clay art education to diverse populations in the Philadelphia region. Created by Kathryn Narrow in 1994, the Claymobile van actually goes to people and encourages organizations and schools to develop and expand their arts pro-grams. It enriches the lives of its partici-pants through exposure to the arts. These programmes are innovative for developing people’s focus on arts and crafts. People may share experiences, improve practices and strengthen the position of art in rela-tion to education, foster values and disci-pline essential for intellectual, emotional and social development of human beings in a community.

Guest Resident Artists as I was are based on the second floor together with the usual student courses. I was supplied with studio space and access to facilities that include kilns and other equipment. The studio has an impressive range of facilities (electric and gas kilns) providing excellent oppor-tunities and experience for me. The highly qualified staff and technicians were always available to offer support and guidance. My time was rich, intense with no pressure on my work production. I had free access to my studio space at any time. I appreci-ated this studio space in the middle of the students’ spaces and the exchanges that happened. I realize that I found it easy to work in front of an “audience”, which is radically opposite to the way I work alone in my own studio.

The first week, I gave a slide lecture about my work. This evening presentation was a good opportunity to talk about my-self and to let people have an approach on how I work and my influences.

During my stay, I did not start actual new works, as the time passed quickly and I encounter some difficulties with the clay, I had to adapt my works. However, I did spend more time on the pieces, trying to deconstruct them and to work the colours in a more subtle way to get diffuse colours

and textures, and work on details. I was very attracted at a surface level,

by the redbrick and buildings featuring industrial architecture. The decay of the walls all around Philadelphia, the remains of hand experience traces that shape the urban landscape was really inspiring, to-gether with the Mural Arts Program.

After having experienced several resi-dencies abroad, I always appreciate this time away from my studio when nothing is related and everything has to be discov-ered. The focus on my artwork becomes more essential but also writing, drawing, connecting with people and taking time for it. I am an observer, I travel, I sit down and look around me, watching people, in search of little things.

I am happy that the works I left at the end of my residency were exhibited in sev-eral shows. Some of my works were pre-

sented in The Clay Studio Gallery during the exhibition Ashes to Ashes: Religion in Contemporary Ceramic Art from August 7 to September 24, 2015. One of the other pieces I did will be presented in a pop-up exhibition related to Philadelphia Design Week in a gallery down the street.

This December, some of my drawings (made in Philadelphia!) will be hung up in an exhibition called On the Threshold, about Jennifer Zwilling’s first year of cu-rating.

Many thanks to Mr Bernd Pfannkuche, Mr Christopher Taylor (President of The Clay Studio), Mrs Jennifer Zwilling and The Clay Studio Team for their attention to my work. Very touched to be the chosen one.

Karima Duchamp - [email protected] www.karimaduchamp.net

EXHIBITION


The third place among the most visited museums in Portugal and the most select ceramic history museum, the Museu Nacional do

Azulejo has collaborated with the Romanian Cultural Institute in Lisbon for the first exhibition of a contemporary Romanian ceramist. Cristina Bolborea (born on 1956) conducted doctoral research (about ceramic decoration in Central Asia) at the National University of Arts Bucharest, an institution where she has been a professor of ceramics since 2000.

The artist has exhibited individually and participated in various group exhibitions in Romania. She was also the curator of exhibitions of contemporary decorative art with the Galleries Orizont, Galateea (Bu-charest) and Brâncoveanu Palaces Cultural Centre (Mogosoaia).

The large exhibition in Lisbon, Places to be there (Lugares onde es-tarei), stayed open for about six months (from 15 July 2014 to 5 January 2015). Enthusiastic acceptance of the exhibition project by the direc-tor/museographer, Maria Antónia Pinto de Matos, led to a magnificent display of ceramic works. Besides the prestigious permanent exhibition, the MNAz hosts temporary exhibitions sparingly and with an exclusiv-ist spirit, in two large rooms, on two levels. The penultimate exhibition there - Terra Ignis, signed by the famous contemporary Spanish artist, Barceló, and the latest one - a panorama of Chinese porcelain and its influence on Portuguese art - speak for themselves about the criteria of rigour and artistic quality governing the temporary selections of the Museu Nacional do Azulejo.

Cristina Bolborea's exhibition was a selection of about 150 pieces, staged sumptuously, in about 200 square metres, in a fine contrast of

Daniel Nicolescu

CRISTINA BOLBOREA

“About Places to be There”

lights and dark angles, with studied theatrical effects. With Levantine-aulic references, most parts are soft folds and strains on clay plinths. They are empathi-cally invested as patterns of oriental carpets, with their ingenious decorative system cleverly equated. The ceramic themes conceived in grogged stoneware and porcelain since 2006 are grouped in cycles such as: Old Masters' Carpets, Storm Eye, Cypress Thorns, Call Me Turquoise, Lagoa de Albufeira, Each Deserted Re-gion Has It’s Centre Point, Siena, Rest. The latest, Black Box Jewelry, are rings of porcelain bands expanded in multidirectional planes. Their cabochon of an optic crystal ball gives, however, a nodal point. Literally, the ingenious links between difficult materials relate to the emulative practice of assemblage.

Nuno Vassallo e Silva (Director of Cultural Herit-age) and Teresa Mourão, Head of Division for museums (Chefe de Divisão de Museus e Credenciação) within the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage (Direção-Geral do Património Cultural) considered that it would be appropriate for the exhibition, still in the month of July, to travel to other Portuguese museums.

This was the point where the great adventure began, on Lusitanian scale, not only on a Lisbon scale. Recon-figured, depending on exhibition spaces offered to host

EXHIBITIONLISBON


CRISTINA BOLBOREATel: + 40 733 77 13 55 [email protected] I [email protected]

Cristina Bolborea, born in 1956, in Bucharest, Romania. She is an artist with a large and varied professional activity. Having been a professor and researcher for the National University of Arts since 2000, she took her PhD in fine and decorative arts at the same institute. Her curatorial activity developed in the capital city for decorative art galleries such as Orizont or Galateea, alternating with organising art events for the Cultural Cen-tre of Brancovan Palaces in Mogosoaia. She has had numerous personal exhibitions in Romania, such as Effigies – Simeza Art Gallery in 2012, or The Genuine Brilliant One held at Galateea Art Gallery in 2007 in Bucharest, but Cristina Bolborea also took part in several collective exhibitions, like Drawing Pessoa – Fernando Pessoa Memorial House, Lisbon, 2014. Her latest accomplishment came in 2014, when she was invited by Museu Nacional do Azulejo in Lisbon to exhibit some of her works. The exhibition, named Places to be There, took place between 15 July 2014 and 5 January 2015.

the exhibition, Places to be There had a first opening on January 15, 2015 at the Museum Machado de Castro in Coimbra, one of the most important museums of fine arts and archaeology in Portugal. Open until 1 May, the exhibition was admired by approximately 25,000 visitors.

On 10 June, with the opportunity of the Portugal National Day, the exhibi-tion was inaugurated simultaneously in two museums of reference, Grão Vas-co and Quinta da Cruz, from Viseu. Conceived after successive simulations made by the artist and the local curators in line with the geometry and the spirit of new locations, Cristina Bolborea's work anthology reinvented itself and became a model of ingenious evolution, of metamorphosis in meliorist spirit, for the way how to provoke an itinerary of the exhibition.

Daniel Nicolescu is an art critic and a journalist. He is the director of Romanian Cultural Institute in Lisbon, Portugal

In view to be re-opened in Valencia, Spain, on the summer of 2016, the exhibition will have two new Portuguese stops, in Aveiro and Vila Real towns.


The two-year course in art and design at the

Ortwein Schule in Graz is unique in the Austrian educa-tional landscape. Four areas of study are on offer: sculp-ture, ceramic design, paint-ing, and jewellery and metal design.

From the age of 18, it is possible to take an aptitude test in art and thus to get one of nine places per year in each area of study.

The mix of various ages in each class is exciting.

The focus of the Meister-schule lies in the field of art and the aim is to pave the way for a career as a free-lance artist.

The ceramics workshop at the Ortweinschule has state-of-the-art equipment. Both the Meisterschule and the five-year course in Art and Craft Ceramics (from the age of fourteen) use this work-shop synergically. Apart from the classic ceramic techniques such as modelling, throwing, mould making and various firing techniques (gas, elec-tric, porcelain and raku fir-ings), restoration, conservation, 3D print-ing, laser engraving and photo ceramics are offered. Contemporary innovations are continually being integrated in the course.

The primal material clay and the vari-ous other ceramic materials provide the basis for individual development that, go-ing beyond the general understanding of ceramics links artistic concerns with cul-tural, scientific and societal content. The fundamental tools for this are form, colour,

drawing, space, function, concept, experi-ment, digital media. Part of the content on offer involves competitions, exhibitions and cultural activities.

The final examination consists of a presentation of practical artistic project work and written documentation as well as a theoretical oral examination. An inde-pendent jury annually awards scholarships on the basis of exhibited projects.

In 2015, from a total of four scholar-

ships for all four areas at the Meisterschule, three went to graduates from the field of ceramics. The theme of their graduation work was Poetic and/or Surreal.

The scholarship of the Akademie Graz went to An-drea Sadjak for her gradu-ation piece MOLPID. Based on Bear and Policeman by Jeff Koons, Andrea Sadjak created her Diplomeichhorn (“Graduation Squirrel”).

Comments by Dr Astrid Kury, President of the Aka-demie Graz: “Size matters: the freedom of thinking big is normally the leisure pur-suit of the over-privileged today, whilst the rest of the world is concerned with how to make at least something out of very little. Andrea Sadjak’s cheerfully scary squirrel MOLPID is thus not only inspired by this year’s theme of the surreal. Permit-ting oneself such an elabo-rate joke for the graduation piece is in itself an artistic manifesto. Ceramics was not exactly a pragmatic choice of medium here. With a cheer-

ful subversive gesture, Sadjak has brought the grotesque back into art. Of course one immediately thinks of Karl Karner’s huge Chocolate Squirrel in epoxy resin at St An-drew’s church in Graz, which was part of his complex absurd studies of public bod-ies. Andrea Sadjak’s squirrels, which also exist in other scenarios and as a part of other performances, have an air of au-tonomy. They are concerned with the good times and the bad of everyday life in the

Meisterschule für Kunst und Gestaltung

Andrea Sadjak and MOLPID photo Elisabeth Friedmann

CERAMIC DESIGNIrmgard Schaumberger

Graz / Austria

GRAZ TRAINING


manner of street art, they play with the often contradictory relationship between humans and animals and are placehold-ers for existential questions without al-lowing themselves to be crushed by the weight of omnipresent crises.”

A scholarship from the Kultur Service Gesellschaft of the State of Styria was awarded to Keyvan Paydar for his 3D animation Dönerstag (“Dönerday”).

Comments by jury member Eva Ur-sprung, artist: “Keyvan Paydar surprises with a complex stop-motion film with ir-resistibly expressive modelled figures in fired and unfired clay. The town consists of cardboard, in places, of printed paper, the figures’ thoughts appear on the walls and then disappear again. Advertising slogans made in alphabet soup are also involved. The artist eschews dialogues. The figures move jauntily in wheelchairs, which simplifies the animation but also throws up questions of normality. Eve-rything revolves, it revolves around the döner, and ultimately turns out to be a revolving potter’s wheel, from which this absurd world has emerged. Paydar has thus interpreted the theme of Poetic and/or Surreal in both senses. Beneath the humorous poetic surface, profound philosophical and political questions are posed.”

A second scholarship from the Kultur Service Gesellschaft went to Maria Weidner for the project Des bin i (“That’s me" in Austrian dialect). The theme of this work is taking art from its pedestal.

On behalf of the Kultur Service Ge-sellschaft, Petra Sieder comments: “Ma-ria Weidner’s graduation piece is dis-tinguished by a delicate and fragile interpretation of a theme that has accompanied her all her life: ballet dancing. In her memory, there is a dichotomy between the beauty of the movements and the pain caused by the rigorous training. By using delicate, resounding material porcelain, which in the raw state is still soft, she creates sculptural forms with her feet which allow space for the theme of pain as well as for the theme of beauty. The deeply personal approach of putting porcelain in the toe of ballet shoes and shaping it by dancing is remarkable. The fragile, irregular, perfectly formed figures are distinguished by an individual character. Painted images serve as a base for the minimal porcelain forms. The use of the colour red in these images goes to emphasise the theme of pain.”

A renaissance of ceramics in the 21st century is very much in evidence, and it has established itself in the world of contempo-rary art. We can encounter it at the Biennale in Venice as well as at the leading national and international galleries and museums.

www.ortweinschule.at keramikartcraft.info

Keyvan Paydar - Dönerstag photos Julia Lacina

Maria Wiedner mundtot (“gagged”) on the theme of sharing photo - Rupert Wiedner

Irmgard Schaumberger is a freelance ceramic artist / concepts with the media of clay and language.

Maria Wiedner - Installation Des bin i photo - Elisabeth Friedmann


Originally planned only for three festivals, the British Ceramics Bi-

ennial or short BCB is now in its fourth round and has become an established and successful event in the UK ceramics scene.

The BCB was created in 2009 by Man-chester-based craft curator Barney Hare Duke to celebrate the rich and diverse Brit-ish ceramics scene, to regenerate the region and to re-establish Stoke-on-Trent as an interesting tourist destination.

The high standard of the exhibits, rang-ing from design-led functional ware to site-specific and conceptual installations, attracts a large number of visitors during the six week-long festival. However, the site and exhibition venue itself, the now empty

halls, workshops and abandoned machin-ery of the historic Spode factory is clearly an attraction in its own right.

Established in 1776 by Josiah Spode, the factory was in continuous operation until 2008, boasting 22 bottle kilns and employ-ing around 1,000 workers during the 19th century. Spode’s great achievements in-clude the formulation of bone china, which became the standard for all English china wares, and the development and perfection

of underglaze transfer printing on earthen-ware, which enabled mass-production on a scale never previously achieved.

Today, most ceramic factories in Stoke including Wedgwood, best known for its famous Jasperware, have outsourced their

production to the Far East. What remains are beautiful industrial buildings, spacious and sunlit halls with high windows, cast iron columns, old signs and abandoned machinery, that speak of the glory days of the British ceramics industry. The Spode factory buildings are listed and in desperate need of restoration work. However, the old brick walls and worn concrete floors form the perfect backdrop for the installations, sculptural objects and design projects of the

BCB, adding atmosphere and an extra di-mension and depth to the modern creations.

For this year’s Biennial the panel, chaired by BCB artistic director Barney Hare Duke and Alun Graves, senior curator of Ceram-ics and Glass at the Victoria & Albert Mu-

The British Ceramics Biennial

Regina Heinz

STOKE ON TRENT 2015

Nao Matsunaga - 2015 - Standing on the Verge

photos - Regina Heinz

BIENNALE


seum, London, selected 75 artists from more than 300 applicants.

Award, the BCB signature event for established ceramic artists and Fresh, a platform for recent graduates, are the two main displays. Previously shown at The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, the 2015 Award exhibition is for the first time presented as an art installa-tion within the majestic China Hall on the original Spode factory site. The 12 artists selected for Award are:

Amy Hughes, Andrea Walsh, Ane-ta Regel, Anne Gibbs, Bethan Lloyd Worthington, Caroline Tattersall, In-grid Murphy with Jon Pigot, James Rigler, Mella Shaw, Paul Scott and Sam Bakewell.

Conceptual work dominates this year’s exhibition and includes James Rigler, who works with elements of architectural details to produce large-scale sculptures and installations. His site-specific installation in Stoke com-prises a series of columns that refer to the original cast iron supports in the China Hall. Maella Shaw’s installation pieces combine elements made in ce-ramics taken from the natural and built environment while Caroline Tattersall works with unfired clay. Her big plate-like objects draw attention to the pro-cess of making and the effects of time. Amy Hughes’ sculptures play with the traditional vase shape and Paul Scott’s tile panel, a large-scale reproduction of a blue-and-white transfer pattern used

Hannah Tounsend - Traversing the Line - “Fresh” exhibition

Lawrence Epps - AGAIN - Penny Arcade Machine

James Rigler - Columns - “Award” exhibitionAmy Hughes - Vase - “Award” exhibition

BIENNALE


to mass-produce 19th century tableware, refers to the British industrial ceramics tra-dition. Andrea Walsh, in my view, is the “non-conceptual” exception. Her intricate boxes and small containers are a combina-tion of ceramics and jewellery and display highly-developed craft skills and beautiful seductive surfaces. Finally, this year’s well deserved winner of the £5,000 award is Simon Bakewell, who graduated from the Royal College in 2011. He presents a beau-tiful clay “hut” covered in a wavy pattern created by hand in non-fired clay. He calls it a “pseudo-shaman’s” hut, a meditative room, which also functions as display space for his intricate and highly detailed carved small objects, reminiscent of talisman, reli-gious or mystical objects.

Fresh presents 22 graduates, mainly from the M.A. Ceramics programmes of the Royal College of Art and Cardiff Metropoli-tan University:

Alexandra Simpson, Charlotte Barker, Claire Mace, Claudia Wassiczek, Eva Radu-lova, Gail Mahon, Gemma Dardis, Hannah Tounsend, Hyu-Jin Jo, James Duck, Jongjin Park, Kate Haywood, Katie Schwab, Michael Wild, Michelle Lam, Natalie Wood, Eleanor Orly Edlavitch, Ragna Mouritzen, Rhiannon Lewando, Tana West, Tessa Eastman and Vilas Silverton.

Their work, displayed in various rooms throughout the factory, is really diverse and ranges from design-led pieces to functional thrown work, to decorative vessels, con-ceptual pieces and work that explores new

Hannah Tounsend - Traversing the Line - “Fresh” Exhibition

Paul Scott - Tree - ceramic transfer - Award exhibition

STOKE ON TRENT BIENNALE


technology. This year’s winner of a one-month residency at Guldagergaad, the International Ceramics Research Centre in Denmark, is Han-nah Tounsend, a graduate from the DeMont-fort University in Leicester. Her large vessels are skilfully decorated with abstract patterns and marks, reminiscent of the famous British painter Ben Nicholson. My favourites though are Jongjin Park, Eleanor Orly Edlavitch and Ragna Mouritzen. Jongjin from Cardiff works with the relationship between paper and clay, brushing slip onto fine tissue and firing it to high temperature. Eleanor presents her recent M.A. graduation project at Staffordshire Uni-versity, a playful collection of decorative but functional fine bone china containers and a beautiful Japanese tea set. Ragna, a graduate in fine art drawing from Camberwell College of Art uses a 3D printer to reproduce a draw-ing of a cup and saucer. Though created from a single drawing, each of the resulting pieces is different, demonstrating the inconsistencies and “flaws” of the process and proving that high-tech processes can produce exciting ar-tistic results and are just another tool in the hands of the artist.

True to its objective to put ceramics back on the map and encouraged by the sheer scale of the exhibition venue, BCB is a big event. It also comprises commissioned installations, events, family activities, 3D printing facilities, shop and café, all concentrated in Spode’s vast China Hall. Just to name a few Standing on the Verge is a site-specific installation of new abstract sculptures in the China Hall from 2013 Award winner Nao Matsunaga. Again is an interactive penny arcade machine, us-ing clay coins created by Lawrence Epps, and Resonate is a powerful WW1 Memorial by the British ceramicist Steven Dixon. Stephen has created a monumental head, which also incorporates thousands of white bone china flowers, recognising Stoke-on-Trent’s long history of ceramic flower making. Visitors are invited to attach a flower, handcrafted from white bone china, to the monumental sculpture as an act of personal remembrance in honour of the fallen men of the North Staf-fordshire Regiment.

BCB closed on 8 November 2015. This year in particular I thought it boasted a wealth of ideas and activities. The visit is exhausting but I am definitely looking forward to BCB 2017. It’s a great initiative and successful effort to keep ceramics in the public eye and a wonder-ful opportunity to see new trends in ceramics in a beautiful and historic environment.

Regina Heinz is a ceramist. She lives and works in London, Great [email protected]

Sam Bakewell - Imagination-Dead Imagine - “Award” Exhibition

Stephen Dixon - Resonate


The second edition of Cluj Interna-tional Ceramics Biennale is a syn-

ergic series of cultural events which, be-sides their artistic component, is aiming for an extensive intercultural dialogue as well as creating educational awareness in visual arts by introducing the Romanian viewer to contemporary ceramic artists and contemporary practice in the field. The biennale is also getting national and international institutions to work together with the aim of creating an environment for ceramics in the city of Cluj.

The Ceramart Foundation of The Sec-ond Edition of International Ceramics Biennale made the above announcement, about what is regarded as one of the most important activities in Romanian ceramics field. This event took place from 9 October – 3 November 2015 in Cluj-Napoca Mu-seum of Art.

By way of the internet, 7 jurors re-

viewed digital slides and artists’ files of 195 pieces; 110 works from 37 counties were finally selected.

The panel of Bernd Pfannkuche (Ger-many), Cristina Popescu Russu (Romania), Ruriko Miyamoto (Japan) and Ting-Ju Shao (Taiwan), who were present on site at the competition, awarded 12 prizes among 110 pieces from 37 countries, chose 3 awards of highest recognition without ranking, which went to: Alicja Buławka–Fankidejska, Poland for into the wild (top right)Bahar Ari Dellenbach, Turkey for Reflection (top left) and The Thinker by Valerie Zimany, United States

The work Into the Wild by Alicja Buławka-Fankidejska is a subtle dialogue between two simple symmetrical shapes, different only in dimensions. Russu com-mented, “The dynamic vibrant surfaces,

which underline the shape, create a mys-tery mood, sending us back into prehis-tory. They talk about materials and fire, about power and protection.”

In Bahar Ari Dellenbach’s work Re-flection, the two face to face portraits are elevated, as Russu said: “It becomes a message in itself, with a social subject. It is our ego reflected in the mirror, it is a critique and self-criticism, a reflection over what’s happening in the world, but also within us.”

Valerie Zimany brings audiences to mysterious feeling. Miyamoto com-mented on The Thinker, “We can see the current complex relationships of Eastern and Western cultures through history. She uses the Japanese overglaze technique. Distantly familiar archetypes from 1970s electronics and design, traditional textile patterns, vintage enamelled china and manga or graffiti overlap to create seem-

by Ting-Ju SHAO

CLUJ INTERNATIONAL CERAMICS BIENNALEThe Second Edition

photos courtesy of Cluj International Ceramics Biennale

Alicja Buławka–Fankidejska“Into the wild”

Bahar Ari Dellenbach“Reflection”


ingly improbable combinations.”Eight (8) Honourable Mentions went to

Agnes Husz (Hungary), Andrei Florian (Romania), Brian Kakas (United State), Enver Güner (Turkey), Ihor Kovalevych (Ukraine), Irina Razumovskaya (Rus-sian Federation), Ömür Tokgöz (Turkey), Simcha Even-Chen (Israel). And Young Artist Award went to Alupoaie Andrei (Romania)

Miyamoto remarked on Agnes Husz’s work Untitled, she thought she had great skill to control the work and the circling motion give us the hint of a cosmic nature.

Andrei Florian’s work "Relicvariu II" is unified craft and sculpture. The work is made with painstaking care using thin clay, string like knitting.

"Architectonics #1" by Brian Kakas, is from a sculpture-architecture series inspired by nature. “The organic shape is counterbalanced with the geometrical

part. The profound blue gives strength to his shape and the graphic contour under-lines its movement, rendering also a cer-tain direction.” (Comment by Russu.)

The four pieces placed together by Enver Güner, "Together" show audiences the contrary. Russu suggested the artistic expression dominates the industrial, sug-gesting that the pieces were just taken out of their moulds, with the flashings, be-come artistic, dynamic by repetition and solar.

Ihor Kovalevych using the three ele-ments - cylinder, rectangular plane (with or without structures) and the sphere ap-plied in his work "Meeting In Summer", it is in a spontaneous ludic impulse, it is a game of architecture or architecture of the game all transposed in ceramics.

Irina Razumovskaya makes use of symbolic historical objects that incite the viewer to reflexion. “A simple utilitarian

object, perfectly fashioned, an artefact, raised on a higher level, where the viewer has access only through knowledge.”

Ömür Tokgöz’s work "Technological and Primitive" impressed by the simple sensitive and expressive shape of the por-celain.

As for Simcha Even-Chen’s "Folding in Motion", Miyamoto said the artist cre-ated motion by folding a thin clay slab. The organic forms have an extremely soft image by the property of low firing and the effect of the inside and the outside surface treatment.

The Second Edition of Cluj Interna-tional Ceramics Biennale closed on No-vember 3, 2015. It was a great success.

Ting-Ju Shao is a ceramist and author based in Taiwan. She is a member of I.A.C. Shao writes for international specialist art magazines. http:// web.me.com /shao36

Valerie Zimany“The Thinker”Agnes Husz, Untitled

Andrei Florian “Relicvariu II”

Brian Kakas Architectonics #1

Ihor Kovalevych“Meeting In Summer”


Over the last 25 years, Linda Leon-ard Schlenger has amassed one

of the most important collections of con-temporary ceramics in the country. The Ceramic Presence in Modern Art features more than 80 carefully selected objects from the Schlenger collection by leading 20th century artists who have engaged clay as an expressive medium – including Robert Arneson, Hans Coper, Ruth Duck-worth, John Mason, Kenneth Price, Lucie

Rie, and Peter Voulkos – alongside a broad array of artworks created in clay and other media from the Yale University Art Gal-lery’s permanent collection.

Although critically lauded within the studio-craft movement, many ceramic pieces by artists who have continuously or periodically worked in clay are only now coming to be recognized as important and integral contributions to the broader history of modern and contemporary art. By jux-taposing exceptional examples of ceramics with great paintings, sculptures, and works on paper and highlighting the formal, his-torical, and theoretical affinities among the works on view, this exhibition aims to re-examine the contributions of ceramic artists to 20th and 21st century art.

The Ceramic Presence in Modern Art fo-cuses on the work of 16 artists who have at times or throughout their careers chosen clay as their medium: Robert Arneson, Billy Al Bengston, Hans Coper, Anthony Caro, Ruth Duckworth, Robert Hudson, John Mason, Jim Melchert, Ron Nagle, Magda-lene Odundo, George E. Ohr, Kenneth Price, Lucie Rie, Richard Shaw, Toshiko Takaezu, and Peter Voulkos. Their ceramic objects are displayed side by side with more than 200 modern and contemporary artworks in oth-

er media by artists including John Cham-berlain, Bruce Conner, Helen Frankenthaler, Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, Edward Kienholz, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Isamu Noguchi, Jackson Pol-lock, Martin Puryear, Mark Rothko, Edward Ruscha, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and Mark di Suvero.

The effort to more fully integrate ce-ramics into the history of art responds to recent shifts in approaches to both making and exhibiting artworks. In the last dec-ade, ceramics have become commonplace in contemporary art, created by both art-ists with academic training and those who are new to the medium. Simultaneously, ceramic artists such as Mason, Price, and Voulkos have gained renown among wide public audiences. “These developments have grown out of a larger dissolution of boundaries and hierarchies in the visual arts, where artists bear less allegiance to any particular historical medium or tra-dition, opting instead to use whatever materials best suit their ideas at a given moment,” explains Sequoia Miller, PhD candidate in the history of art, Yale Uni-versity, and co-curator of the exhibition. “Museums have followed this lead by be-ginning to incorporate a wider range of artworks and disciplines into both perma-nent-collection installations and special exhibitions.”

Throughout the installation, historical, theoretical, and formal affinities among artworks are explored. Many of the art-ists working chiefly in ceramics were close friends and colleagues of artists working in other media, teaching, exhibiting, and collaborating with them. This kind of vital exchange of ideas was especially common in California in the 1950s and 1960s but also occurred in other locations and peri-ods. Price and Ruscha, for example, knew each other as young artists in Los Ange-les in the 1960s. Puryear and Duckworth had studios in close proximity in Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s and developed a rich mutual respect for each other’s works. Kline, di Suvero, and Voulkos were also well acquainted, and each explored Ab-stract Expressionist ideas in his work. For-mal correspondences of line, shape, and

THE CERAMIC PRESENCE IN MODERN ART

Selections from the Linda Leonard Schlenger Collection and the Yale University Art Galleryfrom September 4, 2015to January 3, 2016

USA EXHIBITION


texture are illuminated through various groupings, such as the display of Mason’s sculptures amid paintings by Guston, Hofmann, and de Koon-ing and the presentation of works by Duckworth alongside sculptures by Noguchi and Puryear.

“The Ceramic Presence in Modern Art and its accompanying catalogue and programming are the culmination of a great deal of research and close-looking,” says Jock Reynolds, the Henry J. Heinz II Director and co-curator of the exhibition. “This rich collaborative journey began in 2013, when I first met Linda Leonard Schlenger and encountered the breadth and remark-able quality of her collection. That fortuitous meeting, coupled with hours of subsequent conversation, bolstered our shared conviction that artworks created in all media can evoke equally complex and satisfying responses.” Reynolds continues, “We are delighted that the exhibition programming in-cludes talks by practicing artists such as Erwin Hauer, John Mason, Jim Melchert, Martin Puryear, and Ursula von Rydingsvard; this and the other related programs – as well as the installation itself – are sure to yield many interesting conversations among visitors, scholars, students, and artists as these objects are presented and reconsidered in the vital context of this teaching museum and the neighboring Yale School of Art.”

The Yale University Art Gallery, the oldest college art museum in the United States, was founded in 1832 when the patriot-artist John Trumbull gave more than 100 of his paintings to Yale College. Since then its collections have grown to more than 200,000 objects ranging in date from ancient times to the present.1111 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut. www.artgallery.yale.edu.

opposite top - view in the exhibition - Mark Rothko (left) Toshiko Takaezu (in front) - Robert Motherwell (behind)opposite below - Peter H. Voulkos - “Big Jupiter”- 1994 - Wood-fired stone ware - 101.6 x 77.47 x 68.58 cm

below - Kenneth Price - “Opaline” - 2001 - Stoneware with paint 35.56 x 34.29 x 30.48 cmright f.t.to b. - Ruth Duckworth - “Untitled”- ca. 1993(?) - Porcelain 18.1 x 24.77 x 11.43 cm - George E. Ohr - “Vase” - 1895–96 - Earthenware with glaze 33.66 x 13.97 x 13.97 cm - Anthony Caro - “Lola” - 1988–89 - Wood-fired stoneware 47.63 x 58.42 x 33.02 cm


Teabowls to Korea? Coals to Newcas-tle? Yes, of course!

I travelled to Korea in May 2015 thanks to a kind personal recommendation. I had already said several times that I could spend the rest of my life making nothing but teabowls if that were financially feasible. In these conveniently-sized drinking vessels, an infinite world of technical and creative possibilities opens up – and I am not talk-ing about philosophy or design but simply craft pottery.

The Mungyeong Traditional Chasabal Festival took place last year from 1–10 May.

This festival is still relatively young. It took place for the first time on 1 and 2 Oc-tober 1999. The organizer’s intention was to develop the existing cultural landscape and to promote the material and intellec-tual characteristics of the traditional Ko-rean teabowl as well as supporting the local

master craftsmen with their traditional Ko-rean mangda-engi kilns.

Well, they have certainly succeeded. There were more than 240,000 visitors at the latest festival!

It is Korean colleagues with their aes-thetically designed spaces who make up the largest part of the exhibitors. The for-eign guests, an exotic species here, provide a small shop window on the world of the teabowl outside the Korean ceramic cosmos.

But my attempt to describe the diversity and quality of the ceramic products there is simply impossible here, and as a customer it would fulfil all my wishes: the birthplace of Far Eastern ceramics is equally located in China and Korea.

Colleagues from Spain,. New Zealand, China, the USA, Israel, Austria and Ger-many had been invited to attend, including the prizewinner at the international teabowl

competition, Encarna Soler Peris from Spain with her handbuilt, shino-glazed teabowls, displaying her very individual, somewhat austere concept of form.

It is also important to mention the cor-dial, immaculately organized hospitality for the well-travelled guests and the cultural programme that ran parallel to the Festival. There was hardly time to catch your breath with all the unmissable things going on.

The venue is the site of a very imposing, ancient fortress which has been lovingly perhaps imaginatively restored. The exhibi-tors used many of the buildings; at other times they are used as film sets.

The castle gates look unfamiliar, defiant and forbidding. During the era of the Three Kingdoms (18 B.C.E – 235 C.E.) it played an important part protecting a trade route. The fortress was still of some importance at the time of the Japanese invasion (1592).

A DOZEN TEABOWLS TO KOREA

above - the fortress entrance

far left -throwing competition

left - kilns atMungyeong Ceramics Museum

Armin Rieger


FESTIVAL

I was particularly curious about the throwing competition, which had mainly attracted younger Korean potters. A tradi-tional Korean wheel was used. It is signifi-cantly different from its European counter-part. They only have the fact that they are foot-driven in common. The flywheel is the first major difference. Whereas the flywheel in Europe weighs about 50 kg and is ap-proximately 1 metre in diameter, the wheel-head in Korea and the foot-driven flywheel are the same size.

I imprudently volunteered to join in, to-gether with my Austrian colleague Stefan Schwarz, just so that there was someone to play the fool.

And we did. The technique for these wheels is totally different from ours, and on top of that it needs the stamina of a mara-thon runner. Only Jeff Brown, who has been in Korea several times, could master

this “instrument of torture” like a Korean. I would also like to make special men-

tion of the visit of Professor Tae Keum Yoo, with whom everyone could fire a teabowl they had brought with them, although the barbecue and the viewing of the studio were perhaps the main attraction along side the traditional woodfired kiln.

A visit to the Bongamsa Buddhist tem-ple from 882 with its contemplative atmos-phere left a lasting impression with the low cloud, light rain, misty hill forests and an overwhelming sea of flowers.

But most impressive of all was a visit to the potter Cheon-Han Bong, a revered mas-ter. Among his many distinction on display was the certificate of the KOREA MASTER-HAND with a golden chain.

A lot of things would be worth recount-ing, but I must add just one more thing: It is the attitude of the Korean colleagues and

the way they treat their work and the pieces they are making. My friend, Stefan Scharz called it very aptly “unpretentious”. It would be impossible to achieve a better approach to the profession!

My particular gratitude goes to the mu-nicipality of Mungyeong and to Mr Choi Hong Soo and the many other helpers for their assistance and hospitality.

Shortly afterwards I was surprised by how small our planet is and how active pot-ters are. In the early summer at the Interna-tional Teabowl Exhibition in the Keramik-museum Westerwald, Professor Tae Keum Yoo and Robert W. Lawarre, also guest of Mungyeong and the author bumped into each other again purely by chance!

Armin Rieger is a ceramist and woodfirer. He lieves in Bergfels near Güstrow. [email protected]

top leftdemonstration of the tea ceremony

top rightJeff Brown at a Korean

wheel

far rightthe author

rightKorean-American jazz duo


On Friday, 20 November 2015 in Mettlach, eight municipalities

jointly founded the Federation of German Ceramics Towns. Through their cooperation and positioning themselves internationally, the ceramics towns together aim to further their development economically, socially and culturally.

Mayor Carsten Wiemann had issued the invitiations to Mettlach after the potential in closer cooperation had been recognised at a preliminary networking conference in Höhr-Grenzhausen in June. He welcomed the participants at Schloss Saareck, which provided a fitting setting as the guest house of porcelain manufacturers Villeroy & Boch, with its many connections to ceramics. The founding members include Brachtal, Duin-gen, Höhr-Grenzhausen, Kellinghusen, Landshut, Mettlach, Römhild and Sier-

shahn. Further municipalities have already announced their interest; Velten, renowned for its tiled stoves, joined the Federation immediately after its founding, and Rheins-berg was represented at the meeting by its Mayor, Jan-Peter Rau.

Michael Thiesen, Mayor of Höhr-Gren-zhausen, was elected Chair, and is delighted by the response: “What unites us as mu-nicipalities is the ceramic tradition, a shared cultural heritage. All of us are actively fac-ing the challenge of structural change in ceramics. It is vital to combine these forces and to learn from the experience of our col-leagues.” Further members elected to the committee include deputy chair Carsten Wiemann, Christoph Stürz as the Mayor of Brachtal and Axel Pietsch, Mayor of Kel-linghusen.

The founding members intend to con-

solidate the interchange between the mu-nicipalities and to initiate joint projects, including greater linking of local activities, working jointly to improve the image of ceramics, promoting the arts and foster-ing the common cultural heritage. Putting the members on an international footing and networking between German ceramics towns will be major parts of the work of the Federation.

From Italy, Giuseppe Olmeti was pre-sent at the foundation meeting on behalf of the European Grouping of Territorial Co-operation of Ceramics Cities (AEuCC). He congratulated his German colleagues and briefed them on current plans for transna-tional projects in Europe. In this context, the Federation sees itself as representing the joint interests of German ceramics towns at national and European levels.

German Ceramics CitiesJoin Forces in a new Organisation

Group photo above l. to r.: Giuseppe Olmeti, AEuCC, Michael Voigt, representing spon-sors from Höhr-Grenzhausen, Christoph Stürz, Mayor of Brachttal, Carsten Wiemann, Mayor of Mettlach, Axel Pietsch, Mayor of Kellinghusen, Michael Thiesen, Mayor of Höhr-Grenzhausen, Alwin Scherz, Mayor of Siershahn, Uta Spies, Arts Secretary of LandshutUdo Arndt, Society of Friends of the Ceramics Museum in Velten, Maike Arndt, Velten, Jan-Pieter Rau, Mayor of Rheinsberg, Rheinhard Keitel representing Römhild, Dirk Borov-ka, representing Duingen

left: the committee of the Federation: l. to r. Axel Pietsch, Mayor of Stadt Kellinghusen, Vorsitzender Michael Thiesen, Mayor of Höhr-Grenzhausen, Carsten Wiemann, Mayor of Mettlach, Christoph Stürz, Mayor of Gemeinde Brachttal.

SYMPOSIUM


Waleed R. Qaisi is a ceramic sculptor. He works and lives between Jordan and Qatar.PO BOX 35315 - Doha-Qatar [email protected]

right from t. to b. - National Centre of Ceramic Art, Sidi Kacem Jelizi; The courtyard of the Art Centre; Raku firing with Mohamed Hachicha and Jose Ramos; Waleed R. Qaisi with ceramist Xohan Perezbelow - the group of artists on the closing day, 12 September 2015

A t the Centre of National Ceramic Art Sidi Kacem Jelizi in Tunis the capital, the 5th International Symposium for Artistic Ceramics was held

from 2-12 September 2015, where multiple cultures come together. The sympo-sium is organized by the director Mohamed Hachicha, PhD.

18 artists from 8 countries Spain, Egypt, Portugal, Iran, Turkey, France, Tu-nisia and Iraq participated in the symposium, which took place in Sidi Kacem Jelizi a historical palace that was built in the 15th century. This palace was turned into ceramic art centre some years ago and since then it has offered a 2-year training programme in ceramic art to students as well as special courses to the craft lovers.

The centre has opened its doors, studios, workshops and showrooms to fa-mous artists to work, to exchange and to share experiences with each other and with students and daily visitors to the centre. Different techniques were practiced by the artists: building approaches, firing and glazing. Workshops, demonstra-tions and presentations started at 9:00 a.m. and went on to 5:30 p.m. During the working day some artists were scheduled to perform a presentation and talk about their work for the audiences.

The symposium programme also included cultural touristic visits to Bardo and Carthage museums, to the old town Souq of Tunis, to the ceramic factories and shops in Nableu, where they make bricks, tiles, and traditional pots, to the environ-ment protection project in Sidi Bin Amour, and to the national carpet factory in the capital and other natural beautiful sites. This was great opportunity for the art-ists to have a close look at the history, heritage, customs and traditions of Tunisia.

On the closing day of the symposium an exhibition was held under the patron-age of her Excellency the Minister of Culture to show the work of the artists, then a certificate of participation was given to each artist at the closing ceremony.

I was invited to this symposium and my participation included the first work, which was untitled (Is this art?); the second one was named organic, focusing on my ideas about the concept of rational thinking, because it is an image of reality.

5th International Ceramic Art Symposium

Mohamed Hachicha PhD is the Director of the National Centre of Ceramic Art, Sidi Kacem Jelizi, Tunis. [email protected]

September 2015 - Tunis


How does this sound to you: do-ing pottery for three months up to

eight hours a day in a restored 16th cen-tury farmhouse in the midst of the Tuscan hills? The La Meridiana school in Certal-do, which is well known in the ceramics world, is halfway between Florence and

Siena and now offers a 12-week spe-cialist course, “On Centre”. Expert skills are taught at a professional level, about throwing, studies of and experiments with various types of clay, making and using glazes and trying out various firing techniques including firing a wood kiln.

The two ceramists Pietro Maddalena (founder and proprietor of the La Me-ridiana ceramics school) and John Col-beck generously pass on their specialist knowledge and skills, acquired in dec-ades of professional and teaching ex-perience. There is hardly anything you can ask them to which they don’t have

an instructive, comprehensive and well-structured answer! One of the school’s main concerns is to promote an exchange of ideas, technical knowledge and artis-tic philosophy, which is intended to give participants the basis of an effective and creative stay. Claudia Bruhin, principal of

the school, answered my question as to why On Centre was set up: “On Centre was devel-oped because all over the world ceramics training programmes are becoming narrower and narrower. For in-stance the wonderful English ceramics tradi-tion has suffered heavy losses because most universities are closing down their expensive ceramics studios – or they have already done so. Worldwide, there are fewer and fewer good, broadly based training courses. But there is still a need for them because inter-est in ceramics is still very much alive. To fill this gap, On Centre was created: a very inten-sive three-month train-ing programme with a limited number of par-

ticipants. This makes thorough, personal teaching possible. Incidentally, partici-pants come from all over the world. For the 2016 edition, which was soon fully booked, we had seven students from three continents and seven different countries.”

One of the participants in the first On Centre course was David Trueb from Switzerland. I spoke to him about how he had liked the course:

David, what made you join the On Cen-tre programme?

I have been infected with the ceramic virus for a long time. But it only really

broke out when I was travelling in Italy and I started an internet search for near-by ceramics schools and I came across La Meridiana. Other schools could only offer long-term training courses, which I could not manage timewise with a business and family. On the way back to Switzerland I made a detour via Certaldo to take a closer look at the ceramics school. The principal, Claudia Bruhin, was happy to show me around and showed me the workshop, the various kilns, the gallery and the vicinity. I realised at once that I could find an-swers to all my burning questions about ceramics here. So spontaneously, I signed up for the first 12-week On Centre course.

Can you tell us what an On Centre day is like?

As I had not only signed up for the On Centre course but also for the Throw-ing Marathon (intensive course in throw-ing), I had already been able to familiar-ise myself with the surroundings and how things worked here before the 12-week cours began. The daily routine in On Cen-tre was clearly structured, work officially started at 9 a.m. and went on to around 6 p.m. The studio was open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. every day, which was good if you wanted to finish something off. We were given targets every week, which we tirelessly tried to achieve. The routine was interrupted by regular demonstrations by Pietro and John. The amount of work and practice was very intense, so we some-times kept working long into the night. For the first three weeks, we had lunch at the school and I would like to pay a huge compliment to Lucia for her outstanding cooking! And Roman spoiled us at coffee time too. After that the students cooked at midday in the houses we were living in.

Ah yes, where did you live and what were the living arrangements during this time?

Firstly, above the studio on the first floor, there are two apartments with bedrooms and their own bathrooms and kitchens as well as a large sun patio. Then five minutes’ walk from the school there

Specialist course amid the Tuscan Hills

“ON CENTRE”Evelyne Schoenmann

Time for a break!photos - La Meridiana

TRAININGCERTALDO

is a large house where everyone has their own well-furnished room. There is a recently equipped communal kitchen and a generous living room with an inviting open fireplace. I lived in this house with a few other students. I have to say we were a really good group and we got on well with the cooking and eating as well. Our motto was, “If you like making pots, you like eating too…”

That sounds really good. Who can you recommend On Centre to?On Centre is suitable for people who have enough experi-

ence with ceramics to make a conscious decision to do this course. After all, it is a strenuous, intense and costly affair. The handouts and worksheets are all in English. Tuition is in English too. So you should have some knowledge of that too. On top of that, you need to be curious, to enjoy pottery and be willing to learn. There is so much material so you should take as many notes as possible. You can bring tools from home but that is not really necessary because everything you need is already here. Personally speaking, the twelve weeks were over in a flash. I would have liked to stay longer. "Keep On Centre!"

The next On Centre course is next year, from 9 January to 1 April 2017. Send enquiries for further details or your applica-tion (from 1 May 2016) direct to the school on: [email protected] I www.lameridiana.fi.it

The photos show work in the studio and discussions with Pietro Maddalena (above right and bottom right) and with John Colbeck (centre right).

Evelyne Schoenmann is a ceramist. She lives and works in Basel, Switzerland, and Liguria, Italy. www.schoenmann-ceramics.ch

SYMPOSIUM


Greek ceramic art has a long history that begins from the ancient times and continues till today. One of its important stages was Byzantine Ceramics, an expressive style characterized by incised

decorations in everyday utilitarian objects. This period was our inspiration for organizing a Symposium of Byzantine Ceramics which included an ex-hibition of contemporary Byzantine etched ceramics, copied or influenced by the Byzantine style, from 22 Greek ceramists, lectures on Byzantine in-cised ceramics from archaeologists and two-day experiential workshop on the build-decoration of Byzantine engraved ceramics.

The symposium was co-organized be the Ceramists Traces group with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Messinia and was held on 26-28 June 2015 in Kar-damili in the southern Peloponnese, involving fifty-five ceramists, hosted on Troupakidon-Mourtzinon Tower dating from the late 17th century and recently restored by the Ministry of Culture and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Messinia. Visitors had the opportunity to see in the exhibition how 22 Greek ceramists were influenced by Byzantine Ceramics, creating either copies of this era or by using the decorative styles of that time to creating a modern ceramic.

First part of the experiential workshop began with a speech by ceramist Nikos Sklavenitis, the ceramist responsible for the workshop, who described

left top The participants getting ready to work on the tilesleft below Glazed ceramics after firing

right top + below Decorating the tiles

the construction and decoration of the Byzantine techniques. Then each ceramist chose the design he wanted to carve on the tiles from the various designs that were available. Many were those who created a design of their own. Olive leaves, birds and animals, patterns and free line drawings were the final drawings, from which all participants chose some and created a large mosaic. This mo-saic is planned, after being fired, to be placed in Kardamili, in memory of the Symposium. Then in the courtyard of the tower, a speech followed

Symposium of Byzantine Ceramics in Greece


Ceramists Traces group was created in Patras in 2011 and consists of ceramists living and/or working in Patras in order to highlight and promote modern Greek ceramic art by organizing national scale exhibitions, ceramic symposiums and other relevant activities.It all began with the 1st National Exhibition Ceramists Traces which took place in January 2012 in Patras, in the Old Arsakeio and lasted ten days. Next was the second ceramics exhi-bition "Traces 2014 – The Beginning", which took place from December 2014 until Febru-ary 2015 in the Archaeological Museum of Patras in collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Achaia, with 33 Greek cera-mists.The Group consists of Vasilis Anastasopou-los Charoula Koropouli, Marilena Livieratou, Vassilis Papaioannou, Ilias Christopoulos.

by the Archaeologists of the Ephorate of Antiquities Messinia, Konstantina Gerolymou and Megalommati Victory.

The next day, participants were informed about the glazing of Byzan-tine ceramics, the different materials that were used and later the ceramist Ilias Christopoulos proceeded with decorating some ceramics, already fired biscuit with three different glazes, red iron and copper. For the purpose of the workshop these ceramics were fired in a small gas kiln to save time and ensure that participants had the opportunity to see the result of decoration at first hand.

After the completion of the workshop all participants had the opportunity to receive an engraved commemorative tile and agreed a date for the next activities of the Ceramists Traces group.

The exhibition was initially decided to run until the end of August, but because of the big interest of the visitors, it lasted until the end of October.

Ceramists Traces group

top Decorating the tiles

below Exhibition of 22 Greek ceramists influenced by Byzantine Ceramics.

JAPAN

Kouzou Takeuchi Kouzou Takeuchi was born in Hyogo, Japan, in 1977. He was inspired by Mexican ruins as

well the divine intervention of an accident. He uses the porcelain casting technique and produces rectangular shapes with repetition. He assembles the simple form with order and breaks parts of the object after firing to elaborate the contrastive aesthetic between the regularity and irregular-ity of construction. His work reveals an unadorned beauty which is concise but powerful.

“When I first saw the photos of ancient ruins in South America, my creativity was inspired, and I seriously wanted to express the distinctive ambience of the decayed buildings in my work. That is when I began creating ceramic sculptures composed of square tubes. In a stage of trial-and-error, I dropped a piece by accident, however, I was shocked by the unexpected beauty caused by it …”

Cast porcelain, 1250°C

by Ting-Ju SHAO

A R T I S T J O U R N A L

Ting-Ju SHAO is a ceramist and author based in Taiwan. She is a member of I.A.C. Shao writes for international specialist art

magazines. http://www.tingjushao.com

USA

Peter Pincus Peter Pincus was born in Rochester, NY, U.S.A. in 1982. He produces three-

dimensional paintings on pots, with an innovative technique and aesthetic ap-pearance. Combined with the graphic concept, he brings classical forms back into the 21st century, establishing a unique, contemporary body of work.

“What started as my curiosity for pottery and the vessel has extended to include painting and sculpture, and my present work is evidence of that evolu-tion. I believe that colour interaction can elicit new ways of seeing so I have dedicated the last five years to its study. Frequently, I elect to stage conflict by introducing an assertive colour field to an equally emphatic form. This friction augments and enriches perceptions of space.”

Cast coloured porcelain, gold lustre, 1230°C

A R T I S T J O U R N A L


INTERVIEW

Antoinette, your website is very professionally made. Where do

you find the time for the upkeep?I am very fortunate to have my hus-

band Koos as my web designer, photog-rapher and videographer. His technology background and analytical experience help me to get some advantage. Some years back he took photography classes and soon after that he was published as an art photographer with my translucent porcelain.

And 3 Years ago he became my vid-eographer.

Koos and you are South African born and now live in the USA. Can you tell us about your life’s journey?

I was born in Johannesburg and I grow up in Namibia. I met and married Koos in South Africa and we raised 3 daughters there. When Koos was invited to work in the USA our family moved to Missis-sippi. It was a wonderful chance to ex-

pand our experience and of course to see more of the world. Today we are Ameri-can citizens with an expanded family. Our grandchildren vary from ages 4 to 9 years old. My current ceramics style is a mix of influences from my upbringing in South Africa and Namibia, where I was raised, to our current lifestyle in the USA.

In South Africa you also worked with stoneware and earthenware clay. Now it’s exclusively the smooth and translucent

“white gold” for you. Why porcelain?

Growing up in primitive as well as civ-ilized communities influenced my work on several levels. Exposure to the classic, timeless influences of Shakespeare and Tchaikovsky took me on a natural path with porcelain. I bought Peter Lane’s book “Studio Porcelain” with award money from a ceramics competition in 1992. I already knew then that I would work in porcelain, but, just like so many other

potters, I was taught (incorrectly) that you first need experience to work with porcelain. Today I absolutely believe that anyone can work with porcelain. It is a myth that beginners should first gain ex-perience with other clay bodies. What is needed is an understanding of the charac-ter of porcelain and how that differs from stoneware or earthenware clay.

Just out of curiosity: have you ever been to Jingdezhen in China?

Oh, I wish to go … maybe one day. I would love to do a residency there and maybe someone will invite me some time.

In the photo strip we can see you work-ing on one of your ice sculptures. Will you take us through the process please?

I always liked to use organic materi-als to create ceramic objects. Upholstery foam is one of those materials. Once I decided on a form that will work for a

In Studio with Antoinette Badenhorst

Evelyne Schoenmann

Antoinette’s number one passion seems to be porcelain. Not many ceramists know as much about this material as she does. In workshops she regularly alleviates the students’ fear of working with it. In this talk with her, we try to learn from Antoinette about “the many faces of porcelain”.


INTERVIEW


INTERVIEW

base, I will dip it in thick porcelain slip and squeeze the foam so that the clay can soak into the foam, leaving some to form a thin translucent crust once it is fired. It is very flimsy while it is still wet, so I use different sturdy materials to form an ar-mature to support and keep the clay and soaked foam in the position that I want to model it.

Once the base becomes a little drier, it is time to choose a bowl to sit at the top. It must balance with the base from all sides. Bowls suggests content and there-fore form an important part of my reper-toire. Sometimes I will throw a bowl on the wheel, or form it over a balloon, but in this case I chose to use a press mould. I created an envelope from 2 press-mould-ed shells that I joined together. The joints must be very well secured. One of the lesser known characteristics of porcelain is that the clay can easily be re-wetted so that it can be altered. This is the part that I like the most, because I can use freshly cut strips of clay and add them to help re-open the upper seams so that light can

touch the interior and colour spills out. The elegant flowing line of my bowls is a huge contrast from the base, but when the two parts find each other in balance and harmony; it becomes one piece of art, juxtaposing opposite sides of life. When the envelope is dry enough, I will attach it to the base. At this stage it is still a mix between foam and clay, but once it is fired, the foam disappears and base and bowl become one translucent object. I will glaze the interior of the bowl, but most

of the base stays only white, with glaze sprayed on in areas where it may cast a shadow. The intent is to make it look like chunks of ice or sea water, touched by the shadows in nature.

Have you ever considered painting on

the porcelain surface?Funny that you ask: I’ve painted some

in the past. I would love to develop a dec-orating process in which I use different techniques to obtain a depth in colour on the porcelain surface. I recently created small translucent bowls with dark, mov-ing brush strokes on them. The contrast between dark shadow and translucent light was well received. I see a possible new series in my future.

For quite some time now you offer e-courses. Can you explain to our readers how an e-course works?

Koos and I take a hands-on workshop and translate it into an online workshop. We record all the videos in my porcelain studio. During the e-course students have

unlimited access to all course material, including documents to give students as much information as possible. For each workshop we have a social media page that is our online “classroom”. Here stu-dents mingle with questions and answers and share their work and experiences. Once a week we e-mail Questions and Answers and/or reviews to our students. We love the process, because it gives pot-ters from around the world an opportuni-ty to “attend” a workshop, without travel

and boarding expenses. All attendees get a “front row” seat and they get access to me on a one-on-one basis. We eliminate and evaluate problems through images and short videos. In 2016 we are adding new and very experienced potters to our teachers’ list.

I am sure your agenda for the current year is already full….

2015 was a very busy year and it seems like 2016 is going to be even busier. My first 2016 one-man exhibition was booked for the middle of January and our first new online classes for 2016 follow soon after that. Koos is planning to pre-sent a photography class to teach artists to photograph their own work. Potters are especially interested in photographing translucent porcelain.

The highlight of the year is our work-shop-tour in Europe. We are looking forward to start in Switzerland with the theme “Understand Porcelain and Push the Limits”. We will also teach in Spain, Italy, France, Slovenia and Belgium.

Antoinette Badenhorst105 Westwood Circle / Saltillo, MS 38866, [email protected]

Evelyne Schoenmann’s next interview will be with André von Martens, (D)

Evelyne Schoenmann is a ceramist. She lives and works in Basel, Switzerland, and in Liguria, Italy.www.schoenmann-ceramics.ch


photos - Koos Badenhorst

INTERVIEW

DATES EXHIBITIONS / GALLERIES / MUSEUMS : special exhibition | V: vernissage | Fi: finissage | end of the exhibition O: opening time | T: Telephone | F: Fax | *A and by appointment


Copy�date�for�entries:�01�April�2016�

�Amsterdam�NL-1017 KH��Gallery�Carla�KochVeemkade 500. Detroit Building, 6th floor T: +31-20-67 37 310 [email protected] O:�Tue - Sat 12-18h, 1 Sun in the month 14-18h by appointment *A

Berlin��D-10585 Keramik-Museum�Berlin�� Schustehrusstraße 13, O: Fri - Mon 13 - 17h www.keramik-museum-berlin.de:�Walter�A.Heufelder�zum�90.�Geburtstag��28.03.:�Alles�neu?�Keramik�in�Deutschland�1918-1933��15.08.

D-13187 Zentrum�für�Keramik�-�Berlin� Pestalozzistraße 18 T: +49-(0)30-499 02 591 O: Tue - Fri 14 - 17h *A www.ceramics-berlin.de

D-10117 Galerie�Arcanum�-�Charlottenstraße 34 T: +49-(0)30-20 45 81 66 F: +49-(0)30-20 45 81 67 [email protected]

Bonstetten�CH-8906 GG�-�GALERIE�FÜR�GEGENWARTSKUNST Elfi Bohrer. Im Dorfzentrum Burgwies 2 T: +41-(0)1-7003210. F: -7011027 [email protected] www.ggbohrer.ch O:�Tue - Fri 14 - 18, Sat + Sun 13 - 17h *A� :�Etiyé�Dimma�Poulsen�-�Nadja-D.�Hlavka�-�Rosemary�Rauber�-�03.04.:�Jubiläumsausstellung�25�Jahre�GG�-�16.04.�-�29.05.

Bozen�I-39100��TonHaus Rauschertorgasse 28 T+F: +39-(0)471-976681 O: Mon - Fri 9 - 12.30, 15 - 18, Sat 9 - 12.30h [email protected] www.tonhaus.itPermanent presentation of different studio works

Brüssel�B-1050�Puls�Contemporary�Ceramics Edelknaapstraat 19 rue du Page (Châtelain) T: +32-26 40 26 55 www.pulsceramics.com��[email protected] O: Wed-Sat 13 - 18h:�The�Beautiful�Object�-�AD�Gallery�&�Consultancy,�Antwerpen��27.03.

Bürgel�D-07616 Keramik-Museum�Bürgel��Am Kirchplatz 2 T: +49-(0)36692-37333 F: -37334 [email protected] www.keramik-museum-buergel.de:�Liebfriede�Bernstiel�zum�Hundertsten�-�� 13.03.

Bukarest�RO 010094 Galerie�GALATEEA��Ceramic�•�Contemporary�ArtCalea Victoriei 132 T: +40 (0)21 - 317 38 14. [email protected] http://galeriagalateea.blogspot.com/ O: Tue - Fri 12 - 20h, Sat 11 - 19h Permanent Exhibition:�“Accents”�-�� 08.03.:�“Ceramics�&�Students"�-�11.03.�-�11.04.

Deidesheim�67146 Archiv-Atelier-Ausstellung� Stadtmauergasse 17 T: +49 (0)6326-1222 www.lottereimers.de

Doberlug-Kirchhain�D-03253��Schloss�Doberlug:�Ausstellung�Gustav�Weiß�-�V:�19.03., 15h

Düsseldorf�D-40213��Hetjens-Museum��Schulstrasse 4 T: +49-(0)211-8994210 O: Tue - Sun 11-17, Wed 11 - 21h www.duesseldorf.de/hetjens�:�Zeitgenössische�Keramik�von�Fontana�bis�Uecker�-�extended� 20.03.:�“Glück�auf!”�-�Der�Bergbau�und�das�weiße�Gold�-�17.04.�-�07.08.

Duingen�D-31089��Töpfermuseum�Duingen Töpferstraße 8 T: +49-(0)170-7069219 O: Wed 15 17h, Sun 14-18h www.toepfermuseum-duingen.de Eckernförde�D-24340��Museum�Eckernförde Rathausmarkt 8 T: +49-(0)4351-712547 O: Tue - Sat 14.30 - 17h, Sun 11 - 17h On holidays 14.30 - 17h www.eckernfoerde.net [email protected]

Frankfurt/Main�D-60594 Museum�für�Angewandte�Kunstwww.museumangewandtekunst.de�

GALERIE FÜR GEGENWARTSKUNSTELFI BOHRER Burgwies 2CH-8906 BonstettenTelefon +41 (44) 700 32 10 www.ggbohrer.ch - [email protected]

weitere Infos unter ggbohrer.ch, Ausstellungen und Programm

Do + Fr 14 – 18, Sa + So 13 – 17

Nadja-D. Hlavka

27. Februar bis

Etiyé Dimma Poulsen

3. April 2016

Rosemary RauberMalerei

Raku-Figuren

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DATESEXHIBITIONS / GALLERIES / MUSEUMS : special exhibition | V: vernissage | Fi: finissage | end of the exhibition O: opening time | T: Telephone | F: Fax | *A and by appointment

MARCH / APRIL 2016 NEW CERAMICS � 65

Hannover�D-30175 ��Handwerksform�Hannover��Berliner Allee 17��T: +49-(0)511-34859 F: -88��www.hwk-hannover.de O: Tue - Fri 11 - 18, Sat 11 - 14h�

Heidelberg�D-69117

Galerie�Marianne�Heller Fried rich-Ebert-Anlage 2 Am Stadtgarten T: +49-(0)6221-619090 [email protected] www.galerie-heller.de O: Tue - Fri 11 - 13 a. 14 - 18h, Sat 11 - 18h:�“Le�Geste”�-�Jean-Francois�Fouilhoux�-�Porzellan�&�Seladon,�24.04.�-�19.06

Herbertingen-Marbach�D-88518

moosgrün�-�raum�für�zeitgenössische�Keramik - Moosheimerstraße 11/1 T: +49-(0)7586-5378 [email protected] O: Tue - Fri 16 - 19h, Sat 10 - 16h

Hirschburg�D-18311��Black�Box�Galerie Zum Wallbach 15 T: +49 (0)1623 3766 757, O: Tue - Sat 11-17h www.kunsthof-hirschburg.de

Hohenberg�a.d.Eger��D-95691��Porzellanikon�-�Staatliches�Museum�für�Porzellan�Hohenberg�a.d.�Eger/SelbSchirndinger Straße 48. T: +49 (0)9233 772211, O: Tue - Sun 10-17hwww.porzellanikon.org [email protected]

Höhr-Grenzhausen�D-56203��Keramikmuseum�Westerwald Lindenstraße 13 T: +49-(0)2624-9460-10 F: -120 O: Tue - Sun 10 - 17h�*Awww.keramikmuseum.de [email protected] :��“Tonjuwelen�II”�-��03.04.:��“Imago”�-�13.03.�-�Ende�Mai:��“Simcha�Even�Chen”�-�The�Black�/�The�White�/�The�Fire�-�03.04.�-�22.05.

D-56203 Höhr-Grenzhausen�� KASINO�–�KERAMIKKULTUR Galerie – Laden – Werkstatt – Café Werkstatt + AusstellungSandra Nitz - Nicole Thoss Kasinostrasse 7 T: +49 2624 94 16 99 0O: Tue - Fri 14 – 18h Sat 10 - 18h Sun 11 - 18h www.kultur-kasino.de Gäste-Galerie: Vladimir Groh & Yasuyo Nishida (Porzellan), Milan Pekar (Kristallgla-sur), Nela Trésková (Porzellan), Markéta Drzmisková (Porzellan), Lenka Sérová Maliská (Porzellan), Anna Polanská (Glas), Lada Semecká (Glas)Gäste-Laden: Juliane Herden, Judith Radl, Nika Stupica, Martin Möhwald, Elke Sada, Cornelius Reer, Susanne Petzold, Jutta Becker, Clarissa Capelle, Uta Minnich, Frank Schillo, Sophia Binney

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www.ernst-barlach-stiftung.de O: Tue-Sun (Nov.-March) 11 - 16h, (April-Oct.) 10 - 17h :�Wechselwirkung�-�Die�Beziehung�zwischen�Zeichnung�und�Plastik�im�Werk��Ernst�Barlachs�-�04.03.�-�16.05.:�Ernst�Barlach.�Auf�dem�Weg�in�die�Moderne�-�Stationen�der�Frühzeit�-��Keramik�in�Altona�und�Berlin,�Lehrer�in�Höhr�-�22.05.�-�04.09.

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: Ausstellung: Petra Weifenbach - KERAMIKS 8.5.2016: Ausstellung: Kunst + Handwerk 23.2. – 28.8.2016: Workshops für Kinder in den Osterferien 22.3. – 1.4.2016 : Künstler-Kurs für Erwachsene “Porzellan schnitzen” mit Beatrijs van Rheeden 9. + 10.4.2016

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Keramikmuseum Westerwald - Lindenstraße 13D-56203 Höhr-GrenzhausenT: +49-(0)2624-9460-10

“TON-JUWELEN II”

Jimmy Clark, Karl Fulle Sigrid Hilpert-Artes, Angela Klärner Guido von Martens, Martin Möhwald Judith Püschel, Antje Scharfe

until 3 April 2016

DATES EXHIBITIONS / GALLERIES / MUSEUMS : special exhibition | V: vernissage | Fi: finissage | end of the exhibition O: opening time | T: Telephone | F: Fax | *A and by appointment


Johannesberg�D-63867

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O: Wed 15 - 19, Sat 15 - 17, Sun 11 - 17h

open only during exhibitions *A��[email protected]

www.galerie-metzger.de��:�Christoph�Möller�...von�Anfang�an...�-�03.�-�24.04.:�Von�Angesicht�zu�Angesicht�-�Hans�Fischer,�Konrad�Franz,�Hermann�Gruene-berg,�Johannes�Heisig,�Georg�Hüter,�Michael�Kalmbach,�Bodo�Korsig,�Valentin�Manz,�Helmut�Massenkeil,�Sylvia�Scholtka,�Nele�van�Wieringen�-�12.06.�-�03.07.

Karlsruhe�D-76131�Staatliche�Majolika�Manufaktur�Karlsruhe�GmbH -

Ahaweg 6-8 T: +49-(0)721-91 237 70 O: Mon - Fri��8 - 16h

Kellinghusen�D-25548�Museum�Kellinghusen - Hauptstraße 18

T: +49-(0)4822-3762-10 F: -15 O: Thu - Sun 14 - 17h *A

[email protected]��Köln�D-50667�Museum�für�Angewandte�Kunst�KölnAn der Rechtschule

T: +49-(0)221-221 23860

O: Di - So 11 - 17h,

O: Tue - Sun 11 - 17h, 1. Thu in the month 11 - 22h [email protected] www.makk.de

Kopenhagen�DK-2000 Fredericsberg�COPENHAGEN�CERAMICS -

Smallegade 48

Langerwehe�D-52379

Töpfereimuseum�LangerwehePastoratsweg 1 T: +49-(0)2423–44 46 F: -59 90. O:�Fri 10 - 13 u. 14 - 18h, Sat 12 - 17h, Sun + holidays 11 - 18h www.toepfereimuseum.de [email protected]��:�“Auf�dem�Wege”-�Grenzgänge�der�Kunst.�Künstlerinnen�der�GEDOK�Bonn.��Zu�Gast:��Ekaterina�Ominina,�Keramikerin�aus�St.Petersburg�-�13.03.2016:�Tag�der�offenen�Töpferei�im�Töpfereimuseum�-�12.�+�13.03.,�10�-�18h:�Osterferienprogramm�in�der�Kreativwerkstatt�-�23.03.�-�31.03.:�“Unterwasserwelten”�-�Schülerinnen�und�Schüler�der�Europaschule��Langerwehe�stellen�aus�-�22.05.�-�28.08.

Le�Don�du�Fel�F-12140 GALERIE�DU�DON - 12140 Le Fel T: +33 05 65 54 15 15 www.ledondufel.com�:��“Précisions�Plurielles”�-�Jeanne�Opgenhaffen,�Andreas�Steinemann,��Henk�Wolvers,�Lut�Laleman��24.03.�MÄRZ / APRIL 2016 MÄRZ / APRIL 2016

:��“Traces�particulières”�-�Rebecca�Maeder�(CH)�&�Sangwoo�Kim�(Korea)��27.03.�-�12.05.:��"À�la�recherche�du�sublime"�-�Ashraf�Hanna,�Nicholas�Lees,�Jongjin�Park�-��15.05.�-�23.06.

Leipzig��D-04103 Grassi�museum�Museum�für�Angewandte�Kunst Johannisplatz 5-11 T: +49-(0)341-22 29 100 www.grassimuseum.de O: Tue - Sun 10 - 18, Wed + Thu 10 - 20h:��ART�DÈCO�-�Elegant�-�kostbar�-�sinnlich��03.04.�:��KONSTANTIN�GRCIC�„Panorama“�-�(Vitra�Design�Museum�Weil�a.�Rh.)�01.05.�:��Angewandte�Kunst�aus�den�Niederlanden�und�Flandern�-�16.04.�-�16.10.

D-04103 Keramikgalerie�terra�rossa��Roßplatz 12T/F: +49-(0)341-9904399 O: Mon - Fri 10 - 18, Sat 11 - [email protected] www.terra-rossa-leipzig.de��:��Kunst�aus�Heimaterde�2�-�Dirk�Richter,�Rosi��Steinbach,�Sylvia�Bohlen,�Thomas�Weber,�Viktoria��Scholz,�Gabi�Francik,�Frank�Brinkmann�-��17.03.�:��“Stoffwechsel”�-�Christiane�Budig�(Glas),�Gabriela�Roth-Budig�(Keramik)��19.03.�-�23.04.,� V:��19.03.,�18h�:��Christine�Kleeberg�BILD&FORM�-�24.04.�-�10.06.,�V:��26.04.,�18h�

Margraten�NL-6269 VE Galerie�&�Atelier�-�Groot Welsden 48 T: +31-43-4582751 F: -4583029 O: Wed, Sat + Sun 13 - 17h *A�� www.keramiek-grootwelsden.nl �

Moutier�CH-2740 Galerie�du�Passage�-�Centre�Culturel�Prévôté�Rue Centrale 57c O: Mi-Fr 14 - 18, Sa 10-12h, So 17-19h �� www.regula-hauser.ch:��“Céramiques�sur�le�Fil”�-�Regula�Hauser�-�11.03.�-�24.04.

München D-80333 Galerie�für�Angewandte�Kunst Pacellistraße 6-8 T: +49-(0)89-290147-0 www.kunsthandwerk-bkv.de O: Mon - Sat 10 - 18h�:�Nikolaus�Steindlmüller�“Anagama-Ergebnisse”�-�08.04.�-�14.05.��V:��07.04.,�18:30h

D-80333 Galerie�Handwerk Max-Joseph-Straße 4 T: +49-(0)89-5119296 O: Tue, Wed, Fri 10 - 18h, Thu 10 - 20h,Sat 10 - 13h closed at holidays www.hwk-muenchen.fr/galerie ��

Paris�F-75005 Centre�Culturel�Irlandais 5, Rue des Irlandais T: +33-1-58 52 10 30 O: Mon - Sat 14 - 18h

Raeren B-4730 Töpfereimuseum�Raeren��Bergstraße 103 T: +32-(0)87-850 903 O: Tue - Sun 10 - 17hwww.toepfereimuseum.org - Exhibition in Haus Zahlepohl opposite the castle

Römhild�D-98631 Schloss�GlücksburgGriebelstraße 28 T: +49-(0)36948-80140 F: -88122 O:�Tue - Fri 10 - 12 + 13 - 16h, Sat + Sun 13 - 17h [email protected]

Rostock�D-18055 Galerie�KlosterformatKlosterhof 5 T: +49-(0)381-5108577 F: -510 85 90 O:�:�Tue - Sat 11 - [email protected] www.klosterformat.de :��“BESTAND(s)-Ausgabe�XIII”�-�Verkäufe�aus�Kommissionsbeständen�der�Galerie:��Grafik/Glas/Holz/Keramik/Malerei/Plastik/Schmuck�-��16.04.:��Neue�Glasarbeiten�von�Holger�Schultze�-�vom�15.03.�an:��“persönliche�Welten”�-�Renée�Reichenbach,�Keramik,�und�Regine�Tarara,�Malerei��19.04.�-�18.06.

PRECISIONS PLURIELLESJeanne Opgenhaffen - Andreas Steinemann

Henk Wolvers - Lut Laleman

DU 14 FÉVRIER AU 24 MARS 2016

GALERIE DU DON, 12140 LE FEL, FRANCE www.ledondufel.com

GALER IED U D O NC É R A M I Q U ECONTEMPORAINE

GALERIEMETZGER

DATESEXHIBITIONS / GALLERIES / MUSEUMS : special exhibition | V: vernissage | Fi: finissage | end of the exhibition O: opening time | T: Telephone | F: Fax | *A and by appointment


Rheinsberg�D-16831

KERAMIK�HAUS�RHEINSBERG��Rhinstraße 1 T: +49 (0)33931-34156,

O:�daily 10 - 18 h, also sun- and holydays :��28.�Verkaufsausstellung:�"100�schöne�Tassen"-�Unikate�von�Werner�Ertl�(AT):��Jahres�Ausstellung:�Jahresbecher�"Rheinsberg�2016",�limitierte�Sammler-Edition�von��Katharina�Link,�Müncheberg,��31.�12.

Rödental�D-18055 Europäisches�Museum�für�Modernes�Glas��Schloss Roseau O:�daily 9:30 - 13h and 13:30 - 17h

Sarreguemines��F-57200 Musée�de�la�Faience��15/17 rue Poincaré

F-57200 Bliesmühle�-�Museum�für�Keramiktechniken�und�Garten�der�"Fayenciers"��125 Avenue de la Blies www.sarregemuemines-museum.com:� “Zeitgenössische� Keramik� in� der� Bliesmühle� -� Helene� Kirchmair,� Ulla�Litzinger,�Ursula�Mandré,�Nathalie�Pampuch,�Julia�Saffer�-��01.05.

Selb�D-95100�Porzellanikon�Selb�-�Staatliches�Museum�für�Porzellan�Hohenberg�a.d.�Eger/Selb Werner-Schürer-Platz 1 T: +49-(0)9287-9180-00 F: -30 [email protected] www.porzellanikon.org O:�Tue - Sun 10 - 17h��:�Auf�der�Pirsch�-�Jagdbare�Tiere�in�Porzellan�-��03.04.�

Staufen�D-79219�Keramikmuseum�Staufen��Wettelbrunnerstraße 3 O:�Wed - Sat 14 - 17h, Sun 11 - 13 and 14 - 17hwww.keramikmuseum-staufen.de��:�Missgeschicke�-�Produktionsfehler�und�ihre�Ursachen�-��30.11.:�Karima�Duchamp�(F)�-��27.03.:�Antje�Wiewinner�(D)�-�01.04.�-�15.05.

Stuttgart�D-70176�Kunst�im�Hinterhaus��Breitscheidstraße 131 A www.kunst-im-hinterhaus.de��T: +49-(0)711 - 695649

St.�Wendel�66606�Galerie-Atelier�No4 Nik. Obertreis Straße 4 �T/F: +49 (0)49151-414 083 83 O:�Tue - Sat 14 - 19h www.barbaraluetjens.de�:��-flockenzart�und�eisenhart-��Porzellan�von�Karin�Bablock�und�Heide�Nonnenmacher�auf�Metallmöbeln��von�Horst�Erlenbach,�Metallwandobjekte�von�Horst�Erlenbach�-��11.03.

J.Lamberz, Klosterhof 5, 18055 Rostock(0049)381 5108577 / [email protected]

GALERIE KLOSTERFORMAT

www.klosterformat.de„BESTAND(s)-Ausgabe�XIII"�-�Verkäufe�aus�

Kommissionsbeständen�der�Galerie

Solothurn�CH-4500�Galerie�Christoph�Abbühl�und�Kunstforum�Solothurn

Schaalgasse 9 �T/F: +41-(0)32 621 38 58 O:�Thu + Fri 15 - 19h, Sat 14 - 17h *A�:��Valérie�Balmer�"entre�les�lignes"�-�in�der�Galerie�Christoph�Abbühl�und��Akio�Takamori�-�"Long�Distance"�in�der�Galerie�Kunstforum�Solothurn�� 26.03.�Tegelen�NL-5932 AG�Keramikcentrum�Tiendschuur�Tegelen

Pottenbakkersmuseum. Kasteellaan 8 T: +31-(0)77-3260213 F: -3260214

O: Tue - Sun 14 - 17h www.tiendschuur.net [email protected]:��Tea�is�HOT!�Trendy�und�klassische�Teeschalen.�300�Stück�von�fast�90�Künstlern�aus�Europa,�Asien�und�den�USA�-� 22.05.

Thurnau�D-95349 Töpfermuseum�Thurnau Kirchplatz 12

www.toepfermuseum-thurnau.de [email protected]

O: April-Sept.: Tue - Fri 14 - 17h, Sat, Sun and holidays 11-17h, October - 6.January

and March: Sat 13 - 16h, Sun and holidays 11-18h�

Velten�D-16727��Ofen-�und�Keramikmuseum VeltenWilhelmstraße 32 T: +49-(0)3304-31760

F: -505887. www.ofenmuseum-velten.de [email protected]

O: Tue - Fri 11 - 17, Sat + Sun 13 - 17h

Weiden/Oberpf.�D-92637 Internationales�Keramik-Museum

Zweigmuseum der Neuen Sammlung München, Luitpoldstraße 25 T: +49 (0)961-32020

O: Tue - Sun 10 - 12.30 + 14 - 16,30 *A� closed on Holidys

www.die-neue-sammlung.de [email protected] :��"Aus�Pharaos�Werkstatt�-�Handwerk�und�Malerei�im�Alten�Ägypten"�-��aus�dem�Museum�Ägyptischer�Kunst�München�-��10.04.�-��Fi:�10.04.,11h:��“25+�Highlights�aus�der�Neuen�Sammlung�München”.��25�Jahre�Internationales�Keramikmuseum�-��10.04.�-�Fi:�10.04.,11h:�“Meisterwerke�griechischer�Vasenmalerei�-��Aus�der�Antikensammlung�München”��-�bis�Ende�2016�

Westerstede�D-26655

Galerie�Belinda�Berger��Mühlenbrink 17 T: +49-(0)4488-525391 F: -525392

www.belindaberger.de O: Sat + Sun 16 - 18h *APermanent presentation of gallery artists

Wilhelmshafen�D-26382

Galerie�Sezession�Nordwest�e.V.�� www.sezession-nordwest.de

:�“Blicke�zwischen�Tag�und�Nacht”�-�Hielkje�v.�Damme,�Katharina�Schultz��05.05.�-�29.05.,��V:�05.05.,�19h�

Winterthur�CH-8400 Atelier-Galerie�raku-art��Evi Kienast Tösstalstraße 14 O: Thu - Fri 14 - 18h, Sat 11 - 15h

Kontakt und Infos: www.raku-art.ch

Winzer/Flintsbach��D-94577 ��Ziegel�+�Kalk�MuseumMuseumstraße 2 12. T: +49 (0)9901-9357-0, O: 1st + 2nd Saturday in month &

Sun- and Holidays 13 - 17 h

Visitenkarte_BL_A_No4_RZSonderfarbe.indd 1 18.07.14 19:51

Visitenkarte_BL_A_No4_RZSonderfarbe.indd 1 18.07.14 19:51

For advertisement please [email protected]

05 | 02 01 | 05 16 Zeitgenössische Keramik in der Bliesmühle

Helene Kirchmair | Ulla Litzinger | Ursula Madré Nathalie Pampuch | Julia Saffer | Grit Uhlemann

www.sarreguemines-museum.com

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International Ceramic Magazine Editors Association (ICMEA)The 5th ICMEA Symposium, 2016

October 26 - November 02, 2016 Fuping/Beijing, China

Theme: 15 Years In: Diversity in Ceramics in the 21st Century and Related Ceramic Matters of Higher Education of China and the World

主题：15年后面对21世纪的陶艺多元化暨中国及世界陶艺高等教育的相关问题 I. Call for Speakers:

* Subjects of Speeches: critical writing, marketing, education, gallery/museum/Residency Policy and

other theme related topics. * Speech length 20 minutes

* No speaker fees and conference fees* Free accommodation and meals for speakers

* Deadline: June 30, 2016For application: write to [email protected]

II. Call for Emerging Ceramic Artist Competition: Quali cations:

Ceramics Artists who have not been practicing for more than eight years since completing their training/studies and have never won major competitions

First Round Judging:* E-mail art work images and CV to ICMEA

* Entry to the competition is free. Entry form under request* Deadline for application: June 30, 2016

* Selection announced on website: July 31, 2016Final Jurying:

* Selected art works should be sent to ICMEA: Deadline: October 15, 2016. * Final jurying by all editors at October 25 evening, announced October 26, 2016

Awards:* Ten winners receive one month free residencies at Fuping Pottery Art Village in 2016-17

* Three cash prizes for three top winners:RMB15000 (Gold), RMB10000 (Silver), RMB5000 (Bronze).

* Selected artists are invited to the conference, but need to apply.For application or write to: [email protected]

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LRafa Perez – Spain

John Neely – USA

Paul Davis – Australia

Beth Cavener – USA

Simon Reece – Australia

Keith Brymer-Jones – UK

Alessandro Gallo – Italy/USA

Akira Satake – Japan/USA

Torbjorn Kvasbo – Norway

Alexandra Engelfriet – Netherlands

Ian Jones – Australia

Garth Clark – USA

Mark Del Vecchio – USA

Merran Esson – Australia

Peter Callas – USA

Jack Troy – USA

APR17–232016

MANSFIELDGALLERYYARROBILMAGAZINE

CLAYGULGONGMORNING

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Registration: [email protected] Manager: Siobhan Mansfield

Artistic Director: Bernadette MansfieldEvent Director: Neil Mansfield

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47th Congress and general assembly of the International Academy of Ceramics

Barcelona (Spain)September 12-16 2016

/ Debates and lectures on main theme / Guided visits to buildings and places of ceramic interest / Special ceramic exhibitions / Ceramic evenings / Catalan route of ceramics / Pre-tour (Aragon and Valence)/ Post-tour (Seville, Cordoba and Grenade) / Ceramic circuit in art galleries

B Spain)12-1

Complete program and registration: www.aic-iac.org

E-mail: [email protected]

Local organizer: Associació de Ceramistes de Catalunyaassociació ceramistes de catalunya

Central themeCeramics in Architecture

and Public Space

The fifth International Festival of Postmodern Ceramics 2015/ 2016 and exhibition CERAMICA

MULTIPLEX 2016 is a traditional international manifestation and exhibition of ceramics held in Varazdin under the auspices of the Ministry of

Culture of the Republic of Croatia and the City of Varazdin Government.

The period of application:from 30 March to 15 April 2016Details see: www.keramikon.com

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Glas | GlassKeramik | CeramicsBildhauerei | SculptureDruckgrafik | PrintingMalerei | Painting

Internationale SommerakademieInternational Summer Academy Bild-Werk Frauenau

www.bild-werk-frauenau.de

Bild-Werk Frauenau e.V. ++49 (0)9926 / 180 895

[email protected]

Moosaustr. 18a94258 Frauenau

DEUTSCHLAND

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BRUSH ON GLAZES/BRUSH ON COLOURS

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In ceramic craftsmanship and ceramic arts you bringtogether creativity and technology. Your inspiration andyour skill are expressed through your work. The final firingprocess is crucial to its finish. ROHDE kilns: ensuringthat the moment in which you open the kiln and see yourwork in all its finished glory continues to remain a trulyspecial one. Enjoy the results.

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