Criticism and Craft: Reflections on the State of Criticism

in the Ceramic Arts

Summer Hills-Bonczyk

Work by Diego Romero, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Ron Nagle

Speakers/Panelists:

Ted Adler, Joe Arredondo, Robert Atkins, Ivan Barnett, Terry Barrett, Glen Brown, Garth Clark, Gabi Dewald,

Linda Durham, Moyra Elliot, Amy Gogarty, Tanya Harrod, Elaine O. Henry, Dave Hickey,

Jacques Kaufmann, Janet Koplos, Paul Kotula, Donald Kuspit, Paul Mathieu, Hunt Prothro, Howard Risatti, Jim

Romberg, Raphael Rubinstein, Roberta Smith, Adam Welch

NCECA Symposium:CRITICAL Santa Fe: Developing Criticism in CeramicsOctober 27-30, 2010, Santa Fe, New Mexico

- INTERPRETATION - DIALECTIC - JUDGMENT - CONSENSUS - - DIVERSITY - DEBATE - AUTHENTICITY -

Andrew Lord, Swallowing, 1999 - 2007Ceramic, epoxy, gold leaf and encre de Chine

“Criticism in the arts has fueled artistic innovations, exploration and even revolution; these practices have

forwarded arts disciplines in areas from technical development and mastery, through investigating

conceptually untried territories. Practice in the field of ceramic art is at an unprecedented height, but the field has seen a much more uneven history when it comes to criticism. Establishing consistent critical practices in the

ceramics arts should provide the same benefits as it has in other arts fields. NCECA believes that fostering more

consistent critical practices in the field will further quality production, and surely a heightened recognition of

ceramic art.”

- Keith Williams, NCECA President

“Criticism in the arts has fueled artistic innovations, exploration and even revolution; these practices have

forwarded arts disciplines in areas from technical development and mastery, through investigating

conceptually untried territories. Practice in the field of ceramic art is at an unprecedented height, but the field has seen a much more uneven history when it comes to criticism. Establishing consistent critical practices in the

ceramics arts should provide the same benefits as it has in other arts fields. NCECA believes that fostering more

consistent critical practices in the field will further quality production, and surely a heightened recognition of

ceramic art.”

- Keith Williams, NCECA President

Criticism Questions

• Why is there so little criticism of Ceramic Art?• Why do we need criticism?• What is criticism?• Do we need to develop a new critical language with which to talk about

ceramics, or do we already have enough words?• What critical publications/sources already exist? Which ones are good?• What is the critic’s role?• Does one require background in ceramics art in order to critique it?• What is the function of judgment in ceramics criticism?• What is the criteria for criticizing ceramic art?• What are the problems/issues with criticism of ceramics?• What tools of quality control exist for criticism?• Were any of the above questions actually answered at this conference?

What am I doing at this conference?I am not a writer, I am a maker.How are artists involved in generating criticism?

WHAT IS CRITICISM?

Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 2009

Raoul Hausmann The Art Critic, 1919-1920

Beginning Ceramics Crit/Brunch, Fall ‘10

Art Critic hanging out with R. Mutt

CRITICAL WRITING

http://www.paulmathieu.ca/theartofthefuture/

http://www.thinktank04.eu/home.php

Paul Mathieu’s online book The Art of the Future

ThinkTank A European Initiative for the Applied Arts

The Journal of Modern Craft, edited by Glenn Adamson and Tanya Harrod

Artspeakchina.org. A Wiki page on Historical and Contemporary Chinese Art

http://www.artspeakchina.org/

Clare Twomey, Monument

CRITICAL MAKING

Ai Wei Wei’s Sunflower Seeds, 2010

Arlene Shechet, 2009Andrew Lord, Swallowing, 2009 - 2007

“In turning his attention away from subject matter of common experience, the poet or artist turns it in upon the medium of his

own craft.”

-Clement Greenberg, From his 1939 essay “Avant-Garde and Kitsch”

Sterling Ruby, 2010

CRITICAL THINKING

Theaster Gates, To Speculate Darkly, 20102010 Whitney Biennial Winner

Eduardo Sarabia2008 Whitney Biennale winner

Babylon Bar, 2006

A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, 2005

Nina Hole, fire sculptures

Marek Cecula Klepisko, 2008

CRITICAL CURATING

Dirt on Delight: Impulses That Form Clay Philadelphia Museum of Contemporary Art, 2009

Senior museum curator Ingrid Schaffner and associated curator Janelle Porter

“…these objects cross a spectrum of conventional delineations among fine art, craft, and outsider practices. Collectively they suggest that clay appeals to basic impulses, starting with the delight of building form, coupled with the anxiety of completion. All of the works in the exhibition appear to be in some state of flux or growth.”

- From the museum’s press release

“Undone is concerned with sculpture that lies somewhere on the threshold between the made and unmade […] Focusing on objects and structures which are “handmade”, using traditional and more ad-hoc craft techniques, the works featured are often created using a simple, repetitive action, from crochet, plaiting, weaving and winding to stringing, shredding, binding and crumpling.”

- From the Museum Catalog

Undone: Making and Unmaking in Contemporary Sculpture Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK Sep 2010 - Jan 2011Curators Stephen Feeke and Sophie Raikes

Left:Angus Fairhurst, A Magazine right: Claire Barclay

Artists:Tonico Lemos Auad, Claire Barclay, Alexandra Bircken, Nayland Blake, Ruth Claxton, Krysten Cunningham, Michael Dean, Angus Fairhurst, Leo Fitzmaurice, Tom Friedman, Franziska Furter, Neil Gall, Jim Lambie, Tim Machin, Sally Osborn, Simon Periton, Mary Redmond, Eva Rothschild, Armando Andrade Tudela.

“The exhibition juxtaposes work by sculptors, including Kenneth Armitage, Ralph Brown, Geoffrey Clarke, Peter King, F.E McWilliam, E.R. Nele and Eduardo Paolozzi, with that of ceramicists, including Dan Arbeid, Ian Auld, Peg Campion, Hans Coper, John Dan, Bryan Newman, Colin Pearson, Robert Sturm and Denise Wren.”

- From the Museum Catalog

A Rough Equivalent: Sculpture and Pottery in the Post-War Period

Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK, 30 September 2010 - 2 January 2011

Curator Dr Jeffrey Jones, Reader in Ceramics at Cardiff School of Art and Design

Right: E.R. Nele Untitled, 1964. Bronze, Left:Hans Coper, Stoneware

Terra Incognita: Italy's Ceramic RevivalEstorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, September - December, 2009

Curated by art and design historian Lisa HockemeyerTerra Incognita translates to”unknown land”

Includes ceramists Pietro Melandri and Salvatore Meli, Marino Marini, Arturo Martini, Lucio Fontana, Leoncillo Leonardi and Fausto MelottiLucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, 1959

Fausto Melotti, Cup and Saucer, 1947. Glazed majolica

JIM ROMBERG, Moderator and project director at CSF:

“Criticism is civilization’s defense of itself”“Criticism separates:

Triviality from SignificanceSensational from ProfoundMortal from Immortal”

ROBERTA SMITH, NY Times senior art critic:

“Criticism is all around us. Every sentient being is being critical all the time”

“The criticism of ceramics begins with the ceramists. Their job is to do/say something that hasn’t been done before. This takes a tremendous amount of discipline and information.”

Ken Price, Zyko, 2008

CRITICISM involves Description, Interpretation, Judgment

So…WHAT IS CRITICISM?

Broader questions proposed at conference:

• Why are non-ceramic artists suddenly embracing clay?• Is the craft versus art debate obsolete or still relevant?• What is the effect of defining categories within ceramic-base art? ie. pottery,

ceramic sculpture, ceramic art etc…• What is the difference between artists who hold university jobs and those

who compete in the commercial world? How does this affect the production of ceramics work?

• What can ceramics do and say that other art forms cannot? How does clay contribute to the broader fine art conversations? Is what ceramics has to say still relevant?

• Are we experiencing a collapse in distinctions between general practices in western arts? (a so-called “sisterhood” of the arts.)

• Is the clay community’s desire for unity and common interest detrimental to the development and growth of ceramics art?

• Does the university system stunt creative growth and minimize risk-taking?

Some of my questions during the conference:

• How are ceramists embracing the future, using new technology and competing in the broader art world?

• How important is originality?

• Why do I feel like the youngest person at this conference?

• Authenticity…. what does it mean and how does one build and authenticate an artistic practice?

• Why doesn’t NCECA dedicate more time and space to these critical questions at the larger annual conference?

• Is NCECA the right organization to take on all these difficult questions?

• How can I remain professionally engaged in the field of ceramics if I am not affiliated with a university?

• Should artists read art criticism?

Symposium HighlightsSpeakers, Panelists…

Their thoughts and questions:

Hans Coper, 1950

* Disclaimer: quotes are rough, based on my written notes from the conference.

GARTH CLARK

• Well known art dealer, writer, critic, and speaker on ceramics.• Numerous publications and conferences on contemporary ceramics.• Controversial lecture, “How envy killed the crafts movement: An autopsy in two parts” (2008) and follow-up “Palace and Cottage” (2010)

In Santa Fe…Likes:

Functional pots about foodPeople that are just pottersGranny pots made by grannies

Dislikes:InauthenticCeramics that references FoucaultAny book with the title 500 ___ in ClayDinnerware with ironyStudio art mixed with universities

SCULPTURE versus POTS:

“Sculpture doesn’t have a right to call itself ceramic art.” Ceramic art that is vessel related should not be called sculpture.

“Sculpture is the most challenging of the visual arts. When it is not good, sculpture has very little purpose in our lives. With the word vessel, we already have what we mean when we say ceramic sculpture. Pottery has a highly evolved aesthetic. It is an activity that is very different from sculpture.”

The art versus craft debate

is NOT obsolete.

GARTH CLARK

Ceramic-Art by Betty Woodman 2010

Two categories: Ceramic - Sculpture Ceramic - Art (vessels)

PAUL MATHIEU

• Faculty at Emily Carr University, Vancouver

• Artist, author, lecturer

• Author of Sex Pots: Eroticism in Ceramics

• Author of The Art of the Future, online book on the history of ceramics

“I am interested in ideas, not in material and process. I am interested in meaning.”

“I don’t see sculpture and pottery as separate. It is all ceramics, I disagree with Garth Clark.”

Ceramics is “autonomous”. It has its own conceptual framework. Ceramics is a way of thinking. It brings together art, design, craft, media, sometimes simultaneously.Refer to Mathieu’s essay “The Radical Autonomy of Ceramics”

Problems: Ceramics writing focuses too much on biographical information, materials and techniques.

TANYA HARROD

•Professor of Design, Royal College of Art, London•One of Britain’s foremost critics; author and speaker on contemporary crafts. •Co-editor with Glenn Adamson of “Journal of Modern Craft”•Author of The Crafts in Britain in the 20th Century•Member of ThinkTank, a European craft criticism collective.

Interested in:

Artists who “use craft to interrogate what is going on in the world of fine art.”

Makers who turn process into art and design.

Makers who choose “old” processes and techniques in our post-production era.

Art that addresses production and industry.

DONALD KUSPIT

• Professor of Art History and Philosophy, State U of NY, Stony Brook

• Author of over 20 books on art including, Redeeming Art: Critical Reveries and The Critic is Artist: The Intentionality of Art.

• A true academic.

“The society of entertainment and spectacle swamps our consciousness with pre-conceived ideas about experience… The intimacy of ceramics takes a stand against this.”

Quoting French Philosopher and poet,

Paul Valéry:

“One should project the imagination, not just expose the material. This is what makes it art…creating into the material, art beyond technique, beyond life.”

“Touch is the principle sense in ceramics. It is the sense from which all others derive. Touch is imaginative, looking is passive.”

HOWARD RISATTI

• Professor of Contemporary Art and Critical Theory, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Author of “A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression”, 2007

“Aesthetic experience is important. Yet has disappeared recently in art. There is an over-emphasis on context and stuff. As a critic it is my job to foster the understanding of aesthetic experience.”

“Aesthetic experience is based on response…response and real sensual experience.”

“Pots are not images, they are objects. Paintings, photos refer to other things. Pots do not refer to other things, they are things.”

ROBERTA SMITH

• Senior art critic for the NY Times since 1986

• Contributor to Village Voice, Art Forum, Art in America, Vogue and Newsweek

• Delivered controversial keynote speech at 2009 NCECA conference

• Reviewed Dirt on Delight: Impulses that Form Clay, 2009 at Philly Institute of Contemporary Art and Minneapolis Walker Art Center

• Former studio assistant to Donald Judd

“All human beings desire something new. Art fulfills this. Art should be original. It is the greatest human experience.

”You don’t own ceramics! It has entered the art world. The horses are out of the barn.”

“whether it is a pot, a sculpture, etc.. is irrelevant. What is relevant is if it is good or bad.”

“Artists do not own the meaning of their work. Once it is out there, they can’t control the response.”

DAVE HICKEY

• Contributor to Art in America, Rolling Stone, ArtNews, ArtForum, Vanity Fair

• Two books of critical essays: The Invisible Dragon and Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy

• Professor of English at University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Known for his arguments against academicism and in favor of the effects of rough, free markets on art

Interested in a Sisterhood of the arts. “I don’t like the category of ceramics. Besides an aura of clay dust, ceramics people don’t have much in common.”

“Ceramics and craft cults are on their way to being dissolved. Now, you have to worry about making persuasive objects.”

“In ceramics, you are dealing with the gravitas of the medium. You have to find your way in or out of it all the time.”

“Most people getting money in the art world are academics. They are getting stupid money. Working in a public university takes away your spontaneity and ability to get ideas done fast”

“You shouldn’t want people to write criticism about you. If you expect any confirmation from the world you’re not going to get it.”

Broader questions proposed at conference:

• Why are non-ceramic artists suddenly embracing clay?• Is the craft versus art debate obsolete or still relevant?• What is the effect of defining categories within ceramic-base art? ie. pottery,

ceramic sculpture, ceramic art etc…• What is the difference between artists who hold university jobs and those

who compete in the commercial world? How does this affect the production of ceramics work?

• What can ceramics do and say that other art forms cannot? How does clay contribute to the broader fine art conversations? Is what ceramics has to say still relevant?

• Are we experiencing a collapse in distinctions between general practices in western arts? (a so-called “sisterhood” of the arts.)

• Is the clay community’s desire for unity and common interest detrimental to the development and growth of ceramics art?

• Does the university system stunt creative growth and minimize risk-taking?

- Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)

Letters to a Young Poet

SHOULD ARTISTS READ CRITICISM?

“Now, since you have said you want my criticism, I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you must most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you…no one. There is only one thing you should do: go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write. See whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart. Confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night, ‘must I write?’ Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple, ‘I must’ than build your life in accordance with this necessity. Your whole life into its humblest and most indifferent hour must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”

THANK YOU!

Grayson Perry, Quotes from the Internet, 2005