This exhibition is now closed- but I managed to visit 2 days before it did. Contrary to the title this was not a gourmet trip but covered many of the aspects of how /what we eat and in particular recycling, re-use and new uses for by products. This was the most predictable (and conventionally ceramic) one. This is a terracotta home composting system for households in Calcutta, a city where food waste (along with everything else) tends to just accumulate on the streets. .There were some more surprising items, such as these dining essentials all made from dung- together with a pair of dung toilets. The cups are made with compressed coffee grounds but there were all sorts of other items and textiles made from by-products or food waste. It was a stimulating and enjoyable visit but it did not make me look at my project in any new way.
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I visited the Royal Academy Gormley exhibition on the 18th. This man is so creative! I had seen his work before but the only one even semi duplicated here was that showing figures like those in Crosby but projecting from the walls ceiling and floor of the very grand Royal Academy galleries. Some of the pieces were from very early in his career, and others created apparently created specifically for the exhibition. Most appeared to be exploring the relationship between the human body and the space around it. As the catalogue put it 'the artist invites you to engage with the spaces around you'. The installation I thought least successful (Host) was a complete departure from this theme - a gallery turned into a shallow pond of mud and stagnant seawater. For me, the most interesting installations /sculptures were these: Made out of loose dried clay lumps these unnamed pieces were very evocative; provoking (in me, at least) feelings of protection and sympathy. They also demonstrated the sculptor's intimate knowledge of the human form. More interesting and enjoyable for me were two pieces about the spaces we inhabit Eighty kilometres of square cross section tubing was coiled up, taken into a gallery and allowed to uncoil, filling the space. ('Clearing V11') Visitors who wished to get to the gallery beyond had to pick their way through. Each one became a participant in the work and may have been more aware of their own bodies (will I get safely through that gap?) and the total space. “I’m trying to activate the space itself in such a way that the viewer’s body becomes activated,” says Gormley, quoted on the Royal Academy website
Like the coiled installation above, a large part of this welded piece's visual interest was the way the visuals changed according the to viewers position - their viewpoint. Again from the RA website: 'The magic happens in the moment of human attention. The "perceptual maze” of Matrix III is formed in the act of walking around, and if you wish, underneath.' “It is very difficult to distinguish between the foreground, mid-ground and background of the work, because there are all of these conflicting perspectives.” (Gormley 2019).
A class trip out! The BCB has been held alternate years in the China Halls of the old Spode factory, as well as other venues around Stoke on Trent. It was good to go with other Ceramics MA students to share and discuss differing reactions. I had attended in previous years but it would have been easy to miss this one as it runs for a shorter time in 2019. here are just a few photos: This photo does not really do the glaze justice; I can only describe it as luscious. The pots below use slips and sgraffito to tell a story in words and apparently non related images. I liked the use of colour, the intricate carving of patterns and images and the way they related to the pots themselves. These moon jars also use the pot as canvas. They tell a story about the pottery industry in Stoke but are much less explicit. A smaller version of the series (the macquettes?) was among the assembly of 'pots from the famous' forming a mini exhibition gallery with guide prices and available to purchase through auction.
As far as i know none of our group felt able to bid......... One of the interesting exhibits was that made of of sitting figures done by school children. It reinforced my determination to include an element of participation into my MA work. Not to ask my audience and purchasing public to make my individual pieces but to give them choices as to how they are assembled together thus proving a final 'say' in the artwork. |
AuthorI am indulging my passion for ceramics by undertaking studies for an MA at UCLAN Archives
August 2021
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