Page 44 - Studio International - November 1973

FINE ART imagination as the moving force for Peter Voulkos combined traditional
any enterprise. The anarchistic
pottery with the concerns of
quality evident in some of the work abstract expressionist painting.
CERAMICS may be encouraged by the rather At first Voulkos was celebrated as a
foolhardy process of subjecting
months of work to intense heat for potter who could throw a classic
(An introduction to contemporary several days in order to complete the pot larger and more graceful than
English non-functional ceramics and transformation of the object. But this anyone else's, and work longer
its place in the socio-political, trial by fire welds together form and hours. Before long, however, he and
cultural and educational content, unlike any other medium. his admiring colleagues had ruptured
infrastructure). the traditional forms and were doing
Whilst the other fine arts diversify Pollocks and Stills and Rothkos and
For the uninitiated it should be said and dematerialize we continue to Klines in three dimensions. For a few
that there have been some dramatic endow the ultimate insignificant California artists and a very few
changes in ceramics during the last material with our own meanings and collectors, ceramic sculpture entered
ten years. The most significant has concepts. For some it is the world of the mainstream of American art.
been the mushrooming of 'ceramic the joke, pun or visual conundrum
sculpture' or 'fine-art ceramics' with its roots in Dada and By the end of the fifties, a number of
(which Dali would call 'fart Surrealism. Others are involved in Glenys Barton young painters felt surfeited with
ceramics'). In common with most cooler games of pristine form and Untitled 1973 Klines and Rothkos and Stills, and
other mushrooms this species spends qualities of materials. Although the while they appreciated the advantages
most of its time underground being medium would seem to lend itself to so that the work can reach a wider of having the eye of art history
seen only by connoisseurs and early Abstract Expressionism with its audience. With this and other focused on New York, they disliked
risers. The first examples were dependence on gesture and accident, opportunities which are coming our the fustian attitudinizing that
reported about 10 years ago having only in the States has significant way the outlook is much brighter and accompanied all that marvellous,
appeared quite spontaneously in work of this kind been done. fine-art ceramics in this country may important painting. The New York
widely separated locations. yet achieve the serious consideration reaction came in the form of what
Many of us look with envy upon the which it deserves. used to be called pop art, and a
status of Fine Art Ceramics in the David Hamilton parallel development took place in
USA, where artists such as California ceramics. Resemblances
Lichtenstein and Oldenburg work between New York pop and
in clay, and ceramists like Mason, Californian funk can be found,
Price, Arneson, Voulkos and LETTER especially by professional
Melchert can find some recognition analog izers, but there are real
of their talents ; where Abstract differences. When Andy Warhol
Expressionism revitalized ceramics FROM SAN said pop art is liking things, he said
and pop art became funk in the it to a waiting publicity machine ; the
Californian sunshine. (For a more California artists, by contrast, work
detailed description of the American FRANCISCO in a milieu in which very few persons
scene see 'Objects USA' by Lee care a rap about contemporary art
Nordness.) There it is possible to make William T. Wiley, often considered and the publicity media substantially
large scale ceramics, and even to sell the genius loci made flesh and an do not exist. In California it was
these notoriously unsaleable objects. outstanding exemplar of regional hardly necessary to say, with Claes
and sometimes rustic art, said he had Oldenburg, 'I am fora Coca-Cola
Back in the UK the numbers involved met an artist in Milan whose life art,' because nobody you could
in this clandestine movement are seemed very similar to his own. At see with the naked eye was waiting
David Vaughan increasing. Occasionally one of us the risk that Studio International fora Merleau- Pontian art; whatever
Untitled 1973 appears, to sparkle in the light of day; will decide it doesn't need a San you did, it would be consumed as if it
rarely in London, more often in the Francisco correspondent, I should were a Coca-Cola art washing down
About this time the art schools were provinces, where the Regional Arts like to begin with gratuitous honesty a Colonel Sanders's Kentucky Fried
shedding their academic skins. The Association and local authority and say that San Francisco artists Chicken art.
old and rather dowdy NDD hide galleries pursue an enlightened policy do pretty much everything done by
defined ceramics as pottery, either of encouraging quality without artists elsewhere, from conceptual One of the key figures in the
Pottery (Hand) like Bernard Leach attempting to categorize. Work has and performance art to the least transition from the crafts
or Pottery (Industrial) like no-one in been in evidence in the recent big ambitious kind of Sunday painting. tradition to the Voulkos alliance
particular. The bright new DipAD crafts shows at the Victoria and between ceramics and painting, and
coat of many colours encouraged Albert Museum, but juxtaposad with If there is a regional difference, it lies then to the making of jokes about art,
academic variety, which included the objects entirely different in concept not in the full range of what is being is Robert Arneson, who at 43 is old
adoption of some pottery studios by and intent fine-art ceramics are done, but in what is peculiarly shown enough to have lived through all of it.
Departments of Fine Art whereupon hardly seen to advantage. Government and peculiarly loved, and in that As an art student he intended to
they changed their name to ceramics provision for the arts and crafts is respect I should say the speciality of become an illustrator, but instead
workshops. Such changes were channelled through organizations so our house is witty ceramics. found himself teaching crafts in a
indicative of the pioneer spirit which segregated that we whose work is secondary school, and necessarily
was abroad. A new kind of art neither or both are still trying to Clay is not a highly respected art having to learn the skills before
education was to be forged (or identify our particular fairy god- medium in New York; the imparting them.
modelled) into shape. And it was in mother. In fact, determining whether Duchampian attitude toward
this climate that many fine-art oversize V-fronts, wardrobes, materials has led artists from the First he did ceramics in the crafts
ceramists got their first teaching jobs. geometrics or lego teapots are art or most noble media to the most tradition, then in the mode pioneered
This was essential if they were to craft demands mind-bending ignoble, not excluding faeces, by Voulkos. For a time, during the
survive and continue making objects subtleties of intellect. without pausing over the ironic early sixties, he cast women's
without a defined market. possibilities of clay, which has been on girdles in bronze. In 1964 he found
Communications between the mantelpiece for centuries. what seems to be his true vocation,
Artists involved in this activity may be ceramists working in the fine-art area and began making fantastic toilets,
painters or sculptors who have tend to be irregular transmissions California's contribution to the use often with suggestions of sexual
rediscovered the medium, often after rather than scheduled broadcasts, but of clay as a serious medium begins anatomy.
exposure to it whilst students, or the recent 'Objects' exhibition at where the crafts and Zen approaches
ceramists who seek forms of Southampton City Art Gallery gave end, with the realization that a Since that time the basis of Arneson's
expression other than studio crafted the opportunity to some ceramists to glazed pot is a painting and a work has been the contrast between
pottery. The only common factor is a show their work in a proper context. sculpture as well as a traditional art object and utilitarian object, art
disregard for distinctions between Next year it is intended to organize object. During the fifties, in Los and craft, craft then and art now.
art and craft and a belief in a travelling show of a similar nature Angeles, a group of artists led by He had learned a virtuoso technique
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