THE LANGUAGE OF CERAMICS
21 January – 20 August 2023
Everyone knows the feeling. You walk around an exhibition and suddenly there is a work of art that cuts through the confusion and speaks to you. Old or new – it just speaks directly to one. It precisely hits some coordinates in our sensory apparatus that we may not have even known existed. Why does this particular work of art affects you and what buttons does it push? What mechanisms drive the work? With these fundamental questions, the curator Peder Rasmussen has dealt with ceramics throughout his life – both as a practicing ceramicist and as a dazzling communicator. In the exhibition, The Language of Ceramics, he now conveys a diversity of ceramic expressions together with CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark. With simple analytical tools and a linguistic conceptual apparatus, the audience will be equipped to explore the many works and articulate what they see.
The exhibition presents ceramic art and its tools across historical eras and traditions. From ancient Persian ceramics to modern conceptual sculpture, from utility ceramics to art. Here, the focus is on techniques and materials, compositional principles and styles, mythological motifs and dramatic narratives. A true pleasure walk through some of the highlights of ceramics history from CLAY’s own collections, supplemented by important deposits from other museums, ceramists and private collectors.
Caption:
K. Hansen Reistrup, Egyptervase, 1899/ L. Skov Madsen, Skulpturel form, 2006. Veistrups Samling/CLAY.
Photo: Ole Akhøj, processed by Rasmus Koch Studio