Dirty, Sexy Clay

Annabeth Rosen’s Contingency at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery is one of the many offerings that were coordinated for the NCECA conference. Her work blends ceramic with assemblage, lashing together towers out of individually fired parts. And, oh, those parts… a balance of penetrators and penetrables, they evoke genitalia (and guts) stacked into ebullient, yet controlled clusterfucks. Please trust me: I mean this in the kindest way possible. The repetition of specific forms, dismembered from a body, suggested spare parts sitting around to be interchanged, replacing those worn out with use.



I immediately thought back to my Classical education and the Ancient Greek sculptures of Artemis of Ephesus, bearing dozens of ovoid breasts.



Take for example the piece above: a chicken wire sack of breasts and vulvas, anyone?



Bulbous, red-tipped oblong forms sprouting upward? A penis plant? Am I totally missing the mark here? There is that venerable question of whether the sex is in the work, or whether it is in the mind of the viewer.



The inclusion of this work was a distracting peculiarity—its use of video very much at odds with the rest of the installation.

While I liked her sculptural work, I did find it monotonous, because I fixated so heavily on this element of sex, or at least of the physical human body. Thinking back on much of the clay that I have viewed within the past month, her work is unexceptional in this regard. Whereas many of the pieces I saw across several galleries were figuratively literal, and often dealt with gender identity rather than just sex, Rosen’s are more oblique in their depiction, though not sufficiently abstracted to prevent me from deeming this a sex organ farm.

Self-Perpetuated Media Ghettoization?

The rapid-fire succession of having SGC International and NCECA in Philadelphia got me thinking about how the art exhibited in the city of late has really played to these particular audiences. The thought process in trotting out the work of ceramic artists or print artists specifically when their professional associations have come to town feels like a knee-jerk reaction to me. It is a gambit that lures the out-of-town conference attendees to one’s gallery space, estimating that they only have limited time to spend and will probably want to see work by artists within the same discipline. But the question that I want to ask is such: does this trend perpetuate the ghettoization of an artistic medium?

In some way I would liken this behavior to the quibbles that are often raised with heritage history months, such as Black History Month or Women’s History Month. It is important to set aside time for the examination and celebration of individual achievements within all communities, especially minority groups whose narratives may have been chronically treated short-shrift. But confining them to such a brief and finite time span can send the message that for the one month, the subject at hand is all that matters, and after that month is over, it is no longer of consequence until next year rolls around, keeping it neatly in its own little isolating cubicle.

For ceramics, a medium whose practitioners have historically been hyper self-conscious of the perceived lack of respect from critics and other artists, as well as persistently vigilant about their struggle to be seen as deeper than just decorative, I find this conundrum especially relevant. The fact that dozens of galleries within Philadelphia concentrate on ceramic artists only when NCECA is present, I fear, sends the message that ceramic art only matters to ceramic artists. Moreover, I would ask, is it really true that artists of a certain medium are single-mindedly focused on viewing art of this selfsame kind when they visit somewhere new?

I do not have answers to these questions, but I would love to hear commentary from anyone with perspective on the matter.

Ceramic Babylon

With the NCECA Conference in town, all of the galleries turned the spotlight to their ceramic superstars for First Friday (more about this phenomenon in my next post). I concentrated my expedition around Washington Square, Old City, and Northern Liberties/Fishtown. If asked whether any thematic thread permeated much of the work I saw, carnality comes first to mind.

Bridgette Mayer Gallery was host to Steve Tobin, whose work had a decidedly aquatic tinge. From his wall of Single Bang Pots, one could buy individual pieces. I liked the way all of the pots worked as a singular installation, but I was not sure about taking them out of this context. Some of the pots were gorgeous, resembling delicate sea urchin or murex shells, but others were particularly generic and weak as standalone pieces. In Tobin’s Exploded Earth Series, crater-like vessels held pools of vividly colored glass, akin to petite geyser basins.


Steve Tobin - Single Bang Pots


Steve Tobin - Single Bang Pots


Steve Tobin - Exploded Earth Series

Locks Gallery devoted their entire second floor gallery to Betty Woodman. I have to be honest—I feel a pinch of guilt in admitting this—her work looks and feels anachronistic, frozen in time as though it just touched down from 1980 or so. I am not a huge fan of P&D (Pattern and Decoration), mostly because I do not consider that the works have aged very well. It was a movement and an aesthetic that served its purpose in the history of 20th Century art, mostly as an exercise in validation for the decorative arts, but one that was more of a means than an end. We all know that in art, process is paramount, but the product should stand on its own merits too. Regardless of my opinion, Woodman is a hero of the medium, whose esteem and reputation are a settled matter, and I respect her achievements.


Betty Woodman installation view



Locks also presented some lovely Kathy Butterly and Jill Bonovitz vessels on the third floor.


Kathy Butterly piece at Locks Gallery

At 22 Gallery in Old City (is this a new space or a pop-up gallery?) there was a small mash-up of artwork in varied media by the Cohoquinoque Crew. I loved this gem by Jo Watko. It may be difficult to tell from the photo, but it is a lectern infested and ostensibly being torn to shreds by locusts.


Jo Watko - A Genuine Orator's Podium, 2010

Snyderman-Works Gallery was mobbed, and something of a misfire in its offerings. Visitors are first greeted by Alex Irvine’s Ugly Jugs (his title, not mine), an array of excessively vulgar attention-grabbers that have been installed in the storefront windows. My problem with these pieces is that they feel too much like movie props or waxwork busts.


Alex Irvine - Ugly Jugs


Snyderman-Works Gallery

I had no idea that CerealArt was shuttering its brick-and-mortar gallery to focus on its online sales.



Wexler Gallery held my favorite exhibition of the evening, Hermaphrodites: Living In Two Worlds curated by Leslie Ferrin. The works chosen are either literally or conceptually about hermaphroditism, which is to say, they may feature actual intersex protagonists, or they may be hybrids which play with notions of fine art versus decorative art, simultaneously embodying both. I guarantee that you will not be able to shake Tip Toland’s Tender Flood from your mind for its unsettling lifelike quality, as well as the diminutive erection he/she unabashedly sports; it struck me as perhaps an aging spin on the ancient Greek mythological figure Hermaphroditus (the antecedent of our modern terminology), whose youth and beauty have since fallen.


Tip Toland - Tender Flood, 2010


Chris Antemann - Wardrobe, 2009


Cynthia Consentino - Undivided, 2010


Kelly Garrett Rathbone - Crocuta Crocuta Marionetta, 2010


Dana Major Kanovitz - Infiltrator, 2009


Dirk Staschke - Premonition, 2008

At Projects Gallery the exhibition title To Die For should give some idea as to the curatorial vision. Do not miss the basement level gallery, which contains Todd Leech’s Drowning. The air is dank, most likely owing to the moisture involved in the work, which adds to the overall milieu of decay. IV drips flow into a tray placed on a hospital gurney, gradually eating away at the unfired clay figurines. I also enjoyed Kathy Ruttenberg’s Grounded, which gave me drowned-Ophelia vibes.


Todd Leech - Drowning




Kathy Ruttenberg - Grounded


David Furman - The Death of Dessert and the Birth of McDonald's


Richard Cleaver - Cult of the Tzar III

I ended my trek at Bambi Gallery, where Paul Swenbeck and Nick Lenker presented the collaborative effort Man, Myth and Magic. The two oil lamp sculptures are noteworthy highlights. When lit, the flickering flames bolster the dream state ethereality that the selection of works seems to probe.


Paul Swenbeck & Nick Lenker - Sacrifice




Paul Swenbeck & Nick Lenker - Lucifer


Paul Swenbeck & Nick Lenker - Familiars

Beached Whales on South Broad

Shay Church - Gray Whales: Philadelphia, 2010

This week, in conjunction with the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) conference presently in Philadelphia, you might be taken aback by an odd apparition across from the Kimmel Center: three beached gray whales, languishing in the open gravel lot. The artist Shay Church has previously built installations such as these, creating whales, elephants, and other large-scaled natural fauna. In all of the works, the creatures seem to be in some sort of distress, slumped or lying on the ground, compounded by the manner in which the wet clay, used to surface the animals, begins to dry and crack. For works this massive, he enlists community volunteers to help with applying the clay over the armature that give it its shape. The handprints and finger streaks remain as an essential characteristic of the finished work.


Tristin Lowe in collaboration with FWM - Mocha Dick, 2009

Just a few days old, these poor beasts were already looking worse for wear, but I think that the compressed lifecycle of the works is essential to the artist’s message. A beached whale does not last very long out of water; these sculptures will last only a bit longer than their real counterparts. There is something about being confronted with the heft and mass of nature’s grandest creatures—whether the real thing or a recreation such as these—that stirs deep-seated emotions in the viscera. One inescapable aspect is awe at the sheer size, but there is also identification that these mammals are not too distant from humans. I naturally think back to Tristin Lowe’s Mocha Dick at FWM last summer, a much healthier-looking specimen, when I would note visitor’s reactions, as well as my own. The experience of looking into the whale’s eye, on both pieces, triggers a totally anthropomorphizing sympathy in the viewer.


Shay Church - Gray Whales: Philadelphia (detail), 2010


Tristin Lowe in collaboration with FWM - Mocha Dick (detail), 2009

Click here for Citypaper’s coverage on the creation of the whales. More of my images follow below: