From Neolithic pottery to Tang Dynasty figurines to delicate Ming- and Qing-era porcelain, China’s 7,000-year-old ceramics tradition has produced some of the world’s most skillfully crafted and aesthetically refined works of art.
Yet only in recent years have Chinese ceramicists begun to adopt Western conceptions of the “studio artist,” whose works are individual, rather than collective or cultural, expressions.
The School of Art’s Des Lee Gallery will explore this “new age” of Chinese ceramics with the exhibit Chinese Ceramics Today: Between Tradition and Contemporary Expression. The show features more than 50 works by 23 of that nation’s finest contemporary practitioners.
Chinese Ceramics Today opens today with a reception from 6-8 p.m. and remains on view through Sept. 30. Both the exhibit and the reception — which will be attended by four of the artists, Hsu I-Chi, Fiona Wong, Xiaoping Luo and Junya Shao — are free and open to the public.
In addition, the four visiting artists will host a free ceramics workshop from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sept. 10 in the School of Art’s Lewis Center Ceramics Studio, 725 Kingsland Ave.
“The making of Chinese traditional ceramics had always been a collective effort,” wrote Hsu, the exhibition’s chief organizer and founder of both Le Pottery HAP in Beijing and the Chinese Potters Newsletter, in the exhibition catalog. “This is true both in techniques and in artistic concepts (and is) the reason why Chinese ceramic masterpieces rarely bear the artist’s name.”
For much of the 20th century, the Chinese Communist Party furthered discouraged any sense of artistic individualism, though Hsu noted that “the situation has changed in the last 20 years, due to China’s reform and opening up.”
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Exhibition Who: School of Art What: Chinese Ceramics Today: Between Tradition and Contemporary Expression Where: Des Lee Gallery — University Lofts building, 1627 Washington Ave. When: Sept. 5-30; opening reception from 6-8 p.m. today For more information about the exhibit, call 935-4643. |
The closing of state-run factories and the development of a more market-driven economy have at last provided “a suitable background for independent ceramic artists to grow.” In the past three years alone, Hsu estimated, more than 100 influential ceramics artists have established independent studios.
It is from these independent studios — 20 from the mainland, three from Hong Kong — that Hsu has curated Chinese Ceramics Today. Works range from subtly off-kilter applications of traditional techniques to more conceptually flamboyant, multipart installations.
Dove (2002), by Liu Zheng, vice chairman of the Zhejiang Ceramics Artists Association, offers an expressive, sculptural interpretation of traditional ceramic figures. Garden Blues (2002), by Wang Haichen, founder of the Haichen Ceramics Salon in Shanghai, reprises the characteristic blue-and-white landscapes of Ming porcelain, yet ruptures those works’ seemingly implacable perfection with a large, central crack cleaving painted rocks and trees like a small earthquake.
A similar elegiac spirit is at play in Li Bei’s Memory Dishes (2002), a series of nine earthenware bowls holding, like votive offerings, twisted ceramic ribbons that mimic the shape and imagery of film negatives.
“Traditionally, artists were not accustomed to expressing their individual viewpoint in the artwork, ” Hsu wrote. Yet, by moving “beyond functionality toward an introspection of the self,” works such as Dove, Garden Blues, and Memory Dishes “represent an important step to Chinese artists and to the development of Chinese contemporary ceramic art.”
“We are yet to see a brighter future for these promising artists,” Hsu concluded.
Chinese Ceramics Today is organized by the Guangdong Art Museum in Canton, China, and the Ariana Museum in Geneva, Switzerland, with other stops including the Danmark Keramik Museum, Denmark; The Clay Studio in Philadelphia; the Orange County Center of Contemporary Arts, Santa Ana, Calif.; the University of Hawaii; and the Hong Kong Science & Technology University.
The St. Louis installment is made possible thanks to the sponsorship and contributions of Arnold and Hazel Donald, David Farrell, David Mesker, William and Ann Tao, Craft Alliance, The Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, the Organization of Chinese Americans-St. Louis Chapter, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis Chinese Association and Webster University.
The Des Lee Gallery is located in the University Lofts building, 1627 Washington Ave.
Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Fridays; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturdays; 1-4 p.m. Sundays; and by appointment.
For more information about the exhibit, call 935-4643.
For further information about the Sept. 10 workshop, call 935-6500.