ceramic vision: body and soul

Chris Antemann

Body & Soul

New International Ceramics

September 24, 2013 to March 2, 2014

Mad Museum NY

About the Exhibition

In recent years, the human figure has returned to center stage in the work of artists around the world. Body & Soul: New International Ceramics underscores the power of the figure to convey strong emotions, and also to the accessibility of the ceramic medium. Through clay the figure becomes the catalyst for addressing the emotional impact of contemporary pressures that confront our society today. Each work, inspired by a personal incident or symbolic tale, expresses a deep emotional identity, contrasting societal, political, and personal views on themes such as anxiety, bias, mortality and memory.
The exhibition will highlight approximately 25 international artists who came to clay as painters, draughtsmen, or sculptors. Many are being shown for the first time in the United States. The range and quality of the works will make this exhibition engaging and provocative, and will bring this special area of creativity into a much-deserved focus.

http://www.madmuseum.org/exhibition/body-soul#

Exhibition highlights include:
Mounir Fatmi, (Morocco, b. 1970; lives in FR), Forget, 2010, an installation of several ceramic skulls wearing hard hats comments on the fragility of both body and brain, and the hard demands of physical labor and work.
Teresa Gironès, (SP, b. 1941), Victima [Victim] 2012, a poignant representation of a woman unable to speak out against her abuser; the raw treatment of the clay expresses the anger of the incident.
Michel Gouèry, (FR, b. 1959) Riri, Fifi, 2006, a sardonic pair of seated female bodies with no distinguishable facial features: empty vessels without identity, encased in a restrictive armor, and rendered powerless.
Elsa Sahal, (FR, b. 1975) Pieds Noirs/Black Feet, 2010, depicts the memory of bias and hostility by the French people to French immigrants from North Africa.
Kim Simonsson (Finland, b. 1974) Untitled, 2013, andCarrie II, 2009, eerie, dramatic, and forceful depictions of children, contrasting innocence with a sense of impending violence.

Mounir Fatmi, (Morocco, b. 1970; lives in FR), Forget, 2010, an installation of several ceramic skulls wearing hard hats comments on the fragility of both body and brain, and the hard demands of physical labor and work.
Teresa Gironès, (SP, b. 1941), Victima [Victim] 2012, a poignant representation of a woman unable to speak out against her abuser; the raw treatment of the clay expresses the anger of the incident.
Michel Gouèry, (FR, b. 1959) Riri, Fifi, 2006, a sardonic pair of seated female bodies with no distinguishable facial features: empty vessels without identity, encased in a restrictive armor, and rendered powerless.
Elsa Sahal, (FR, b. 1975) Pieds Noirs/Black Feet, 2010, depicts the memory of bias and hostility by the French people to French immigrants from North Africa.
Kim Simonsson (Finland, b. 1974) Untitled, 2013, andCarrie II, 2009, eerie, dramatic, and forceful depictions of children, contrasting innocence with a sense of impending violence.

http://www.artesmagazine.com/2013/10/museum-of-arts-and-design-n-y-with-body-soul-new-international-ceramics/