- The exhibition "Formed and Fired"
highlights key works by four groundbreaking ceramic artists
whose practice is very much grounded in tradition
and grounded in the past, but whose work really speaks to
contemporary issues, contemporary ideas
and interrogates these questions of the body
and identity and materiality and value.
The works on view in this exhibition are by Simone Leigh,
Brie Ruais, Kathy Butterly and Kahlil Robert Irving.
- When people are able to come visit the museum,
the gallery is on the first floor, right in view.
So I'm hoping visitors will come and go through the gallery,
walk around the work,
contemplate what they see, look very closely.
Think about some of the issues that are raised
and take that with them as they continue to walk
throughout our permanent collection.
- There's an innate physicality
in the works of Brie Ruais and Kathy Butterly.
Brie Ruais presents large-scale,
in a way monumental objects that are mounted on the wall.
And I think it's important to understand how
Brie sort of builds these works.
- They're largely made on the floor
with the equivalent of my body weight in clay.
So I typically use around 130 pounds of clay
and work in a very quick, gestural,
movement-driven performative approach.
I have also been very receptive to the material's ability
to report, process and gesture.
So a lot of the pieces too
I'm tearing them into sections
and you can see the tear line.
You can see that physical gesture
and that's really important to me in my work.
All of the gestures that go into making it are legible
and that's clay's real gift to us,
I think, is to reveal this mystery of movement.
- The sort of innate physicality within Brie Ruais' work
is seen in a similar but different way
in the work of Kathy Butterly.
Kathy Butterly's works are small,
they're intimate, they appear fragile.
As small as they are, they feel very bold.
They feel very forceful.
They feel very strong and proud.
Kahlil is asking us to refocus our gaze on American history
and to the way in which social issues
are perpetrated continually today.
And to give us a greater sense of an awareness of our body
in relation to the past,
so that the future can be a better one for everybody.
- I'm thinking about how objects and actions
relate to each other and how 16th and 17th and 18th and 19th
and 20th century acts of violence relate to violences
that are occurring today
and in ceramic the possibility of memorializing and kind of
working through that information is really possible.
But there's another part of the work that is very important
that relates to photography and the news and media
and how, when you use social media
and the news and television, it's very moving.
It's moving in time. It's moving in space.
It's moving on your screen.
Using ceramic for me is a way to render that movement still.
And so my sculptures are aimed to make photography
and digital media slow down.
- The work of Simone Leigh
also addresses issues of race and gender.
As a black woman,
she talks about making work for a black audience.
She's also highlighting black femininity.
Her work really shows black women
in a proud and powerful position.
Showing BIPOC artists is really helpful
in contextualizing our own collection,
which is not very diverse
and gives us an opportunity to have conversations around
race, gender identity, materiality,
social justice, and contemporary issues.