This July we will make a special feature for the Overthrown: Clay Without Limits exhibition at the Denver Art Museum, which is on view June 11 through September 18, 2011.
It will include images with the exhibited works and many interviews with the participating artists. You will find all the related content in the Overthrown page.
Also, the interviews will be featured in our special edition newsletter (will be sent at the end of the month). Subscribe here if you haven’t already.
Read the preview of the interview with Gwen F. Chanzit, the curator of the exhibition.
The twenty-five artists in Overthrown: Clay Without Limits took on adventurous challenges to make the works in this exhibition. Most were made especially for Overthrown and many are in direct dialogue with our dynamic Daniel Libeskind-designed architecture; they move beyond the pedestal to the wall, the floor, and even the ceiling. A few extend beyond the Anschutz Gallery, across the entire museum complex. They break boundaries that are physical, technological, conceptual, and spatial.
Working in all scales, from architecturally expansive to almost impossibly small, the artists in Overthrown employ twenty-first-century technology hand-in-hand with standard modeling and molding techniques. They use digital cameras, computers, laser cutters, 3-D printers, and computer-controlled mills along with more traditional tools.
Some push the forms of functional objects. Others push the limits of fragility. They take risks that draw on material chemistry and maverick kiln techniques. Some of their works include not only clay, but also found objects such as metal, plastic, and abandoned industrial materials. Overthrowing our expectations of ceramic art—its size, its context, its methods, and its meaning—these artists show us new ways of using this versatile and timeless material.
Artists:
Katie Caron
Nathan Craven
Benjamin DeMott
Kim Dickey
Heather Mae Erickson
Neil Forrest
John Gill
Del Harrow
Marie T. Hermann
Tsehai Johnson
Andrew Martin
Walter McConnell
Kristen Morgin
Mia Mulvey
Jeanne Quinn
John Roloff
Annabeth Rosen
Anders Ruhwald
Martha Russo
Paul Sacaridiz
Linda Sormin
Julian Stair
Brendan Tang
Cheryl Ann Thomas
Clare Twomey
Curator: Gwen F. Chanzit, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and the Herbert Bayer Collection and Archive
Location: Anschutz Gallery, Level Two, Hamilton Building / The Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum is located on 13th Avenue between Broadway and Bannock Streets in downtown Denver. Open Tuesday–Thursday and Saturday Sunday 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Friday 10 a.m.–8 p.m.; closed Mondays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. General admission for Colorado residents: $10 adults, $8 seniors and students, $3 for visitors 6-18, free for children 5 and younger. Admission for non-Colorado residents: $13 for adults, $10 for seniors and students, $5 for visitors 6-18, free for children 5 and younger. The Cultural Complex Garage is open; enter from 12th Avenue between Broadway and Bannock or check the DAM website for up-to-date parking information. For information in Spanish, call 720-913-0169. For more information, visit http://www.denverartmuseum.org/ or call 720-865-5000.
Overthrown: Clay Without Limits brings together regional, national and international artists who push the boundaries of clay to create large-scale installations that respond to the dynamic architecture of the Daniel Libeskind-designed Hamilton Building. The majority of the 25 participating artists will create site-specific artworks. Highlights include a large-scale ceramic and found object sculpture by Linda Sormin that utilizes the colossal, slanted wall in the Hamilton Building atrium; an installation of suspended clay flakes, the largest around 300 pounds, by Neil Forrest; a 23-foot chandelier by Jeanne Quinn; and a tiled enclosure with freestanding elements by Anders Ruhwald. Overthrown also includes a sampling of smaller ceramic objects that acknowledges that other means, besides size, can challenge expectations of the material.
Marajó: Ancient Ceramics at the Mouth of the Amazon, located in the Martin and McCormick Gallery on level two of the Hamilton Building, focuses on the elaborately decorated red, white and black earthenware ceramics from the people who occupied the Brazilian island of Marajó from A.D. 400 to 1300. Much of the island is flooded each year by rising river waters, so its inhabitants built large artificial mounds to support dwellings, ceremonial spaces and cemeteries. Adorned in an ornate style with modeled, carved and painted human faces and figures, reptiles, snakes and birds, Marajó ceramics were used for feasting, ceremonial life and funerary offerings. Despite their artistic sophistication, ancient Amazonian ceramics are largely unknown to the public. Marajó is the first exhibition devoted to this topic in the United States. Curated by Margaret Young-Sánchez.
Overthrown: Clay Without Limits, located primarily in the Anschutz Gallery on level two of the Hamilton Building, brings together regional, national and international artists who push the boundaries of clay to create large-scale installations that respond to the dynamic architecture of the Daniel Libeskind-designed Hamilton Building. The majority of the 25 participating artists will create site-specific artworks. Highlights include a large-scale ceramic and found object sculpture by Linda Sormin that utilizes the colossal slanted wall in the Hamilton Building atrium; an installation of clay flakes, each around 300 pounds, by Neil Forrest; a 23-foot chandelier by Jeanne Quinn; and a tiled enclosure with freestanding elements by Anders Ruhwald. Overthrown also includes a sampling of smaller ceramic objects that acknowledges that other means, besides size, can challenge expectations of the material. Curated by Gwen Chanzit.
Blue and White: A Ceramic Journey, located in the William Sharpless Jackson Jr. Gallery on level five of the North Building, conveys the popularity of blue-and-white pottery throughout the centuries in different parts of the world. The technique of creating blue-and-white ceramics was a great innovation of Chinese ceramic history and they became a vital component of China’s export trade. The exhibit will feature objects from early periods of blue-and-white ceramic production to present day examples.
Dirty Pictures, located in the Delisa and Anthony Mayer Gallery on level seven of the North Building, shows the varied ways photographers have depicted mud in their work. Whether as media for photographic construction, as the substance of metaphor or as a mark of human interaction with the earth—mud, clay, dirt and soil have made prominent appearances in the work of many photographers in the past 35 years. Featuring pieces by artists including Dieter Appelt, Zeke Berman, Jungjin Lee and Joel Sternfield, this exhibition aims to both examine these differences and draw connections between the varied uses of these materials in contemporary photography.
Mud to Masterpiece: Mexican Colonial Ceramics, located on level four of the North Building, explores the era of global trade and its effect on traditional Mexican earthenware, Chinese porcelain and Mexican majolica. Between 1521 and 1821, the ancient Mexican ceramic art of unglazed, low-fired earthenware was exported to Spain where it became quite fashionable. In return, Spanish artists introduced the potter’s wheel and high-fired hard glazes to Mexico, producing a pottery known as majolica. Trade brought Chinese porcelain to Mexico and its decorative motifs influenced both native earthenware and Mexican majolica. More than 30 pieces of Chinese porcelain, Mexican earthenware and Mexican majolica will be exhibited alongside Mexican colonial paintings that depict the use of ceramics in daily life. Curated by Donna Pierce.
Potters of Precision: The Coors Porcelain Company, located on level two of the North Building, displays porcelain labware produced by the Golden, Colo., company. The Coors Porcelain Company, now known as CoorsTek, creates specialized scientific forms—crucibles, beakers, evaporating dishes—that have remained virtually unchanged since their earliest iteration. Beauty and function exist simultaneously in vessels that serve scientists’ precisely stated needs. Curated by Darrin Alfred.
