Yanik Potvin and László Fekete: Contamination and Cultural Materiality, 2023
The project presented at Langage Plus Contemporary Art Center in 2023 is the result of a long correspondence, following my research interests, with Hungarian artist László Fekete. Fekete is a ceramist who enjoyed considerable recognition in the American ceramics milieu of the 80s and 90s. Nevertheless, the place that the ceramic medium in the more generic milieu of the visual arts is an oscillating one, here as in the old world of Europe. Thus, the cultural approach of Fekete’s practice to the object and its construction is relative to the environment in which it is established. This is the case for any artist who works with materials, especially if the material and the objects produced bear witness to a rich and multiple historicity. My personal practice and interests in ceramics are closer to anthropological research although I don’t use the quantitative methods of the social sciences. Rather, I tend to consider a qualitative postqualitative approach to materials and their production processes. The encounter between Fekete was established by the aesthetic elements we share, though separated by a generation and an ocean.
In concrete terms, I invited László Fekete to a collaborative exhibition with the aim of questioning cultural approaches to ceramics. An attempt to highlight the recurrences and divergences between our practices, with the aim of submitting a project illuminating common determinants which we would define as the material’s prior characteristics. It is a cultural exchange through shared material, as has happened millions of times in human history (i.e., in pre-Columbian America; networks of lithic materials, the presence of Iroquoian ceramics among Algonquian hunting groups or the spread of the “3 sisters” cultigens from Mexico to the St. Lawrence Valley, QC., Canada).
CONTAMINATION AND CULTURAL MATERIALITY, 2023, clay, ceramic, found objects, digital prints, spraypaint, video projection, photo archives. Project by Yanik Potvin and László Fekete, presented at Langage Plus Art Centre, Alma (QC), Canada.
Photo credits: Simon Bernier-Bilodeau
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