Transgressions. Contemporary ceramics is on view at Museu del Disseny de Barcelona
June 9 – August 28, 2022
The exhibition “Transgressions” shows the new collection of contemporary ceramics from the Museu del Disseny de Barcelona, with works by around fifty artists.
From June 9 and until August 28, 2022, the Museu del Disseny de Barcelona exhibits ‘Transgressions. Contemporary ceramics of the Design Museum’, an in-house production that shows for the first time the new collection of contemporary ceramics that complements the already existing one that has more than a thousand objects and two hundred and thirty different authorships, which include artists such as Llorens Artigas, Picasso or Miró.
In recent years, the Museu del Disseny has worked to keep its collection up to date, carefully following new ceramic trends and increasing it, so that it becomes a living and representative sample of current creation, with works of close to fifty ceramists made in the last decades and up to the present day.
In total, 91 pieces by contemporary artists such as Madola, María Oriza, Xavier Toubes, Ángel Garraza, Sophie Aguilera, Maria Bofill or Roger Coll, among others, will be exhibited in an exhibition that aims to make the country’s contemporary ceramics visible in all his expressions.
Curated by Isabel Fernández del Moral, curator of ceramics at the Museu del Disseny, the exhibition emphasizes a creative moment of contrasts, criticism and reflection on current issues, where material, technical and conceptual transgressions become evident. At the same time, the versatility of the material allows us to approach the applications of ceramics in the world of design and architecture.
Thanks to the incorporation of the new pieces, the contemporary ceramics collection of the Museu del Disseny makes it possible to trace the history of artistic ceramics from its origins, at the beginning of the 20th century, to the present day, as well as to document how the object of use becomes an artistic object, that receives the influence of traditional forms and techniques while being integrated into the aesthetic of contemporary art.
Transgressions, craft product design and architecture
The exhibition begins with a large area that gives its name to the exhibition, ‘Transgressions’, which addresses ceramic creation of a more artistic nature and which aims to reflect the moment of contrasts and extremes, of criticism and reflection on current issues of contemporary ceramic creation. The purpose of the objects is no longer merely contemplative, but seeks to surprise, generate curiosity, obtain a reaction and, ultimately, generate an emotion. To achieve this, the creators go beyond the established limits, both in terms of technique, materials and the messages they want to convey. This main area is divided into three subareas: ‘Material Transgressions’, where we find pieces where the artist experiments with the shapes, materials and dimensions of the works or modeling techniques, ‘Conceptual Transgressions’, where a series of pieces are collected to show how through ceramics you can obtain an object of art that shakes and remains vindictive, and ‘Subtlety and transgression’, a last subfield dedicated to porcelain, a material that requires great expertise and precision in the work and that it offers simple and austere results, delicate and beautiful, and transgressive at the same time.
In the second area, the exhibition addresses the design of artisanal products. This section highlights how ceramic artisans combine traditional technical knowledge with product design, and how renowned designers have made clay their material, achieving innovative and original results.
Finally, the exhibition has a third area on ceramics and architecture with a selection of pieces from Ceràmica Cumella, a company that works to develop projects in close collaboration with prominent architecture studies and with visible results in some of the most representative projects of international contemporary architecture.
Contact
museudeldisseny@bcn.cat
Museu del Disseny de Barcelona
Pl. de les Glòries Catalanes
37-38 08018 Barcelona
Catalonia, Spain
For the full photo captions, see the press pack here (in Spanish)
