This book investigates how British contemporary artists who work with clay have managed, in the space of a single generation, to take ceramics from niche-interest craft to the pristine territories of the contemporary art gallery.

Laura Gray has a PhD in Art History from Cardiff Metropolitan University and is a freelance curator, writer and researcher specializing in contemporary art and craft, and twentieth-century sculpture.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

Becoming Partners?

Creative Tension: Defining ceramics

Sculpture: A category in danger of collapse

The Art and Craft Divide

An Overview of the Book

Chapter Two

Monumental Matters

Monuments and the Collective Memory

Two Approaches: The logical and the abstracted monument

Ceramics in Civic Space

Wheel of Fortune: Monumentalizing Stoke-on-Trent

Making it Big: The monumental style

Chapter Three

The Numbers Game: Multi-part compositions

Do Numbers Matter?

Plane Thinking: Horizonal groups

High Rise: Stack, build, repeat

The Expressive Possibility of Repetition

Clare Twomey: Master assembler

Chapter Four

The Art of Destruction: Ceramics, Sculpture and Iconoclasm

What is Iconoclasm?

Iconoclasm and Art

Vases and Vandalism

Out of the Ordinary: Destroying domestic ware

Clay in Common

Past Imperfect: The art of transformative repair

Destruction as Cultural Critique

Please Do Not Touch: Destruction in the vitrine

Biting the hand that feeds? Iconoclasm as institutional critique

Chapter Five

Encounters: Ceramics on Show

Thinking About Exhibitions

Clay as an Authentic Material for Sculpture: The Raw and the Cooked

Ceramics and Minimalism: The New White

Ceramics Under Threat: A Secret History of Clay

Post-Studio Practice: Possibilities and Losses

Ceramics for the Home

The Separation of Art and the Home

Home Coming: Contemporary ceramics in domestic space

Domesticating the White Cube

Conclusion

Radical Plasticity

A Single Material

Workmanship

The Vessel

The Current of Influence

The Future