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.
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.
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