Fiat Ignis 2
Ceramics as the Art of Letting Go
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Chunbum Park. December 25, 2024
For many artists, the creative process often involves letting go of control to gain a different kind of control. This new power allows the artists to play with the unknown and not be merely limited to what they know. In “Fiat Ignis 2,” Gallery 60 and the New England Wood Firing Conference collaborate to bring wood-fired ceramic masterpieces to display.
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In this exhibition, Japanese aesthetics and traditions regarding ceramics makes a strong presence, featuring teacups used in Japanese tea ceremonies. The occasion also facilitates a hybrid and cosmopolitan mingling of cultures and people, including the western and Korean perspectives (as represented by Dan Christoffel and Minkyung Choi’s works, respectively).
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The artists, including Trevor Youngberg, Eike Maas, and Kiichi Takeuchi, utilize the fire fueled by wood inside kilns to bake the clay pieces and transform them into ceramic, nearly melting them in the process.
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Let’s look at Frank Olt’s stoneware piece titled, “Woodbridge, Land, Sea and Sky” (2024). It is in part a frosty and ethereal interpretation of a Mark Rothko painting, at least in terms of its rectilinear arrangement and abstract composition. But the snow-like forms melt downward, pulled by gravity during the firing process, and invite a more minimal aesthetics relating to Zen Buddhism. Works that may have inspired this kind of aesthetics can also be found in the snowy abstract landscapes from a Japanese book published by Taguchi Tomoki from the late Edo Period (1860-1869), titled, “Yatsuo no Tsubaki.”
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Similarly, in Eike Maas’s piece titled, “Gourd Vase 2” (2024), the dark vase begins to cave in onto itself due to the immense heat of the firing kiln, and this convolution of the surface suggests a pulling force between in the interior and the exterior, expressing a primordial and raw energy. The artist leaves the outcome to chance and the process of firing, in which the vase is partially destroyed and saved before it is completely melted.
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An important question that must be asked is… can an artwork with a utilitarian purpose truly be considered art? Why the distinction between art and craft? Can a work in the form of a sushi platter, or a bottle truly be considered art, if such works also serve utilitarian purpose, in addition to their aesthetic purpose?
Header Image: Shannon Brownlee, Sushi Plate, 2024, Woodfired stoneware, natural ash glaze, H 3" x W 10" x D 5" Image 2: Frank Olt, Woodbridge, Land, Sea and Sky, 2024, Stoneware, H 12" x W 12" x D 1.5"
Image 3: Minkyung Choi, Untitled, 2024, Porcelain, H 6" x W 5" x D 5" Image 4: Kiichi Takeuchi, Bottle, 2024, Stoneware, H 11" x W 10" x D 3"
Western art has always distinguished between art and craft. Fine art is supposed to question and to convey ideas, while craft overly relies on technical skill to produce functional items. But the art of letting go is a perfect antithesis to the craft’s supposed over-reliance on technical skill. Letting go of technical control could be a way with which the ceramicists are tackling the supposed weakness of their field.
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For example, the Japanese tea ceremony is a form of performance and art. When one looks closely and intently, each teacup holds within them an entire landscape painting. If the art object has utility, but this utilitarian quality pertains primarily to artistic and aesthetic concerns or projects, then is having a utility or functional purpose really a weakness… or is it a strength?
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At this level, ceramics is no longer craft in the ordinary sense – just as Akira Yoshizawa transformed contemporary Japanese origami into a higher form of expression, the ceramic artists here push the boundaries of what is possible and having dialogues with the canon of art history itself. The old, in terms of the techniques and the traditions surrounding ceramics, merge with the new, in the form of hybridity, cultural appropriation or exchange, and contemporary issues or styles. The ceramic artists, just like the origamists, are transcending the limits of their discipline, thereby dissolving the boundary between fine art and craft.