Titled ‘Hereafter,’ LA-based artist Matthias Merkel Hess’s first New York solo show features a roomful of beautiful, handmade, ceramic objects that replicate everyday items…ones you might choose to be entombed with if you were buried in the ancient Egyptian manner. (At Salon 94 Freemans on the Lower East Side through August 9th).
Matthias Merkel Hess, installation view of ‘Hereafter’ at Salon 94, June 2013.
Kristin Jensen’s ‘Vase Faces,’ are inanimate objects that appear to come to life, but the effect is more humorous homeyness than horror. Ghostly but not spooky, chubby-cheeked visages seem to emerge and disappear on these simple vessels to charming effect. (At Nichelle Beauchene Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 9th).
Kristin Jensen, ‘Face Vases 1-4, with Prologue,’ porcelain with celadon glaze, 2013.
“I think that’s amazing, what people can do with the hands. It’s the same, and still they make it new,” says LA-based ceramic artist Shio Kusaka, regarding the tradition of ceramic making. No two of her vessels are alike, a point proved by 127 porcelain stoneware pots on show at Chelsea’s Anton Kern Gallery. (Through June 22nd.)
Shio Kusaka, installation view at Anton Kern Gallery, May 2013.
“When the eyes are shut, the eyes are extraordinarily open,” said iconic Italian Arte Povera artist Marisa Merz in 1974. Since the 80s, she’s made loosely formed sculptures of heads like this duo, whose gold covered eyes speak to a vision beyond the purely literal. (At Chelsea’s Barbara Gladstone Gallery through May 18th).
Marisa Merz, Untitled, two painted unfired heads and iron tripod, 1994.
Yesterday’s post featured Dieter Roth’s partially collapsed sculpture…in today’s, artist New York-based artist Sean Bluechel imagines ‘the moment before a collapse’ in cheeky sculptures cobbled together from forms derived from the history of ceramic art along with more contemporary vessels. (At Chelsea’s Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery through April 6th).
Sean Bluechel, installation view of ‘Still Life is No Life,’ at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, March 2013.
