Tag: terracotta

Clementine Keith-Roach at PPOW Gallery

Clementine Keith-Roach’s sculptures at PPOW Gallery combine found vessels with casts of her own body to explore her experience of motherhood.  During her first pregnancy, the artist felt as if she was a ‘labouring vessel’ and made the connection literal by joining carefully painted limbs to used and worn ceramics.  Paired with her husband Christopher Page’s paintings depicting mirrors with no reflection and cloud-filled windows, the exhibition explores interiority in both the physical and psychological realms.  (On view through July 1st in Tribeca).

Clementine Keith-Roach, Lost Object, terracotta vessel, jesmonite, paint, 22 ½ x 21 ¼ x 17 ¾ inches, 2022.

The Met reopens ‘Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara’

New York Art Tours celebrates the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s reopening to the public today with a look at this Seated Male Figure from the museum’s current ‘Sahel:  Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara’ exhibition.  Fueled by global trade and transformed by the arrival of Islam, the region’s empires produced masterpieces like this terracotta figure whose identity is unknown.  (On view through Oct 26th.  View the Met’s new guidelines before visiting.)

Seated Male Figure, Middle Niger civilization, terracotta, Mali, 12th – 14th century.

XU ZHEN at James Cohan Gallery

Ancient and 20th century, Chinese and European cultural heritage come into direct contact in XU ZHEN’s sculpture of a Tang Dynasty warrior holding Brancusi’s ‘Sleeping Muse.’  Currently part of an exhibition at James Cohan Gallery that has transformed the exhibition space into a garden with walking paths that replicate protest marches, the piece aims to provoke conversation on many levels.  (On view on the Lower East Side through April 22nd).

XU ZHEN, Eternity-Painted Terracotta Statue of Heavenly Guardian, Sleeping Muse, bronze, mineral composites, mineral pigments, steel, 79 1/8 x 33 5/8 x 17 5/8, 2016.

Kyle Staver at Kent Fine Art

Kyle Staver’s large paintings at Kent Fine Art update legends and classical mythology with panache and humor, but her small terracotta studies stand out for their immediacy. Here, Venus tries unsuccessfully to persuade Adonis not to venture out on his ill-fated hunt in a compressed action scene that casts Venus as a solid earth-mother and Adonis as an ungainly and heedless youth. (In Chelsea through Oct 22nd).

Kyle Staver, Venus and Adonis Study (after Titian), terracotta, 13 x 10 ½ inches, 2016.
Kyle Staver, Venus and Adonis Study (after Titian), terracotta, 13 x 10 ½ inches, 2016.