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Medium Specificity and Materiality Sydney College of the Arts The University of Sydney DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 2015 THESIS Dirty Tricks The relevance of skill, expression and authenticity in contemporary clay-based art by Trevor Fry December 2015 STATEMENT This volume is presented as a record of the work undertaken for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF FIGURES .......................................................................................... v SUMMARY.......................................................................................................... ix INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 1. THE MAGIC OF CLAY .................................................................................. 9 1.1 Phenomenology and post-structuralism, Edmund de Waal and Rosalind Krauss .......... 19 1.2 De Waal and the magic of clay ........................................................................................ 20 1.3 The deskilled present ....................................................................................................... 30 1.3.1 Urs Fischer’s lumpy spectacles ................................................................................ 33 1.4 Rosalind Krauss ............................................................................................................... 42 1.4.1 Medium specificity ..................................................................................................... 42 1.4.2 The post-medium condition ....................................................................................... 45 1.4.3 Can ceramics be medium specific? .......................................................................... 47 1.5 Glenn Adamson: hedonism and inferiority ....................................................................... 48 1.6 Reskilled ........................................................................................................................... 52 1.6.1 The author’s reskilled making ................................................................................... 57 1.6.2 Skilled, clay-based, figurative and contemporary ..................................................... 60 1.7 Chapter summary ............................................................................................................. 66 2. BAD CLAY ART .............................................................................................................. 68 2.1 Neo-expressionism versus critique in the 1970s and 1980s ........................................... 72 2.1.1 Marcia Tucker and “Bad” Painting ............................................................................ 72 2.1.2 Neo-expressionism ................................................................................................... 73 2.1.3 Critiques of neo-expressionism ................................................................................. 76 2.1.4 Conclusions from debate .......................................................................................... 82 2.2 The failure of critique ........................................................................................................ 82 2.2.1 Critique, the official rhetoric of capitalism ................................................................. 85 2.3 Complicity, institutionalised conceptualism and pervasive ambiguity .............................. 88 2.3.1 Johanna Drucker and complicity ............................................................................... 88 2.3.2 Is the author’s work complicit? .................................................................................. 92 2.4 Expressive reaction to commodification of non-object art ................................................ 93 2.4.1 Thomas Houseago and the anti-conceptual ............................................................. 95 2.4.2 Ugo Rondinone and universality ............................................................................. 104 2.5 Critical expression .......................................................................................................... 111 2.6 The author’s bad historicism .......................................................................................... 114 2.7 Chapter summary ........................................................................................................... 121 iii 3. THE LINGERING ALLURE OF PRIMITIVE AUTHENTICITY ........................ 123 3.1 Primitivism ...................................................................................................................... 125 3.1.1 William Morris and his rustic ideal........................................................................... 129 3.1.2 Hal Foster’s critique of primitivism .......................................................................... 132 3.1.3 Victor Li’s critique of critiques of primitivism ........................................................... 138 3.1.4 Future Primitive exhibition ....................................................................................... 141 3.1.5 Friedrich Nietzsche’s critique of morality ................................................................ 147 3.1.6 Critiques of Nietzsche ............................................................................................. 154 3.2 Authenticity ..................................................................................................................... 158 3.2.1 Soetsu Yanagi’s concept of authentic irregularity ................................................... 160 3.2.2 Critiques of authenticity ........................................................................................... 165 3.2.3 Critique of the critique of critique and its critique .................................................... 170 3.2.4 Sterling Ruby and innateness ................................................................................. 173 3.3 The author’s position ...................................................................................................... 180 3.3.1 Mud Slut, personal primitivism ................................................................................ 181 3.3.2 Evil Flowers ............................................................................................................. 186 3.4 Chapter summary ............................................................................................................ 191 4 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................. 194 APPENDIX A ........................................................................................................................ 201 APPENDIX B ........................................................................................................................ 265 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................. 272 iv TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1. Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Slumped Against the Rock, 2008. Glazed ceramic. ............9 Figure 2. Klara Kristalova, Dissolving, 2007. Stoneware ...............................................................9 Figure 3. Rebecca Warren, The Lovers, 2003. Unfired, painted clay with painted plint ................9 Figure 4. Angela Brennan, Gaia, 2014. Earthenware ................................................................. 10 Figure 5. Alice Mackler, untitled, 2013. Glazed ceramic ............................................................. 10 Figure 6. Xavier Toubes, title and date unknown. Glazed ceramic ............................................ 11 Figure 7. William O’Brien, untitled, 2015. Glazed ceramic ......................................................... 11 Figure 8. Andrew Lord, At sunset, Carson mesa (Gauguin), 2013. Glazed ceramic.................. 11 Figure 9. Andrew Lord, Biting, 1995-1998. Ceramic, epoxy, gold leaf and encre de Chine. ...... 12 Figure 10. Donna Green, installation detail, ceramics, date unknown ....................................... 12 Figure 11. Lucio Fontana, Battaglia, 1947. Ceramics and varnish ............................................. 13 Figure 12. Emily Hunt, Janus & Juno and Pythagoras, 2014. Glazed raku ................................ 13 Figure 13. Image from Magic of Clay Facebook page ................................................................ 24 Figure 14. Cover design of the book The Magic of Clay by Adalucia Quan ............................... 24 Figure 15. Catalogue for the exhibition The Magic of Clay, Ceramics in Contemporary Art ...... 25 Figure 16. Ben Quilty, Jug (Nose), 2014. Ceramic ..................................................................... 25 Figure 17. Kirsten Coelho, Still Life of twelve vessels, 2013(?) Matt-glazed porcelain .............. 29 Figure 18. Aaron Angell, Sentient landscape with large courgette, detail, 2011/12. Glazed stoneware ................................................................................................................. 29 Figure 19. Attendees at a gala fundraising event inspect a small part of Urs Fischer's 'YES' ... 33 Figure 20. Urs Fischer, last supper, 2013. Clay, installation detail from 'YES' ........................... 34 Figure 21. Urs Fischer, last supper, 2014. Cast bronze ............................................................. 34 Figure 22. Urs Fischer,
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