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Home , Art UK, Edmund de Waal, Iwona Blazwick, Liz Larner, Modelling clay, Phaidon Press

IN CONTEMPORARY

CLAY +

VITAMIN C C VITAMIN Vitamin C: Clay and Ceramic in Contemporary Art Roberto Amigo Sarah Douglas Juste Jonutyte Jeremy Millar Stephanie Rosenthal Chief Curator, Museo Nacional de Bellas Editor-in-Chief, Art News, New York Director, Rupert Centre for and Tutor in Art Criticism, Royal College Chief Curator, Hayward Gallery, The revival of clay as material for contemporary visual artists Artes de Buenos Aires Education, Vilnius, Lithuania of Art, London and a growing interest by curators and collectors in the work Ben Eastham Beatrix Ruf of overlooked ceramic artists, has resulted in a blurring of Max Andrews Co-founder and Editor, The White Review Eungie Joo Jed Morse Director, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam Independent curator and writer, and Assistant Editor, Art Agenda, London Independent curator and writer, New York Chief Curator, Nasher Centre, boundaries between ‘fine art’ and ‘craft’ and an increase in Barcelona Dallas exhibitions featuring art made of this most traditional material. Bart Rutten Reem Fadda Mami Kataoka Head of Collections, Stedelijk Museum, Laura Barlow Associate Curator, Middle Eastern Art for Chief Curator, Mori Art Museum, Hanne Mugaas Amsterdam Vitamin C: Clay and Ceramic in Contemporary Art is the latest Curator, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern the Abu Dhabi Project of the Solomon R Director and Curator, Kunsthall Stavanger, in Phaidon's best-selling 'Vitamin' series in which art experts Art, Doha, Qatar Guggenheim, New York Norway (curators, critics and collectors) are invited to nominate key Inés Katzenstein Sam Sherman Director, Department of Art, Universidad Independent curator and writer, London artists working in particular medium. Laura Batkis Kate Fowle Torcuato di Tella, Buenos Aires Gregor Muir Independent curator and writer, Chief Curator, Garage Centre for Director of Collection, International Art, For this edition, 86 art professionals proposed over 400 names, Buenos Aires Contemporary Art, Moscow Tate, London Patrizia Sandretto Rachel Re Rebaudengo from which a shortlist of the 102 most exciting international Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Director, Fondazione Sandretto artists were selected for inclusion. Art, Sydney Marcella Beccaria Dan Fox Sarah Munro Re Rebaudengo, Turin Chief Curator, Castello di Rivoli, Turin Co-Editor, Frieze magazine, New York Director, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Each artist is showcased with a selection of images of their work Art, Gateshead, UK Anne Kielgast Jonathan Shaughnessy along with a specially commissioned text about their practice. Curator, G L Strand, Copenhaguen Tobia Bezzola Priscilla Frank Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, Director, Folkwang Essen, Germany Arts Writer, The Huffington Post, New York Eleanor Nairne National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Curator, Barbican Art Gallery, London The book also features an introductory essay on the wider context Udo Kittelmann of clay in art by Clare Lilley, Director of Programme at Yorkshire Lewis Biggs Adrian George Director, Hamburger Bahnhoff, Amy Sherlock Director, Folkestone Triennial, UK Senior Curator, Government Art , Germany Sculpture Park and curator of Frieze London Sculpture Park. Valeria Napoleone Reviews Editor, Frieze, London Collection, London Director, Valeria Napoleone Collection, London Iwona Blazwick Marie Laurberg Karen Smith Director, , London Curator & Head of Research, Louisiana Alison Gingeras Independent curator and writer, China Independent curator and writer, New York Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Steve Nelson Recent Press Quotes and Warsaw Denmark Professor, African and African American Art, Ben Borthwick UCLA and Editor, African Arts, Nancy Spector Artistic Director, Plymouth Arts Centre, UK “ have been reborn in recent years, placed firmly Artistic Director and Chief Curator, Andrew Goldstein Pablo León de la Barra Solomon R Guggenheim, New York in an art content.” – Francesca Gavin, Artsy, July 2014 Editor-in-Chief, artnet News, New York Curator for the Guggenheim UBS MAP Michal Novotný Elizabeth Buhe Global Art Initiative, Solomon R. Director and Curator, Center for “Ceramic art … has finally come out of the closet, kicking and PhD Candidate NYU Institute of Fine Arts Guggenheim Museum, New York Contemporary Art FUTURA, Prague Anthony Spira Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow, Whitney Simon Groom Director, Milton Keynes Gallery, UK disentangling itself from domestic servitude and minor-arts Museum of American Art, New York Director, National Galleries of Scotland, status – perhaps for good.” – Lilly Wei, ArtNews, January 2015 Edinburgh Rebecca Lewin Sean O'Toole Curator, Serpentine Galleries, London Independent curator and writer, Cape Town Rochelle Steiner Elke Buhr Professor of Critical Studies, University “In the past year or so, the 27,000 year old art form has been Editor-in-Chief, Monopol, Berlin Lisa Havilah of Southern , Los Angeles making quite the trendy comeback.” – The Huffington Post, Director, Carriageworks, Sydney Jenni Lomax Tricia Paik February 2015 Director, Camden Arts Centre, London Director, MHCAM Mount Holyoke College Tiziana Casapietra Art Museum, South Hadley, MA Roberta Tenconi Founder and Chief Editor, radicate.eu, Kay Heymer Curator, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan “Clay is experiencing something of a boom in the art world.” – Genoa, Italy Head of Modern Art, Museum Kunst Donna Lynas Amy Sherlock, Frieze, May 2016 Palast, Düsseldorf Director, Wysing Art Centre, UK November Paynter Associate Director of Research and Olivier Varenne Programs, salt, Istanbul Mary Ceruti Co-Director of Exhibitions and Collections “The championing of clay as a sculptural medium by a younger Executive Director and Chief Curator, Paul Hobson Christine Macel and International Curator, MONA Museum Sculpture Center, New York Director, Modern Art Oxford, UK Chief Curator, Musée National d'Art generation of artists has brought with it a re-examination of Old and New Art, Tasmania, Australia Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Magnus af Petersens of work that weltered in the shadows over decades when and Artistic Director of the Curator of International Art, Moderna ceramic was out of favour.” – Hettie Judah, The Independent, Colin Siyuan Chinnery Natasha Hoare Biennale ARTE Venezia 2017 Museet, Stockholm Sheena Wagstaff Independent curator and writer, Beijing Curator, Witte de Witte, Rotterdam, September 2016 Chairman of the Department of Modern The Netherlands and Contemporary Art, Metropolitan Carol Yinghua Lu Yasmil Raymond Museum of Art, New York Tatiana Cuevas Guevara Independent curator and writer, Beijing Associate Curator, and Sculpture, Independent curator and writer, Mexico City Jens Hoffmann The Museum of Modern Art, New York Director of Special Exhibitions and Public Jonathan Watkins Programs, Jewish Museum, New York Sarah McCrory Director, IKON, , UK Michele d'Aurizio Director, Glasgow International Festival, Nora Razian Managing Editor, Flash Art, Milan Director, Contemporary Art Gallery at Head of Programs and Exhibitions, Sursock Alistair Hudson Goldsmiths College and Co-Founder, Museum, Beirut Sarah Williams Director, mima Middlebrough Institute of Open School East, UK Head of Programme, Jerwood Visual Modern Art, UK Vincenzo de Bellis Arts, London Curator of Visual Arts, Walker Arts Kasia Redzisz Center, Minneapolis Eva McGovern-Basa Senior Curator, Tate Liverpool, UK Dakis Joannou Independent curator and writer, Manilla Lynn Zelevansky Founder, DESTE Foundation for Director, Carnegie Museum of Art, Contemporary Art, Athens Gavin Delahunty Eva Respini Pittsburgh Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, James Meyer Barbara Lee Chief Curator, The Institute of Dallas Museum of Art Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Contemporary Art, Boston Dia Art Foundation, New York

Nominators ← Venus of Dolní Vestonice, Introductory Essay 29,000–25,000 BCE Ceramic 11.1 × 4.3 cm / 4 ½ × 1 ¾ in Moravské zemské muzeum, Brno, Czech Republic

→ , Vase: Woman, 1948 White , painted with slips 47.5 × 16.5 × 11 cm / 18 ¾ × 6 ½ × 4 ¼ in Musée national Picasso, Paris

→→ Fausto Melotti, Teatrino (‘Little Theatre’), c.1945 21.5 × 12.5 × 8 cm / 8 ½ × 5 × 3 ¼ in

principal sculptural processes since at least d’Azur, forming a number of lovely, simply abstracted elements. Responding to the near In 2009 the art critic wrote A human compulsion to create art to have engendered fertility or played a spiritual 3,700 BCE when it originated in the Judean formed terracotta figures that resemble latter- destruction by aerial bombings of his Milan in that ceramic has ‘one role in communities with shamanistic traditions Desert. Until relatively recently, clay was the day Venuses, and kindling a close relationship studio and its contents in 1943, Melotti began of the richest histories of any medium on the Objects made from clay reveal periods of – it is clear that they took many hours and much generating material in the production of all cast with clay that would last for five years. Working making more crudely formed ceramic , planet,’ going on to state, ‘It can’t be said ancient human activity for which we otherwise effort to create. The Dolní Vestonice venus and sculpture, although the tactile qualities of clay with the Madoura workshop of Suzanne and firing them in a rented muffle kiln. Ruptured by enough that the art-craft divide is a bogus have few remaining records. While not as old as other figures testify to a human compulsion are often intentionally lost during the elaborate Georges Ramié in Vallouris, Picasso modeled yet his experience of war, he returned to the concept regularly obliterated by the undeniable the earliest stone tools or cave , to create art, a hardwired need to render in process of casting. In the late nineteenth and more elementary seated and standing figures, figurative, producing lonesome figures, often in originality of individuals who may call them- ceramic artefacts nevertheless divulge the material a response to the world. They appear to early twentieth centuries in , artists such both glazed and unglazed, and worked with tools a state of silent abandonment, such as Orfeo selves artists, designers or artisans.’ The artists intricate paths of human life and the traces of be necessary things, indicating that the making as Edgar Degas, Auguste Rodin and Medardo and painterly glazes to create decorative works (‘Orpheus’, 1945) and the wretched Gatto cane presented in this volume consider clay as core long extinct peoples. For many cultures across of art has a social purpose imperative to our Rosso reclaimed clay’s expressive qualities; in like Owl (1949). By throwing and then modeling (‘Cat Dog’, 1948). From this time on, delicately to their work or as a vital strand within a wider, the world, vessels were essential to being. As such they offer a powerful many of their bronzes, the finger marks of the pots, he made hybrid -sculptures such as structured, polychromatic shallow relief interiors multi-disciplinary practice. Continuing the domesticated life, and for thousands of years endorsement of humanity. artist and evidence of the process of formation Standing Bull (Vase) (c.1947) and Vase: Woman and stage sets (called Teatrini) – where legacy of preceding generations, they have the decorative art that ordinary people owned are deliberately retained. Rodin’s seven-metre- (1948). The 1948 exhibition ‘Poterie et une incomprehensible metaphysical dramas between come to clay for countless different reasons was often in the form of clay figurines and vases. Clay’s ubiquity and utility high masterwork of Hell, commiss- sculpture de Picasso’ at the French Communist melancholic individuals were played out – and, in so doing, have collapsed distinctions Clay fragments and objects therefore ioned in 1880, was not cast in bronze until after Party-run gallery, Maison de la pensée francaise remained an important part of his production, between craftsperson, maker, sculptor, artist. predominate in archaeological sites and pottery The pioneering nineteenth-century American his death in 1917. Because it was impossible to in Paris, launched this new period and, in 1964, as were unglazed terracotta Diavoli (‘Devils’) Perhaps any perceived divide is less to do with is a crucial guide to understanding the archaeologist William Henry Holmes wrote that, keep the eventual 186 unfired clay figures Françoise Gilot explained how, ‘Artistically [the and elementary human forms; ‘I have to confess the processes and materials, which after all development of human life. ‘Clay has no inherent qualities of a nature to adequately damp, they dried and fell away from Paris exhibition] made something of a sensation that the war upset me very much. You can’t even are not so very different to those of sculpture; impose a given form or class of forms upon its the whole composition, and were subsequently because it was the first time this new aspect of think about making abstract art when there’s nor because of expression or concept over tech- One of our most important archaeological products, as have wood, bark, bone, or stone. It reworked by Rodin and cast as individual his creativity had been shown. That series was something inside your soul that I’m not saying nical skill or dexterity, although it’s notable sources, revealing a plethora of prehistoric is so mobile as to be quite free to take form from sculptures, such as The Thinker and The Kiss. The the finest – at least the most inventive – of all his leads you toward desperation, but towards that many quite deliberately create work that artefacts, is the Upper Paleolithic site of Dolní its surroundings, and where extensively used will dexterity with which an artist like Rodin could pottery because that was the time of discovery, figures of desperation.’ Melotti worked almost alludes to childish or hobbyist techniques and Vestonice in what is now the Czech Republic. record or echo a vast deal of nature and of co- shape clay made it central to his production; in the period of the amphora in the form of a exclusively in clay until 1959 and, whilst he went imagery. Rather, the forum in which works are Giving insight into the culture of Ice Ace people existent art.’ This most abundant and protean lively fired clay ‘sketches’, making clay models woman and the combined forms he put together on to also develop an extensive body of spatial encountered and discussed may be more perti- in central Europe, the finds include carved ivory of materials is intrinsic to human development from which to carve monumental marble in the first surge of his inspiration … Those who constructions in wire, wood, glass and bronze, nent, and the last decade has seen a notable likenesses of a man and woman (she is possibly and the progression of societies; borne of sculptures, and even in fully fired and glazed understand to what degree Pablo had renewed his painted clay and glazed sculptures, shift in the display of ceramic art from work- our earliest portrait) and the remains of a kiln, necessity, early vessels most frequently mimic sculpture, such as the outstanding Monumental the potter’s art were very excited by what they and walls continued to evolve until 1961, shop and shop to gallery and museum, from together with hundreds of fired ceramic figurines natural shapes like gourds, conch shells or human Head of Balzac, made around 1897 in glazed saw.’ With the publication of Les Sculptures de offering alternately mystical, poetic, lively and craft magazine to art magazine. The art/craft depicting humans and animals, including and animal heads. Before industrialization, they with the engineer-potter Paul Picasso in 1948, which illustrated almost all of grotesque reflections on human relationships. divide aside, the artists selected for this publi- mammoth, rhinoceros, lion, owl and bear. It are shaped by human hands, gradually acquiring Jeanneney, who succeeded in replicating the Picasso’s sculptures made between 1902 and cation are united in celebrating one of the wouldn’t be for another fifteen thousand years embellishment together with technical and type of colour and texture found in Japanese 1946, including the ceramics – documented in Elsewhere in Europe, other artists were most ancient of creative materials in explora- that the earliest known Japanese Jomon pottery aesthetic features. Sculptural objects developed pottery. stunning photographs by Brassaï – Picasso joined extending or beginning a relationship with clay. tory and diverse ways, connecting to something vessels would be made. Dated at 29,000–25,000 in a parallel and, whilst differing in a the flowering of ceramic as a sculptural type in In France, Germaine Richier (1902–59), a deep in the earth and deep within our collect- BCE, the Dolní Vestonice clay ‘venus’ is typically multiplicity of ways, both reveal the human need Picasso’s ceramics post-war Europe. contemporary of Alberto Giacometti and Marino ive human memory. While not attempting a abundant, with large breasts, curvaceous thighs to create objects beyond the purely functional. Marini, was exploring her own existential route, complete survey of clay’s fascinating history, and slack belly. They each illustrate a profound necessity to Picasso’s very early bronze sculptures, such as Ceramic in Europe during and after the modelling clay to make powerful, earthy figures nor an overview of current practitioners, this make forms derived from the imagination, with The Jester of 1905, indicated his expert working Second World War such as Nu / La Grosse (1939) and, from the essay explores some progenitors and considers In The Mind in The Cave, archaeologist David clay’s particular haptic qualities informing the of clay, but it wasn’t until the 1940s that he mid-1940s, combining clay with plaster and the developing status of ceramic art so as to Lewis-Williams makes the assertion that the process of making through the sense of touch. expressly used clay as a material in itself. The In the 1930s Fausto Melotti (1901–86) worked found objects to make sculptures such as La offer a wider context for the artists showcased making of art in this period was a social activity German Occupation of France ended in 1944 and in the Milan porcelain factory Richard Ginori and Montagne (1955–6). In L’Eau (‘Water’, 1953–4), in this book. and while the purpose of the prehistoric venus Of course clay has been fundamental to the Picasso spent the summer of 1945 on the Côte there made vessels and Cycladic-inspired in which the neck of an ancient terracotta figures is debated – they are variously considered development of bronze casting, one of the

Clare Lilley 05 Known for her intimately scaled, glazed clay sculptures, ← Venus on the Move, 2016 Kathy Butterly’s abstracted pieces are distinguished Clay, glaze 12.4 × 12.7 × 10.2 cm / 4 ¾ × 5 × 4 in by their pinched, folded and collapsed forms, vibrantly coloured surfaces and undercurrent of drollery. ‘I’ve ↙ Active Hold, 2016 Clay, glaze always considered myself a painter who works three 13.3 × 18.4 × 9.5 cm / dimensionally with clay’, remarked Butterly in 2015 in 5 ¼ ×7 ¼ × 3 ¾ in an interview at the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, → Heavied Kilter, 2016 reiterating a long-held belief about her practice. Clay, glaze, wood Butterly’s statement, while unorthodox, is grounded 24.8 × 15.2 × 14 cm / 9 ¾ × 6 × 5 ½ in in an acute awareness of the heritage of clay: the prehistoric artists inhabiting the caves of Lascaux, in south-western France, used clay to paint. This insight prompted her to state: ‘Its materiality communicates to us viscerally and intellectually.’ Butterly’s expressive work keys into a rich seam of American art history. She completed her postgraduate studies at the University of California at Davis, a hotbed of the figure-interested and colour-loving Funk Art movement. At art school she tried to imitate the ambitious scale of her mentor, figurative sculptor , producing tall symmetrical vessels decorated with expressionist figures. By the mid-1990s, however, she settled on producing smaller works measuring less than twenty centimetres. Oftentimes leavened by humour, and sometimes parodying Meissen formalism and Art Deco’s linearity, the crumpled ornateness of her pieces also invokes the eccentric tradition of nineteenth- century Mississippi ceramicist George E. Ohr. Although formally diverse in appearance, Butterly’s slip-cast ceramic works are typified by recurring shapes and forms. Her vessels sometimes appear to have crum- pled under their own ostentatious weight, like Heavied Kilter (2016), while others are pinched and folded to form new and suggestive shapes, reminiscent of women’s handbags or modernist teapots. Critic Leah Ollman, writing in 2013, aptly characterised Butterly’s work as ‘verb-driven, all about impolite squeezing, pinching and pushing’. The finishes of her fired-clay objects range from cracked and granular to smooth and glossy, techniques often integrated into a single work. Each sculptural piece contains its own pedestal, whether explicit or vestigial. Her painterly sensibility bears elaboration. Not as flagrantly pop in her use of colour as Ken Price and , the artists she is most often likened to, recent works such as Dream State (2016) evidence Butterly’s ability to modulate formal exuberance with a Robert Ryman-like painterly austerity. In the main, though, Butterly’s approach to colour is energetic and irreverent. The collapsed grandeur of Active Hold (2106) is accentuated by her use of uneven blues, almost like ink- stains, on the neck area of the main piece, and she allows the celeste and orange to seep across the asymmetrical handle-like adornments. There is a perfunctory opulence to the cracked bands of colour decorating her work Solid Stand (2016). Typically exhibited in small groups of fifteen or less, the zany elegance of Butterly’s output achieves its consistency and measure through her recurrent use of fleshy pinks. Indeed, pink is the metronome of her highly regarded practice. Often deployed as an interior finish, as in Venus on the Move (2016), it lends her gracefully deformed sculptures, with their suggestive anthropomorphic folds, their defining humanist quality. • Sean O'Toole

KATHY BUTTERLY Born 1963, Amityville, NY. Lives and works in New York. Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions: 2015 – ‘The Weight of Color’, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; 2014 – ‘Enter’, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York; 2013 – ‘Visionary Women: Kathy Butterly and Ann King Lagos’, Moore Collage of Art & , Philadelphia. 2012 – ‘Lots of little love affairs’, Shoshana Wayne Gallery; 2010 – ‘Pantyhose and Morandi’, Tibor de Nagy Gallery; 2009 – ‘Big Gulp’, Shoshana Wayne Gallery; Selected Group Exhibitions: 2016 – 'no rules, no rules’, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, Inc., New York; ‘Ceramix’, la Maison Rouge, Paris; 2015 – ‘(self contained)’, Ventana 244, New York; ‘In Conversation’, Shirley Fiterman Art Center, BMCC, The University of New York; ‘Nature, Sculpture, Abstraction and Clay: 100 Years of American Ceramics’, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; ‘Pretty Raw: After and Around Helen Frankenthaler’, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, MA.

Kathy Butterly 07 Edmund de Waal’s ceramics are deceptively simple sculptures, worked with a historian’s understanding of the medium and a virtuoso grasp of its tactile, indexical materiality. Repetition and seriality are key attributes in his practice, allowing him to create installations of grand scale that transcend pottery’s typically domestic dimensions. De Waal became a pottery fanatic after taking his first ceramics class at the age of five; as a teenager, he was a student of, and then apprenticed to, Geoffrey Whiting, a disciple of , who has been described as the ‘Father of British ’. Later, upon graduating with a degree in English from the , he ran a short-lived stoneware kiln in before moving his focus to porcelain. In 1990, he studied for two years in Japan’s Mejiro Ceramics studio in Tokyo, practicing his art while simultaneously researching a book on Leach, which was published in 1998. In Japan, de Waal began working in the style for which he is known today, making porcelain vessels in soft, muted washes with telltale imperfections –dimpled, pushed-in sides, say, or crooked rims. Often, he arranges these in sequences on a shelf to evoke the repetitive placement of books. Simple in appearance, the individual pots owe as much to the ancient Eastern tradition as they do to the vernacular ceramics of the West ( is a key influence), and feel ageless as a result. He makes each of them himself, sitting on a low wooden stool at a potter’s wheel; he has said his is a meditation on ‘one person, spending time’. Despite his immense success as a ceramicist, de Waal is perhaps most famous for his 2010 memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes, which tells the story of his family via the histories of 264 netsuke figurines that he inherited from his great-uncle. In 2015 de Waal also published The White Road: Journey into an Obsession, a history of porcelain – or ‘white gold – since its invention in China a thousand years ago. Assembling large-scale installations for his exhibitions, de Waal presents his groups of pots in settings informed by his passion for and space; for example the birch, ply and Plexiglass structures of Irrkunst (2016), or the shelves of works such as Atemwende (2013) and Lichtzwang (2014), the latter reminiscent of both ’s medicine cabinets and the cool geo- metric abstractions of Agnes Martin. One of his larger creations, a red aluminum ring with a diameter of 36.5 metres (approx. 120 feet) and containing 425 pots, was permanently installed in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s cupola in 2009. Titled Signs and Wonders, de Waal has described the work as ‘a very personal memory of my journeys through the V&A’s ceramics collections over the last thirty years’. • Andrew Goldstein

EDMUND DE WAAL Born 1964, , UK. Lives and works in London. Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2017 – ‘Lettres de Londres’, Espace Muraille, Geneva; 2016 – ‘Irrkunst’, ↖ Lichtzwang, 2014 281 porcelain vessels with gilding Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin; 2016 – ‘ten thousand things’, in a pair of wood, aluminium , Los Angeles; 2014–15 – ‘atmosphere’, and glass vitrines Each 274.5 × 120 × 13.5 cm, Turner Contemporary, , UK; 2014 – ‘Lichtzwang’, hung 30 cm apart Theseus Temple, ; 2013 – ‘Atemwende’, Gagosian Each 108 × 47 ¼ × 5 ¼ in, Gallery, New York; 2012 – ‘a local history’, Alison Richard hung 11 ¾ in apart Building, University of Cambridge, UK; ‘Edmund de Waal ↗ Atemwende, 2013 at Waddesdon’, Waddesdon Manor, , UK; 302 porcelain vessels in an 2009 – ‘Signs & Wonders’, Victoria and Albert Museum, aluminium and Plexiglass cabinet 222 × 300 × 13 cm / London. Selected Group Exhibitions: 2016–17 – ‘During 7 8 ½ × 118 ¼ × 5¼ in the Night’, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; ‘Kneaded Knowledge: The Language of Ceramics’, Universalmuseum → Irrkunst, 2016 119 porcelain vessels and shards Joanneum, Graz, ; 2015–16 – ‘white’, The Royal in five birch, ply and Plexiglass Academy of Arts, London; 2015 – ‘wavespeech’, The Pier structures 2 sections: 301.8 × 105 × 153 cm / Arts Centre, Orkney, UK. 118 ¾ × 41 ¼ × 60 ¼ in

Edmund de Waal 09 ‘I realised that clay could be an exciting way for me to ← Boo Hoo Boob Tube, 2016 talk about mess or chaos: all the stuff photography Glazed ceramic 30 × 40 × 20 cm / 11 ¾ × 15 ¾ × 7 ¾ in protects us from,’ said Hart in an interview for the New York Times in 2016. Her decision to begin working with ↙ BANG, 2016 Ceramic, wood stain, clay marked a turning point in her practice, which had archival varnish up until that point focused on the use of still and moving 50 x 50 x 7 cm / 19 ½ x 19 ½ x 2 ¾ in digital images, often displayed as part of installations → From left to right: and performances. Her perception of photographs You Two Faced Lying Mother as smoothed-down versions of the world presented a Fucker (What For),2016 challenge: to reintroduce the messiness of life into and You Two Faced Lying Mother Fucker (Nice Things),2016 through the image, with sounds, phrases and words that You Two Faced Lying Mother interrupted themselves and images that overlapped each Fucker (Sooo Long),2016 other. Glazed ceramic, ceramic digital decal, tile paint, plywood split The literal mess of clay, with its dust and liquidity and baton physical presence, adds to Hart’s attempts to bring the Each 50 × 55 × 45 cm / confusion of the outside world into the gallery space. The 19 ½ × 21 ½ × 17 ¾ in first of the clay objects that she produced, in 2012, was a ↘ The Private Eyes [detail], 2014 tongue. Describing them in an interview at Camden Arts Ceramic, archival ink decal image, metal and mirror Centre in 2013 as ‘a kind of juncture of public and private’, 90 × 50 × 35 cm / these objects have reappeared in her ceramic work ever 35 ¼ × 19 ½ × 13 ¾ in since, along with other body parts – arms, feet, ponytails – that exist independently of any complete figure. They are perhaps best described as appendages; corporeal references that, within her installations, are given a function that can be structural and narrative. In The Pits (2014) a group of arms extend from the floor, working as rickety supports for trays of wonky wine glasses teetering on the brink of collapse. In Dirty Looks (2013) tongues act as door stops, drawer handles and napkin holders, obscuring or revealing printed digital images or flat screen monitors. Images are also applied to slabs of clay, as in the surfaces of the trays in The Pits (2014), or across unfurling sheets that cascade from in Low Ink Buy More (2017). Hart takes advantage of the weightiness of this medium to force images into the space next to us, cracking and folding and collaging themselves into our line of sight. A half-open door in Lockers (2015) reveals a close-up of a face, and a mirror that will also reflect the viewer’s own in similar proximity. A series of photographs applied to clay tablets or clipboards in The Private Eyes (2014) are visible only through the reflections caught by teardrop-shaped eyes hung on the wall above them. Ceramic forms only a part of Hart’s installations, which operate as stage sets that must be navigated by the viewer, and which encourage a playful search for the origin of sounds that emanate from the bottom of drawers or for videos reflected in car wing mirrors. They are imbued with narratives that emanate from Hart’s own experiences (in a call centre, at a seaside Punch and Judy show, at a bar, celebrating the dissociation and exhilaration of having a child). Nevertheless, her use of clay, whether as a tongue or otherwise, provides the ‘juncture’ between the image, the object and our bodies. • Rebecca Lewin

EMMA HART Born 1974, London. Lives and works in London. Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2018 – The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; The Sunday Painter, London; ChertLüdde, Berlin; 2017 – ‘Mamma Mia!’, Whitechapel Gallery, London, and touring to Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy; 2016–17 – ‘Love Life: Act 1. Emma Hart and Jonathan Baldock’, Peer, London and touring to The Grundy Arts Centre, Blackpool, UK; De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, UK; 2014 – ‘Giving It All That’, Folkestone Triennial, UK; 2013 – ‘Dirty Looks’, Camden Arts Centre, London. Selected Group Exhibitions: 2018 – 'Hot Pot’, Kunsthaus Hamburg, Germany; 2017 – ‘An ear, severed, listens’, ChertLüdde, Berlin; 2016 – ‘Sticky Intimacy’, Chapter Arts Centre, ; ‘Notes on Boredom’, The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik; 2015 – ‘The London Open’, Whitechapel Gallery; 2014 – ‘Hey I’m Mr.Poetic’, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, UK.

Emma Hart 011 For British artist Rachel Kneebone, working with clay ‘was not a choice’ but something she has always done, since childhood. A graduate of London’s , Kneebone works exclusively with porcelain, her elaborate sculptural forms expressing both figurative and abstract elements. In We Get Life From Putrefaction and Death (2014) delicate limbs and organs protrude outwards like tendrils from a dense mass. A sculpted porcelain pedestal and orb provide a platform or support, from which the elements cascade like riotous, unruly guests at a party. Kneebone’s works are uniformly white. A particularly ‘ambiguous’ colour, according to the artist, it provides a reflective surface that viewers can project their thoughts and desires on to. Speaking about her practice, Kneebone talks of ‘leaving interpretations open, incomplete’, while ‘the void, the crack’ become recurring motifs, metaphorically as well as visually. Cracked, imperfect bases give way to tumbling limbs, while coherent forms – the curved arch of a human foot, for example – sit alongside unformed matter. Kneebone’s works evoke the in-between space of metamorphosis, the moment at which one thing transforms into another. Her later works such as The Area on Whose Brink Silence Begins (2015) reflect her longstanding interest in states of change, renewal and regrowth. Inspired by the classical mythology of Ovid, they depict transformations – flesh into wood and stone. Literature is a frequent departure point for the artist, who has drawn upon further diverse sources of inspiration including Dante, Rilke and Georges Bataille. Art-historical references are also present in Kneebone’s ‘Lamentations’ series (2010), which draw upon Michelangelo, and in works produced for her 2012 solo exhibition ‘Rachel Kneebone: Regarding Rodin’ at New York’s Brooklyn Museum, which were shown alongside examples by the nineteenth-century French master Auguste Rodin. The push and pull of organic, figurative and abstract motifs, and the rupturing and cracking of the support structures generate a distinct sense of unease in Kneebone’s art. Aspects of death and the erotic permeate the works; beauty and fear are not so much opposites as coexistent states, as hybrid phallic forms with human legs slide into a concentric, vortex-like pit in The Descent (2008). Scale is also significant for Kneebone, who works with singular hand-wrought sculptures as well as large, composite structures. The towering sculpture 399 Days (2012–13), so named after the duration of its construction, is a technical feat comprising multiple conjoined panels, combined with smaller pieces that are the result of single firings in the artist’s studio kiln. Time is central to these works, which can take up to three months to complete, from their beginnings as soft, malleable clay to finished porcelain sculptures. Their lengthy, meticulous evolution is dictated by the medium, which – as Kneebone points out – is in a state of transformation just as much as her subject matter. • Rachel Kent

Rachel Kneebone born 1925, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives and ↖↖ The solitude in the depth of her being begins the world again but works in Paris. Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2015 – Haus only begins it for herself, 2014 Konstruktiv, Zurich; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Porcelain 2014 – ‘Writing Mountains’, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, 66 × 72 × 61 cm / 26 × 28 ¼ × 24 in Austria; ‘Etel Adnan in All Her Dimensions’, Mathaf, Arab ↖ We Get Life From Putrefaction Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; 2013 – Sfeir–Semler and Death, 2014 Gallery, Beirut; ‘Worlds and Places: Etel Adnan’, Wattis Porcelain 63.5 × 57.5 × 76.4 cm / Institute for Contemporary Arts, ;‘Etel 25 × 22 ½ × 30 ¼ in Adnan, Works 1965–2012’, Sfeir–Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany. Selected Group Exhibitions: 2015 – Sharjah ← The Area on Whose Brink Silence Begins, 2015 Biennial 12, UAE; Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; 2014 – Whitney Porcelain Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; 54 × 76 × 52 cm / ‘Here and Elsewhere’, New Museum, New York; ‘this secret 21 ¼ × 29 × 20 ½ in world that exists right here in public’, Rampa Istanbul, → 399 Days, 2012–13 Turkey; 2012 – dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany and Porcelain and mild steel 540 × 287 × 283 cm / ‘Drawings: Etel Adnan’, ArtAsiaPacific, Nov–Dec. 212 ½ × 113 × 111 ½ in

Rachel Kneebone 013 ↖ iv (inflexion), 2014–15 Ceramic, epoxy, pigment, stones and minerals 54 × 94.6 × 22.9 cm / 21 ¼ × 37 ¼ × 9 in

← ii (inflexion), 2013–15 Ceramic, epoxy, and pigment 46.4 × 85.7 × 26.7 cm / 18 ¼ × 33 ¾ × 10 ½ in

↗ viii (subduction), 2015 Ceramic, epoxy 52.1 × 85.7 × 24.1 cm / 20 ½ × 33 ¾ × 9 ½ in

→ calefaction subduction, 2015 Ceramic, glaze, stones and minerals 48.9 × 93.3 × 21 cm / 19 ¼ × 36 ¾ × 8 ¼ in

Liz Larner 015 Installation view, ’Anna-Bella Papp‘, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London, 2015

Anna-Bella Papp 017 British artist Grayson Perry has described his multi- ← The Near Death and Enlighten- faceted practice as a ‘car crash of influences’. His ceramic ment of Alan Measles, 2011 Glazed ceramic works – encompassing pots, vases, urns and plates – have 42 h × 31 dia cm / drawn variously on the great ceramic traditions of China, 16 ½ h ×12 ¼ dia in Japan and the Middle East, as well as those of his native ↙ Modern Family, 2014 country. Part autobiography, part social commentary, Glazed ceramic they riotously combine biting satire with lavish surface 44.5 h × 26 dia cm / decoration and imagery. 17 ½ h × 10 ¼ dia in A graduate of Portsmouth Polytechnic, Perry did → Tomb Guardian, 2011 not study ceramics as an art student in the late 1970s. Glazed ceramic 77 × 60 × 60 cm / Instead, he fell into the medium several years later as 30 ¼ × 23 ½ × 23 ½ in a young, unemployed artist, encouraged by a friend to take up pottery night classes. Perry recalls that pottery was a deeply unfashionable medium in London art circles at this time, something that encouraged his embrace of the medium; moreover, clay was inexpensive and easily accessed. While also employing other media, Perry remains best known for his ceramics, which have evolved over three decades from relatively simple objects to sophisticated ones featuring open-source and photographic transfers, incising or sgraffito, sprig-moulding and gilding. Initially, Perry described himself as a conceptual artist posing as a craftsman. He has since rethought this position, undertaking extensive research on the history of world ceramics, honing his skills and placing equal emphasis on concept and technique. Perry’s ceramic plates and vases are typically (though not exclusively) modest in scale. There is also a humility to the works, with their inexpensive fabrication and domestic, utilitarian associations. ‘Beauty’ is a word that recurs in Perry’s vocabulary, along with a love of ornament and excess – attributes that rub up against the works’ irreverent humour, social satire and frequent, explicit sexuality (Object in Foreground, 2016, is shaped as a giant phallus). Individual pieces touch on his personal life and family history, along with reflections on taste and class. Gender, sexuality, sadomasochism and transvestism are also key features. A transvestite himself, Perry has described his female persona Claire as a ‘central plank’ of his creativity. Equally significant is his childhood teddy bear, Alan Measles, who appears in artworks such as The Near Death and Enlightenment of Alan Measles (2011) as a heroic, male role model. Sexual provocation formed a recurring theme in Perry’s early pots, later replaced by a broader, more nuanced critique of social values and politics. For example, Modern Family (2013) depicts unit as a homosexual couple and their child. Delivering the BBC Reith Lectures in 2013, Perry noted that the job of the artist is to notice things other people might not see. The truths revealed by his artistic ‘stealth bombs’ are painful, funny and profoundly insightful all at once. • Rachel Kent

GRAYSON PERRY Born 1960, Chelmsford, UK. Lives and works in London. Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2017 – ‘Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!’, Serpentine Galleries, London; 2016 – ‘Hold Your Beliefs Lightly’, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Netherlands, and touring to ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark; 2015 – ‘My Pretty Little Art Career’, Museum of Contem- porary Art Australia, Sydney; ‘Provincial Punk’, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK; ‘Small Differences’, Pera Museum, Istanbul; 2014 – ‘Who are You?’, National Portrait Gallery, London; 2011 – ‘Grayson Perry: The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman’, The , London. Selected Group Exhibitions: 2015 – ‘Ceramix’, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Netherlands; ‘Summer Exhibition 2015’, The , London; ‘Under the skin’, Textiel Museum, Tilburg, Netherlands; 2014 –‘DECORUM – Carpets and Tapestries by Artists’, Power Station of Art, Shanghai; 2013 –‘Hangzhou Triennial of Fabric Art’, Hangzhou Art Museum, China; ‘Painting and Philosophy’, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence, France.

Grayson Perry 019 Michael Armitage shares his time between London and ← Title title title, 20XX Michael Armitage shares his time between London and Born in Hong Kong, raised in Australia and now living in Nairobi. His large, colourful works are painted on lubugo, Medium medium medium XX x XX cm / XX x XX in Nairobi. His large, colourful works are painted on lubugo, Britain, Renee So's work is informed by her heritage and a traditional bark cloth from Uganda, whose surface a traditional bark cloth from Uganda, whose surface transnationality. She first started to use clay when she provides a rough texture and occasional imperfections ↙ Title title title, 20XX provides a rough texture and occasional imperfections moved to London in 2005 and attended a clay workshop. Medium medium medium such as small holes. Often depicting scenes from XX x XX cm / XX x XX in such as small holes. Often depicting scenes from She began to investigate the history of European traumatic events, Armitage’s canvases vibrate with traumatic events, Armitage’s canvases vibrate with sculpture, from Assyrian, Classical Greek and Roman the tension between a flamboyant colour palette and → Title title title, 20XX the tension between a flamboyant colour palette and statuary to the domestic, everyday use of made objects. Medium medium medium serious subject matters. At the centre of #mydresschoice XX x XX cm / XX x XX in serious subject matters. At the centre of #mydresschoice Being based in Britain, Europe was easily accessible, (2015) lies a naked female figure seen from behind and (2015) lies a naked female figure seen from behind and enabling her to travel and see the originals that were the quoted directly from Diego Velázquez’s The Rokeby ↘ Title title title, 20XX focus of her study. Medium medium medium quoted directly from Diego Velázquez’s The Rokeby Venus (1647–51). Strewn around her are discarded items XX x XX cm / XX x XX in Venus (1647–51). Strewn around her are discarded items So’s research is broad and diachronic, touching of clothing, a rumpled miniskirt and skimpy top. Facing of clothing, a rumpled miniskirt and skimpy top. Facing on mythology, folklore, drunks, rakes and kings. Her her is a colonnade of male legs, standing as jury before ↘ Title title title, 20XX Medium medium medium her is a colonnade of male legs, standing as jury before sophisticated, archipelagic creolisation brings together her prone, unclothed body. The dazzling sun-drenched XX x XX cm / XX x XX in her prone, unclothed body. The dazzling sun-drenched these reference points without erasing the original colours and steeply angled point of view combine colours and steeply angled point of view combine culture markers – in this instance reaching back to the with a vignette featuring a pair of bush babies in the with a vignette featuring a pair of bush babies in the masculine stereotypes which So’s work gently mocks. lower right-hand corner, their wide eyes staring out in lower right-hand corner, their wide eyes staring out in In her Bellarmine series (2010-16), each bust is created shock, to produce a scene tinged with phantasmagoria. shock, to produce a scene tinged with phantasmagoria. through a reductive process, a sort of minimal realism Armitage describes the incident depicted, which took Armitage describes the incident depicted, which took that results in delicately crafted, cartoon-like portraits place in Nairobi in 2014, and the feelings that inspired place in Nairobi in 2014, and the feelings that inspired with extravagant hair and beards. The gravitas usually the work: ‘women wearing miniskirts were taken off the work: ‘women wearing miniskirts were taken off associated with formal portrait busts is undermined minibuses, stripped and molested by the drivers, touts minibuses, stripped and molested by the drivers, touts by So’s parodic playfulness. Drawn to the ceramic and some passengers; this was filmed and circulated and some passengers; this was filmed and circulated collections of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, So is on the Internet. After watching, I felt complicit in the on the Internet. After watching, I felt complicit in the fascinated by Bellarmine stoneware, sometimes referred abuse … In the painting the most important character abuse … In the painting the most important character to as Bartmann jugs, from the German for ‘bearded is you as the viewer.’ Armitage’s works operate as a is you as the viewer.’ Armitage’s works operate as a man’. These jugs were made from a vitreous or semi- type of contemporary history painting, and there is a type of contemporary history painting, and there is a vitreous ceramic, fired at a very high temperature and so radical edge to his depiction of events. He privileges radical edge to his depiction of events. He privileges waterproof even when unglazed. Designed in the shape minor, rather than official, histories in order to reveal minor, rather than official, histories in order to reveal of a rotund, unshaven man, these jugs were made to hold everyday social and political realities. Deploying painting everyday social and political realities. Deploying painting beer, wine or food ¬and became popular in sixteenth- as a means to address the complexities, lacunae and as a means to address the complexities, lacunae and and seventeenth-century Germany. The masculine bitter ironies of history, Armitage combines artistic bitter ironies of history, Armitage combines artistic motifs used on the vessels hark back to the Wild Man of traditions from his dual heritage: the African ground traditions from his dual heritage: the African ground German folklore (equivalent to the Green Man in Britain), of lubugo and the visual iconography of East Africa of lubugo and the visual iconography of East Africa prevalent in European art and literature throughout the come together with imagery quoted from European art come together with imagery quoted from European art medieval period. history. Accident (2015) shows the scene of a bus crash history. Accident (2015) shows the scene of a bus crash In So’s work, these figures link to satyrs and fauns and amid dense foliage in an array of greens, rendered in amid dense foliage in an array of greens, rendered in to the Greek and Roman gods of the forest and fertility: layer upon layer of oil paint. There is a liquid aspect to layer upon layer of oil paint. There is a liquid aspect to Silvanus and Dionysius/Bacchus respectively. Usually some of Armitage’s colour washes, while other areas are some of Armitage’s colour washes, while other areas are shown with a full beard, the gods – and in turn the beard scraped back to produce the effect of an afterimage, or scraped back to produce the effect of an afterimage, or itself – become associated with wisdom, masculinity, to resemble pastel. Masses of green foliage underscored to resemble pastel. Masses of green foliage underscored strength, virility and pride. Further investigating the in contrasting reds and oranges churn like the roughest of in contrasting reds and oranges churn like the roughest of signifiers of masculinity, in more recent work exhibited seas; distorted bus seats and palm trees seem alive with seas; distorted bus seats and palm trees seem alive with at Kate Macgarry, London in 2016, So took items that a Cubist or Vorticist dynamism, conveying the confusion a Cubist or Vorticist dynamism, conveying the confusion one might associate with a gentleman’s club, such as of catastrophe and the frustrating, fragmented quality of catastrophe and the frustrating, fragmented quality wine glasses and cigarettes, and by anthropomorphosis of traumatic memory. The painting also holds an of traumatic memory. The painting also holds an created oversized ceramic objects that speak of gender, autobiographical significance for Armitage, recalling his autobiographical significance for Armitage, recalling his class and privilege. experience of being in a plane crash in the Kenyan bush experience of being in a plane crash in the Kenyan bush So is fascinated by craft, the art of making, and when he was a young man. Armitage believes in the role when he was a young man. Armitage believes in the role most of her two-dimensional works are knitted and are of art as social commentary and he is confident of its of art as social commentary and he is confident of its inspired by medieval tapestries. She rarely shows her capacity to generate debate and possibly even to produce capacity to generate debate and possibly even to produce ceramic sculptural works without some related knitted change. While the sensual style and attractive colours of change. While the sensual style and attractive colours of pieces. These two mediums (ceramic and textile) are his paintings seduce us into the naive pleasure of looking, his paintings seduce us into the naive pleasure of looking, associated with both manual skill and low-paid labour, their titles offer clues to the distressing realities theyso their titles offer clues to the distressing realities theyso notions that in So’s work carry a subtle gender and socio- beautifully depict, sharpening our relationship with the beautifully depict, sharpening our relationship with the political subtext. scenes we observe. • Ellen Mara De Wachte scenes we observe. • Ellen Mara De Wachte • Adrian George

Ghader Amer born 1925, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives and Ghader Amer born 1925, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives and works in Paris. Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2015 – Haus works in Paris. Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2015 – Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Konstruktiv, Zurich; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; 2014 – ‘Writing Mountains’, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, 2014 – ‘Writing Mountains’, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria; ‘Etel Adnan in All Her Dimensions’, Mathaf, Arab Austria; ‘Etel Adnan in All Her Dimensions’, Mathaf, Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; 2013 – Sfeir–Semler Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; 2013 – Sfeir–Semler Renee So born 1925, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives and works in Gallery, Beirut; ‘Worlds and Places: Etel Adnan’, Wattis Gallery, Beirut; ‘Worlds and Places: Etel Adnan’, Wattis Paris. Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2015 – Haus Konstruktiv, Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco;‘Etel Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco;‘Etel ← Title title title, 20XX Zurich; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; 2014 Adnan, Works 1965–2012’, Sfeir–Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Adnan, Works 1965–2012’, Sfeir–Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Medium medium medium – ‘Writing Mountains’, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Germany. Selected Group Exhibitions: 2015 – Sharjah Germany. Selected Group Exhibitions: 2015 – Sharjah XX x XX cm / XX x XX in Austria; ‘Etel Adnan in All Her Dimensions’, Mathaf, Arab Biennial 12, UAE; Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; 2014 – 12, UAE; Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; 2014 – Whitney ↙ Title title title, 20XX Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; 2013 – Sfeir–Semler ← Title title title, 20XX Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Medium medium medium Gallery, Beirut; ‘Worlds and Places: Etel Adnan’, Wattis Medium medium medium XX x XX cm / XX x XX in ‘Here and Elsewhere’, New Museum, New York; ‘this secret ‘Here and Elsewhere’, New Museum, New York; ‘this secret XX x XX cm / XX x XX in Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco;‘Etel world that exists right here in public’, Rampa Istanbul, world that exists right here in public’, Rampa Istanbul, → Title title title, 20XX Adnan, Works 1965–2012’, Sfeir–Semler Gallery, Hamburg, ↙ Title title title, 20XX Turkey; 2012 – dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany. Turkey; 2012 – dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany. Medium medium medium Germany. Selected Group Exhibitions: 2015 – Sharjah Medium medium medium XX x XX cm / XX x XX in XX x XX cm / XX x XX in Selected Bibliography: 2015 – Negar Azimi, ‘Why the Art Selected Bibliography: 2015 – Negar Azimi, ‘Why the Art Biennial 12, UAE; Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; 2014 – Whitney World Has Fallen for 90-Year-Old Etel Adnan’, The Wall World Has Fallen for 90-Year-Old Etel Adnan’, The Wall ↘ Title title title, 20XX Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; → Title title title, 20XX Medium medium medium Street Journal, Feb; 2014 – Etel Adnan, To look at the sea is Street Journal, Feb; 2014 – Etel Adnan, To look at the sea is Medium medium medium ‘Here and Elsewhere’, New Museum, New York; ‘this secret XX x XX cm / XX x XX in XX x XX cm / XX x XX in to become what one is: An Etel Adnan Reader, Nightboat to become what one is: An Etel Adnan Reader, Nightboat world that exists right here in public’, Rampa Istanbul, books, New York; 2013 – Maymanah Farhat, ‘Paintings books, New York; 2013 – Maymanah Farhat, ‘Paintings ↘ Title title title, 20XX Turkey; 2012 – dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany. and ↘ Title title title, 20XX Medium medium medium and Drawings: Etel Adnan’, ArtAsiaPacific, Nov–Dec. and Drawings: Etel Adnan’, ArtAsiaPacific, Nov–Dec. Medium medium medium Drawings: Etel Adnan’, ArtAsiaPacific, Nov–Dec. XX x XX cm / XX x XX in XX x XX cm / XX x XX in

Caroline Achaintre 019 Lilibeth Cuenca 185 Renee So 017 An Te Liu 103

Michael Armitage shares his time between London and ← Title title title, 20XX Nairobi. His large, colourful works are painted on lubugo, Medium medium medium a traditional bark cloth from Uganda, whose surface XX x XX cm / XX x XX in provides a rough texture and occasional imperfections ↙ Title title title, 20XX such as small holes. Often depicting scenes from Medium medium medium XX x XX cm / XX x XX in traumatic events, Armitage’s canvases vibrate with the tension between a flamboyant colour palette and serious subject matters. At the centre of #mydresschoice (2015) lies a naked female figure seen from behind and quoted directly from Diego Velázquez’s The Rokeby Venus (1647–51). Strewn around her are discarded items of clothing, a rumpled miniskirt and skimpy top. Facing her is a colonnade of male legs, standing as jury before her prone, unclothed body. The dazzling sun-drenched colours and steeply angled point of view combine with a vignette featuring a pair of bush babies in the lower right-hand corner, their wide eyes staring out in shock, to produce a scene tinged with phantasmagoria. Armitage describes the incident depicted, which took place in Nairobi in 2014, and the feelings that inspired the work: ‘women wearing miniskirts were taken off minibuses, stripped and molested by the drivers, touts and some passengers; this was filmed and circulated on the Internet. After watching, I felt complicit in the abuse … In the painting the most important character is you as the viewer.’ Armitage’s works operate as a type of contemporary history painting, and there is a radical edge to his depiction of events. He privileges minor, rather than official, histories in order to reveal everyday social and political realities. Deploying painting as a means to address the complexities, lacunae and bitter ironies of history, Armitage combines artistic traditions from his dual heritage: the African ground of lubugo and the visual iconography of East Africa come together with imagery quoted from European art history. Accident (2015) shows the scene of a bus crash amid dense foliage in an array of greens, rendered in layer upon layer of oil paint. There is a liquid aspect to some of Armitage’s colour washes, while other areas are scraped back to produce the effect of an afterimage, or to resemble pastel. Masses of green foliage underscored in contrasting reds and oranges churn like the roughest of seas; distorted bus seats and palm trees seem alive with a Cubist or Vorticist dynamism, conveying the confusion of catastrophe and the frustrating, fragmented quality of traumatic memory. The painting also holds an autobiographical significance for Armitage, recalling his experience of being in a plane crash in the Kenyan bush when he was a young man. Armitage believes in the role of art as social commentary and he is confident of its capacity to generate debate and possibly even to produce change. While the sensual style and attractive colours of his paintings seduce us into the naive pleasure of looking, their titles offer clues to the distressing realities theyso beautifully depict, sharpening our relationship with the scenes we observe. • Ellen Mara De Wachte

Ghader Amer born 1925, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives and works in Paris. Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2015 – Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; 2014 – ‘Writing Mountains’, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria; ‘Etel Adnan in All Her Dimensions’, Mathaf, Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; 2013 – Sfeir–Semler Gallery, Beirut; ‘Worlds and Places: Etel Adnan’, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco;‘Etel Adnan, Works 1965–2012’, Sfeir–Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany. Selected Group Exhibitions: 2015 – Sharjah Biennial 12, UAE; Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; 2014 – Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; ‘Here and Elsewhere’, New Museum, New York; ‘this secret world that exists right here in public’, Rampa Istanbul, ← Title title title, 20XX Turkey; 2012 – dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany. Medium medium medium XX x XX cm / XX x XX in Selected Bibliography: 2015 – Negar Azimi, ‘Why the Art World Has Fallen for 90-Year-Old Etel Adnan’, The Wall ↙ Title title title, 20XX Street Journal, Feb; 2014 – Etel Adnan, To look at the sea is Medium medium medium XX x XX cm / XX x XX in to become what one is: An Etel Adnan Reader, Nightboat books, New York; 2013 – Maymanah Farhat, ‘Paintings → Title title title, 20XX and Drawings: Etel Adnan’, ArtAsiaPacific, Nov–Dec. Medium medium medium XX x XX cm / XX x XX in

Rose Eken 09 Ron Nagle 123 Damian Ortega 281 Pheobe Cummings 043

Michael Armitage shares his time between London and Michael Armitage shares his time between London and Michael Armitage shares his time between London and Nairobi. His large, colourful works are painted on lubugo, Nairobi. His large, colourful works are painted on lubugo, Nairobi. His large, colourful works are painted on lubugo, a traditional bark cloth from Uganda, whose surface a traditional bark cloth from Uganda, whose surface a traditional bark cloth from Uganda, whose surface provides a rough texture and occasional imperfections provides a rough texture and occasional imperfections provides a rough texture and occasional imperfections such as small holes. Often depicting scenes from such as small holes. Often depicting scenes from such as small holes. Often depicting scenes from traumatic events, Armitage’s canvases vibrate with traumatic events, Armitage’s canvases vibrate with traumatic events, Armitage’s canvases vibrate with the tension between a flamboyant colour palette and the tension between a flamboyant colour palette and the tension between a flamboyant colour palette and serious subject matters. At the centre of #mydresschoice serious subject matters. At the centre of #mydresschoice serious subject matters. At the centre of #mydresschoice (2015) lies a naked female figure seen from behind and (2015) lies a naked female figure seen from behind and (2015) lies a naked female figure seen from behind and quoted directly from Diego Velázquez’s The Rokeby quoted directly from Diego Velázquez’s The Rokeby quoted directly from Diego Velázquez’s The Rokeby Venus (1647–51). Strewn around her are discarded items Venus (1647–51). Strewn around her are discarded items Venus (1647–51). Strewn around her are discarded items of clothing, a rumpled miniskirt and skimpy top. Facing of clothing, a rumpled miniskirt and skimpy top. Facing of clothing, a rumpled miniskirt and skimpy top. Facing her is a colonnade of male legs, standing as jury before her is a colonnade of male legs, standing as jury before her is a colonnade of male legs, standing as jury before her prone, unclothed body. The dazzling sun-drenched her prone, unclothed body. The dazzling sun-drenched her prone, unclothed body. The dazzling sun-drenched colours and steeply angled point of view combine colours and steeply angled point of view combine colours and steeply angled point of view combine with a vignette featuring a pair of bush babies in the with a vignette featuring a pair of bush babies in the with a vignette featuring a pair of bush babies in the lower right-hand corner, their wide eyes staring out in lower right-hand corner, their wide eyes staring out in lower right-hand corner, their wide eyes staring out in shock, to produce a scene tinged with phantasmagoria. shock, to produce a scene tinged with phantasmagoria. shock, to produce a scene tinged with phantasmagoria. Armitage describes the incident depicted, which took Armitage describes the incident depicted, which took Armitage describes the incident depicted, which took place in Nairobi in 2014, and the feelings that inspired place in Nairobi in 2014, and the feelings that inspired place in Nairobi in 2014, and the feelings that inspired the work: ‘women wearing miniskirts were taken off the work: ‘women wearing miniskirts were taken off the work: ‘women wearing miniskirts were taken off minibuses, stripped and molested by the drivers, touts minibuses, stripped and molested by the drivers, touts minibuses, stripped and molested by the drivers, touts and some passengers; this was filmed and circulated and some passengers; this was filmed and circulated and some passengers; this was filmed and circulated on the Internet. After watching, I felt complicit in the on the Internet. After watching, I felt complicit in the on the Internet. After watching, I felt complicit in the abuse … In the painting the most important character abuse … In the painting the most important character abuse … In the painting the most important character is you as the viewer.’ Armitage’s works operate as a is you as the viewer.’ Armitage’s works operate as a is you as the viewer.’ Armitage’s works operate as a type of contemporary history painting, and there is a type of contemporary history painting, and there is a type of contemporary history painting, and there is a radical edge to his depiction of events. He privileges radical edge to his depiction of events. He privileges radical edge to his depiction of events. He privileges minor, rather than official, histories in order to reveal minor, rather than official, histories in order to reveal minor, rather than official, histories in order to reveal everyday social and political realities. Deploying painting everyday social and political realities. Deploying painting everyday social and political realities. Deploying painting as a means to address the complexities, lacunae and as a means to address the complexities, lacunae and as a means to address the complexities, lacunae and bitter ironies of history, Armitage combines artistic bitter ironies of history, Armitage combines artistic bitter ironies of history, Armitage combines artistic traditions from his dual heritage: the African ground traditions from his dual heritage: the African ground traditions from his dual heritage: the African ground of lubugo and the visual iconography of East Africa of lubugo and the visual iconography of East Africa of lubugo and the visual iconography of East Africa come together with imagery quoted from European art come together with imagery quoted from European art come together with imagery quoted from European art history. Accident (2015) shows the scene of a bus crash history. Accident (2015) shows the scene of a bus crash history. Accident (2015) shows the scene of a bus crash amid dense foliage in an array of greens, rendered in amid dense foliage in an array of greens, rendered in amid dense foliage in an array of greens, rendered in layer upon layer of oil paint. There is a liquid aspect to layer upon layer of oil paint. There is a liquid aspect to layer upon layer of oil paint. There is a liquid aspect to some of Armitage’s colour washes, while other areas are some of Armitage’s colour washes, while other areas are some of Armitage’s colour washes, while other areas are scraped back to produce the effect of an afterimage, or scraped back to produce the effect of an afterimage, or scraped back to produce the effect of an afterimage, or to resemble pastel. Masses of green foliage underscored to resemble pastel. Masses of green foliage underscored to resemble pastel. Masses of green foliage underscored in contrasting reds and oranges churn like the roughest of in contrasting reds and oranges churn like the roughest of in contrasting reds and oranges churn like the roughest of seas; distorted bus seats and palm trees seem alive with seas; distorted bus seats and palm trees seem alive with seas; distorted bus seats and palm trees seem alive with a Cubist or Vorticist dynamism, conveying the confusion a Cubist or Vorticist dynamism, conveying the confusion a Cubist or Vorticist dynamism, conveying the confusion of catastrophe and the frustrating, fragmented quality of catastrophe and the frustrating, fragmented quality of catastrophe and the frustrating, fragmented quality of traumatic memory. The painting also holds an of traumatic memory. The painting also holds an of traumatic memory. The painting also holds an autobiographical significance for Armitage, recalling his autobiographical significance for Armitage, recalling his autobiographical significance for Armitage, recalling his experience of being in a plane crash in the Kenyan bush experience of being in a plane crash in the Kenyan bush experience of being in a plane crash in the Kenyan bush when he was a young man. Armitage believes in the role when he was a young man. Armitage believes in the role when he was a young man. Armitage believes in the role of art as social commentary and he is confident of its of art as social commentary and he is confident of its of art as social commentary and he is confident of its capacity to generate debate and possibly even to produce capacity to generate debate and possibly even to produce capacity to generate debate and possibly even to produce change. While the sensual style and attractive colours of change. While the sensual style and attractive colours of change. While the sensual style and attractive colours of his paintings seduce us into the naive pleasure of looking, his paintings seduce us into the naive pleasure of looking, his paintings seduce us into the naive pleasure of looking, their titles offer clues to the distressing realities theyso their titles offer clues to the distressing realities theyso their titles offer clues to the distressing realities theyso beautifully depict, sharpening our relationship with the beautifully depict, sharpening our relationship with the beautifully depict, sharpening our relationship with the scenes we observe. • Ellen Mara De Wachte scenes we observe. • Ellen Mara De Wachte scenes we observe. • Ellen Mara De Wachte

Ghader Amer born 1925, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives and Ghader Amer born 1925, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives and Ghader Amer born 1925, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives and works in Paris. Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2015 – Haus works in Paris. Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2015 – Haus works in Paris. Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2015 – Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Konstruktiv, Zurich; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Konstruktiv, Zurich; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; 2014 – ‘Writing Mountains’, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, 2014 – ‘Writing Mountains’, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, 2014 – ‘Writing Mountains’, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria; ‘Etel Adnan in All Her Dimensions’, Mathaf, Arab Austria; ‘Etel Adnan in All Her Dimensions’, Mathaf, Arab Austria; ‘Etel Adnan in All Her Dimensions’, Mathaf, Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; 2013 – Sfeir–Semler Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; 2013 – Sfeir–Semler Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; 2013 – Sfeir–Semler Gallery, Beirut; ‘Worlds and Places: Etel Adnan’, Wattis Gallery, Beirut; ‘Worlds and Places: Etel Adnan’, Wattis Gallery, Beirut; ‘Worlds and Places: Etel Adnan’, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco;‘Etel Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco;‘Etel ← Title title title, 20XX Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco;‘Etel ← Title title title, 20XX Adnan, Works 1965–2012’, Sfeir–Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Medium medium medium Adnan, Works 1965–2012’, Sfeir–Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Medium medium medium Adnan, Works 1965–2012’, Sfeir–Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany. Selected Group Exhibitions: 2015 – Sharjah XX x XX cm / XX x XX in Germany. Selected Group Exhibitions: 2015 – Sharjah XX x XX cm / XX x XX in Germany. Selected Group Exhibitions: 2015 – Sharjah Biennial 12, UAE; Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; 2014 – Whitney Biennial 12, UAE; Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; 2014 – Whitney ↙ Title title title, 20XX Biennial 12, UAE; Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; 2014 – Whitney ↙ Title title title, 20XX Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Medium medium medium Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Medium medium medium Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; XX x XX cm / XX x XX in ‘Here and Elsewhere’, New Museum, New York; ‘this secret XX x XX cm / XX x XX in ‘Here and Elsewhere’, New Museum, New York; ‘this secret ‘Here and Elsewhere’, New Museum, New York; ‘this secret world that exists right here in public’, Rampa Istanbul, world that exists right here in public’, Rampa Istanbul, → Title title title, 20XX world that exists right here in public’, Rampa Istanbul, → Title title title, 20XX Turkey; 2012 – dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany. Medium medium medium Turkey; 2012 – dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany. Medium medium medium Turkey; 2012 – dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany. XX x XX cm / XX x XX in XX x XX cm / XX x XX in Selected Bibliography: 2015 – Negar Azimi, ‘Why the Art Selected Bibliography: 2015 – Negar Azimi, ‘Why the Art Selected Bibliography: 2015 – Negar Azimi, ‘Why the Art ← Title title title, 20XX World Has Fallen for 90-Year-Old Etel Adnan’, The Wall ↘ Title title title, 20XX World Has Fallen for 90-Year-Old Etel Adnan’, The Wall ↘ Title title title, 20XX World Has Fallen for 90-Year-Old Etel Adnan’, The Wall Medium medium medium Medium medium medium Medium medium medium Street Journal, Feb; 2014 – Etel Adnan, To look at the sea is Street Journal, Feb; 2014 – Etel Adnan, To look at the sea is Street Journal, Feb; 2014 – Etel Adnan, To look at the sea is XX x XX cm / XX x XX in XX x XX cm / XX x XX in XX x XX cm / XX x XX in to become what one is: An Etel Adnan Reader, Nightboat to become what one is: An Etel Adnan Reader, Nightboat to become what one is: An Etel Adnan Reader, Nightboat ↙ Title title title, 20XX ↘ Title title title, 20XX books, New York; 2013 – Maymanah Farhat, ‘Paintings ↘ Title title title, 20XX books, New York; 2013 – Maymanah Farhat, ‘Paintings books, New York; 2013 – Maymanah Farhat, ‘Paintings Medium medium medium Medium medium medium Medium medium medium and Drawings: Etel Adnan’, ArtAsiaPacific, Nov–Dec. and Drawings: Etel Adnan’, ArtAsiaPacific, Nov–Dec. and Drawings: Etel Adnan’, ArtAsiaPacific, Nov–Dec. XX x XX cm / XX x XX in XX x XX cm / XX x XX in XX x XX cm / XX x XX in 169 Klara Kristalova 203 Delcy Morelos 219 Rosemarie Trockel 161

Book Specifications Phaidon Press Limited Regent's Wharf Binding: Hardback All Saints Street Format: 290 x 250 mm London N1 9PA 11 3/8 x 9 7/8 inches Page count: 304 Phaidon Press Inc Number of images: c.520 colour 65 Bleecker Street Word count: c.55,000 New York, NY 10012

www.phaidon.com ISBN: 978 0 7148 7460 9 © 2017 Phaidon Press Limited Caroline Achaintre Hilary Harnischfeger Ron Nagle

Ai Weiwei Jessica Harrison Ruby Neri

Ghada Amer Keith Harrison Erica Nickol

Aaron Angell Emma Hart William J. O’Brien

Salvatore Arancio Mary Heilmann Paulina Olowska

Trisha Baga Emily Hesse Luigi Ontani

Alisa Baremboym Lubaina Himid Gabriel Orozco

Lynda Benglis Christian Holstad Damian Ortega

Huma Bhabha Emre Hüner Anna-Bella Papp

Shary Boyle Than Hussein Clark JJ Peet

Kathy Butterly Jessica Jackson Hutchins Giuseppe Penone

Pia Camil Elizabeth Jaeger Mai-Thu Perret

Nicole Cherubini Cameron Jamie Grayson Perry

Marco Chiandetti Markus Karstieß Tal R

William Cobbing Rachel Kneebone Sahej Rahal

Tommaso Corvi Mora John Kørner Anselm Reyle

Liz Craft Klara Kristalova Brie Ruais

Katie Cuddon Shio Kusaka Sterling Ruby

Lilibeth Cuenca Takuro Kuwata Anders Ruhwald

Phoebe Cummings Liz Larner Thomas Schütte

Roberto Cuoghi Simone Leigh Marcia Schvartz

Rachel de Joode Jason Lim Wael Shawky

Edmund de Waal An Te Liu Arlene Shechet

Richard Deacon Jianhua Liu Richard Slee

Francesca DiMattio Andrew Lord Renee So

Nathalie Djurberg & Martin Berg Alice Mackler Marlene Steyn

Lynda Draper Anna Maria Maiolino Rosemarie Trockel

Rose Eken Mark Manders Clare Twomey

Alexandra Engelfriet Helen Marten Francis Upritchard

Lijun Fang Dan McCarthy Adrián Villar Rojas

Simone Fattal Jimena Mendoza Jesse Wine

Michael Frimkess and Matthias Merkel Hess Betty Woodman

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess Marisa Merz Yeesookyung

Theaster Gates Delcy Morelos

The Grantchester Pottery Kristen Morgin