Chapter Thirteen

Paul Mathieu, The Art of the Future: 14 essays on ceramics Chapter Thirteen SEX: Eroticism in Ceramics “Le toucher est le plus demystificateur de tous les sens, au contraire de la vue qui est le plus magique”, Roland Barthes. The relationship between clay as a material, ceramics as a practice and sexuality itself are multiple and numerous. All imply touch and transformation, and touch is the dominant sense when it comes to working with plastic clay. Clay comes from the earth; it is alive and fertile. Clay is like flesh, and most mythologies use clay as origin in creation myths. This relationship has already been discussed in the preceding chapter. Clay is also common, basic, cheap and dirty. At scatological level, it is like excrement. In ceramics, the body has always played a large role in representation, both abstractly and metaphorically in the anthropomorphism of pottery forms, and in an obvious relation between pots and body parts (the lip, neck, shoulder, belly and foot of a pot). The direct formal and semantic connection between pottery forms and human bodies is particularly relevant in the relation of ceramics to sexuality. In contrast, visual art is often described as distinct from other forms of human expression by being concerned with pure form, with representation. It is in that manner that works of art have an independent life and are complete in themselves. This “independent” life also segregates art from reality and this manifests itself in the art 1 gallery, the neutral white cube of the conventional exhibition space, the preferred institutional space worldwide now for the experience of art, one that I will not be sorry to see replaced, eventually. I will argue that the white cube of the exhibition space operates in a form of “reverse kitsch”, not stylistically so much as psychologically, since its sublime purity and expectant emptiness is also a form of denial, a negation of base materiality. But then, it is conceived to receive “conceptual” and “mediated” art forms, primarily. This base materiality of ceramics is partly the reason why functional, practical objects are not usually included in the category we name “visual arts” since they are tools for activities that connect them directly to lived experiences and in that process they loose the necessary independence where art, supposedly, operates. I do not happen to agree with this premise, which has also been endlessly challenged by artists as well as theoreticians, in the last 100 years, at least. Yet, it remains that this “formal” model of the purity and independence of art is still with us now, and there is still constant resistance to legitimately include functional, practical objects, specifically hand-made objects, within the art category. They usually achieve such status, coveted by most makers, by contextualization within sculpture/installation strategies, but rarely in remaining true to their original context of practical, functional or even decorative things. When sexual representations are included in the equation image/object, the problem becomes even more complex. Objects and more specifically if functional, need to be experienced by touch, with the hand if not the whole body. This emphasis on touch over a visual appreciation alone, not only distinguishes objects from images, but also creates a deep connection with eroticism and sexuality, both deeply concerned with touch in sensual experience. And, if the eye is the most magical and mysterious of all the senses, touch is the most revealing, to paraphrase the opening quote by Roland Barthes. Human nature creates such an inherent and fundamental desire to hold and be united with another human body that this urge must by necessity become a subject for art. The difficulties of representing the nude in art reside in the need to use graphic images that cannot be avoided and must be presented in all their “obscenity”. When a sexual act is represented and the sexual aspects of human bodies are brought to the foreground, this upsets our response to the art work, a response that we prefer to be based on “pure” form alone, without having to consider obvious, confrontational and disturbing contents and contexts. 2 This modernist emphasis on pure form and the denial of the uncomfortable realities of life aligns formal art and kitsch. Milan Kundera stated that kitsch is the absolute denial of shit. The formalism of modern art and modern design is, in that sense, a form of kitsch too, a reverse kitsch possibly, yet psychologically similar, denying by abbreviation and the reductive process of pure form, the complexity of human life’s, of birth and death and everything in between. Of course, formalism too has been endlessly challenged in the last century and will continue to be for quite a while, I am sure. Pottery forms, in their abstraction, could be, interestingly enough, included in this world of pure form where many would still prefer art to solely reside. By themselves, pottery forms are familiar, domestic, ordinary, innocent and their real beauty can be appreciated in itself, independent of any other obvious references to other aspects of life, in their abstract nature. When pottery forms are modified by the addition of graphic sexual representations, the contradictions between the object and the image can be quite jarring and disruptive, hence their efficiency. The expression of the sexual impulse in clay and ceramics goes back to the pre- historical Neolithic, about 15,000 years ago, as early as the ceramic tradition itself (which some experts push as far back as 30,000 years into the past), with the modeling and firing of fertility images, then, closer to us in time, the beginning of hollowed vessels, of pottery. From that time, the Neolithic, there are literally thousands of ceramic representations of female figures with large breast, broad hips, with a well defined and large triangular vulva, usually interpreted as images of the Mother Goddess, and connected to funerary rites and the cyclical rhythms of reproduction and re-generation found in nature. Some of these idols are in stone, bone and antler and, by the Bronze Age, metal as well, but the vast majority are made of clay, at first unfired then made more permanent by firing in bonfires or in the fire pits, for placement in the altars and ritual places of these early communities. Fire, of course, was also and primarily used for heat, for protection and for basic cooking needs. The earth, source of clay, is perceived as female in mythologies, in most if not all cultures on the planet, and the apprehension and control of fire may have been a female discovery, originally. It has recently been speculated that some of the Neolithic fertility figures were intentionally fired quickly in a bonfire, while the clay still contained moisture, in order for the form to explode in contact with the flame (fire being a male element). The actual meaning of that (possibly) intentional gesture of exploding the modeled image remains speculative, like so many of our interpretations of that distant past. Probably, the destruction of the modeled figure 3 could have reinforced the power of the object, releasing its potential energy and completing the cyclic nature of the ritual. It is necessary to note that in most cosmogonies, the world is composed not only of four directions -east, west, north and south- but of four basic elements - air, earth, water and fire – and that all four are central and necessary elements of the ceramic process. The clay, earth, is lifted from the ground (earth again) by the action of water and pressure, it is then exposed to the air to dry and harden and the cycle is completed by fire. Similarly the pot touches the earth at its base, and his open to the air on top, while its interior contains water, which can be heated by fire, all of which are important anthropological aspects of the relationship of pottery and ceramics to natural processes as they relate to culture. Historical precedents: The oldest, chronologically, graphically sexual representations (images of sexual acts, intercourse between male and female partners) in fired clay come from Egypt, from as late as the first dynasties. From that time, fired clay penises have come down to us, and they were probably meant as votive offerings in fertility rites. The people of Mesopotamia also made countless fired clay offerings, many in the shape of charming miniature beds where couples are seen chastely yet obviously embracing, possible symbols of fidelity and/or wishes for fertility. We also find terracotta phalluses in China, dating from 5000 years ago in the Quijialing culture of Hebei province. One was found that was 157 cm. tall. From the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), there are some architectural tiles found in brick lined underground funerary chambers, with erotic scenes as well. Closer to us in time, clay phalluses can be found in many cultures, notably in Sub-Sahara Africa and in the vast desert of North Africa, where the nomadic Touaregs use fired clay bed posts that are clearly phallic in form. The Moche of pre-Columbian Peru: From around 600 BCE to the Spanish conquest in the 16th Century, there were two millennia of continuous history in erotic ceramics based along the coast of Peru in South America. This is certainly the longest, unbroken erotic ceramic tradition in the world and 4 this situation is unique in the history of ceramics and of humankind. And it is still continuing today, if largely for the tourist trade now, a phenomenon found in all other indigenous craft practices, anywhere. Of the many cultures of Peru over more than 2000 years, the Moche culture is particularly identified with erotic ceramics, although all the other cultures of the region also produced numerous and distinctive erotic ceramics.

Load more