Contemporary British Ceramics and the Influence of Sculpture

This book investigates how British contemporary artists who work with clay have managed, in the space of a single generation, to take ceramics from niche-interest craft to the pristine territories of the contemporary art gallery. This development has been accompanied (and perhaps propelled) by the kind of critical discussion usually reserved for the 'higher' discipline of sculpture. Ceramics is now encountering and colliding with sculpture, both formally and intellectually. Laura Gray examines what this means for the old hierarchies between art and craft, the identity of the potter, and the character of a discipline tied to a specific material but wanting to participate in critical discussions that extend far beyond clay.

Laura Gray has a PhD in Art History from Cardiff Metropolitan University and is a freelance curator, writer and researcher specializing in contemporary art and craft, and twentieth-century sculpture.

Table of Contents Introduction Chapter One Becoming Partners? Creative Tension: Defining ceramics Sculpture: A category in danger of collapse The Art and Craft Divide An Overview of the Book Chapter Two Monumental Matters Monuments and the Collective Memory Two Approaches: The logical and the abstracted monument Ceramics in Civic Space Wheel of Fortune: Monumentalizing Stoke-on-Trent Making it Big: The monumental style Chapter Three The Numbers Game: Multi-part compositions Do Numbers Matter? Plane Thinking: Horizonal groups High Rise: Stack, build, repeat The Expressive Possibility of Repetition Clare Twomey: Master assembler Chapter Four The Art of Destruction: Ceramics, Sculpture and Iconoclasm What is Iconoclasm? Iconoclasm and Art Vases and Vandalism Out of the Ordinary: Destroying domestic ware Clay in Common Past Imperfect: The art of transformative repair Destruction as Cultural Critique Please Do Not Touch: Destruction in the vitrine Biting the hand that feeds? Iconoclasm as institutional critique Chapter Five Encounters: Ceramics on Show Thinking About Exhibitions Clay as an Authentic Material for Sculpture: The Raw and the Cooked Ceramics and Minimalism: The New White Ceramics Under Threat: A Secret History of Clay Post-Studio Practice: Possibilities and Losses Ceramics for the Home The Separation of Art and the Home Home Coming: Contemporary ceramics in domestic space Domesticating the White Cube Conclusion Radical Plasticity A Single Material Workmanship The Vessel The Current of Influence The Future