November 3 to December 22, 2017
195 Chrystie Street, between Rivington and Stanton streets
New York City, vandorenwaxter.com

Although Brian Rochefort was born in Rhode Island (1985) and studied ceramics at the Rhode Island School of Design, his ceramic sculptures relate strongly to a West Coast tradition—and he now indeed lives and works in Los Angeles. That tradition includes Peter Voulkos, Ron Nagle and Ken Price, and the latter two would seem of particular importance to Rochefort, though Voulkos’ explorations into the deconstruction of functional ceramic objects certainly has bearings as well. Nagle and Price conjure extraordinary surfaces, colors and shapes, broaching both the animate and inanimate in unexpected inventive form, in ways that particularly resonate with Rochefort.

Of the 17 ceramic works presented here, 12 are referred to by Rochefort as “craters” and placed on three white pedestals. The remaining pieces are wall based “relief paintings” (again, according to the artist) and incorporate their painted frames through color relationships: think Bram Bogart’s physically present forms and Jules Olitski’s vaporous sprayed transparencies. The particularly vivid use of color and intricate complexities of organic surface and structure obvious in all these works appear distinctly other within an urban environment—however garish and battered they become. An impression of otherness is, indeed, confirmed on discovering that their inspiration has been gleaned from such unspoiled physical phenomena as volcanic ranges, tropical rainforests, barrier reefs and attendant flora and fauna, experienced by Rochefort on travels in Central and South America and Africa.

The process used to arrive at particular colors and forms is intuitive—clearly, Rochefort is responsive to results at each stage along the way to a completed piece. These include breaking up an initial vessel shaped object of unfired clay, dipping the parts into a mixture of clay and mud, and leaving them to dry and crack. Glazes are then added using methods more or less familiar to ceramic production—drips and splashes, airbrushed gradients of color and pools of melted glass. The firing of each piece is repeated after another new layer of glaze is added.

Jozani (2017), at 18 inches high, is typical of the irregularly conical “craters,” and consists of stoneware, earthenware, glaze and glass. A cluster of material around the top edge—circling the interior space—recalls volcanic activity or naturally transfiguring substances: reacting to each other, bubbling, breaking, separating irregularly, clotting, repulsing. This is not just associative of volcanos, it is what actually happened to the materials during the cumulative process of its making. The surface is cracked, both smooth and rough, matt and glistening. Loose patterns appear like pelts, or rocks in laver flows. The colors are warm—turmeric, terracotta, sand, yellow ocher, pale lemon, violet and white. Jozani is the name of a Tanzanian village. SETI (2017) is composed of the same materials but in different quantities and combinations, and with a different color range of blue, blue green, pink, yellow, brown, and white. This time, marine life comes to mind, coral reefs, the cosmos, and meteorites. Again, color, material and process each contribute to the visual pleasure, haptic delight and imaginative connection of the piece. The title references the organization committed to a search for extraterrestrial forms of life.

The wall-based “relief paintings” engage visually with the possibilities of painting and its presentation or, less obviously, an architectural setting such as a parvis. Relief Painting #4 (2017) is a slab of roughly textured ceramic gouged and modeled, colored dark yellow and placed within a frame. Turquoise in the base and internal sides and pale yellow in the facing edge generates continuity and play between the piece and its frame, rather than using the frame as a neutral device within which to isolate the work. The textured surface catches light in such a way as to make two tones. It looks encrusted or weathered, though this is not due to physical process this time, but is just a matter of appearance. Altogether, with both the “craters” and “relief paintings,” Rochefort has contributed to the expanded field of ceramic sculpture and painting, currently such a vital tendency in contemporary art.

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April 28 to September 27, 2015
2 Columbus Circle
New York City, 212 299 7777

traveling to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, October 30, 2015 to February 28, 2016

The stated purpose of this show is to consider the notable contributions of women to modernism in postwar visual culture. Certainly an argument can be made for paying more attention to the contributions women within craft traditions, particularly in the 1950s and ’60s, an era when painting, sculpture and architecture were largely dominated by men. Artists such as Ruth Asawa, Lenore Tawney, Toshiko Takaezu and Karen Karnes used such materials as metals, textiles and clay in ways that push their work toward fine art concerns, demanding to be seen in a fine art context. Yet to date, while each of these artists is well known, their collective contribution has remained unexamined.

The current show at MAD aims to adjust this imbalance, in part through sheer volume of works presented — over 100 individual works by 42 artists fill every gallery on two floors. The range is comprehensive and ambitious. By including important Scandinavian designers such as Rut Bryky and Vivianna Torun Brulow-Hube, the parallels between women working in Scandinavia and the United States are highlighted. And by focusing on European émigrés such as Anni Albers and Maija Grotell, the legacy of modernism within American craft is established. Bauhaus trained, Albers and Grotell brought with them the conviction that craft could serve as an arena of modernist innovation.

The exhibition begins on the second floor where it focuses on a particular cadre of artists, who besides Asawa, Karnes, Lenore Tawney and Takaezu included Sheila Hicks and Alice Kogawa Parrott, who were influential as designers, makers and teachers. As the show points out, this pioneering group came to maturity along with the Museum of Arts and Design itself, which was founded in 1956 at the center of the emerging American modern craft movement.

Marianne Strengell and Grotell taught for many years at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where their students included Takaezu and Parrott. The placement of works by mentors, protégés and colleagues underlines the networks and alliances that influenced and sustained these women throughout their careers.

Many pairings of “craft” and “fine art” have been integrated to encourage viewers to reconsider traditional categories and, de facto, to rethink modernist narrative in light of gender. For the most part this works well, although some of the pairings need more explanation. It is not clear why works by Lee Krasner and Eva Hesse, for example, have been paired with Takaezu and Tawney. They didn’t influence each other much and the formal connections are slight. But this is a minor quibble in what is otherwise a feast of works by women rarely seen together on this scale.

One need only think of the careers of male artists such as Isamu Noguchi, Peter Voulkos and Scott Burton, to recognize the need to further examine the concerns raised by this show. Noguchi did a great deal of design work throughout his career, including lamps, chairs, set design but he was always located firmly within a fine arts context. Voulkos made wheel-thrown vessels throughout his life, but he is widely recognized for pushing clay into the realm of sculpture. Perhaps the most dramatic comparison might be Burton, who designed objects out of marble and stone intended to be viewed aesthetically while at the same time functioning as chairs, tables, etc. This paradigm can be traced right back to Constantin Brancusi whose Endless Column ensemble, erected in Romania in 1934, includes a large stone table with twelve stone chairs that Brancusi himself felt was as important to the whole as the column itself. The point being that male artists have not had problems playing with craft traditions and making utilitarian objects, but women who made work in craft areas were historically relegated to this arena.

Nevertheless, the exhibition at MAD is celebratory. Viewers venturing through the connected rooms will make many surprising discoveries: Marianne Strengell’s Forecast, a rug made from 80% aluminum for Alcoa; framed weavings by Anni Albers; a striking metal construction by Vivian Beer for instance. A piece titled DE—SIGN by Gabriel Ann Mahler, which includes a garment and a video exploring stereotypical male and female postures and clothing, was a revelation for this viewer. For the most part, the fourth floor is filled with later generations of artists and designers. Yet, as one enters these galleries, dominated for the most part by works of industrial design, one encounters an interesting counterpoint and nod to design legacy in a pairing of ceramic works by British ceramicist Magdelane Odundo. These raven-black clay forms are stunning: they provoke, startle and mystify by being at once vessel and sculptural form.

One of the delightful ironies of the exhibition is that it includes the work of contemporary artists such as Polly Apfelbaum. Apfelbaum is firmly rooted in a fine art context but her large, site-specific installation of textiles was inspired by A Handweavers Pattern Book. She pushes back toward a craft heritage by choosing not to paint on stretched canvas but on silk in such a way that the piece spreads out as a series of colored scarves. She confidently makes feminist connections to craft and clothing.

“Pathmakers” does a great deal to meet its goal of locating women within central currents of mid-century modernist narrative. Most importantly, this exhibition opens the opportunity for new lines of enquiry into the intersections of craft, gender and modernism.

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