The Museum Building at Grounds for Sculpture
Date of visit: September 20, 2008
While visiting Grounds for Sculpture last month I had the opportunity to see an exhibition of two clay artists, Peter Voulos and Toshiko Takaezu. The setting of the exhibition in a modern, sterile building was a big contrast to the organic and open feel of Grounds for Sculpture as a whole.
Toshiko Takaezu throws on a wheel and creates sublime, organic sculptures that have the symmetry of a vase but are closed at the top. They’re very organic and strange, and I wish I could have seen them in a more natural environment instead of the sterility of the gallery. They almost reminded me of ancient sculptures or totems; they had a very primitive but sophisticated look about them with no unnecessary flourishes. The glazes were subdued and natural, and the shapes were fairly simple and unassuming, not at all delicate. It’s difficult to single out any particular work because each one seemed to be a part of a series of the same idea; though the size and shapes varied slightly, the collection of work was very cohesive and at times repetitive. I saw this gallery before we began to study Freud, but Freudian thoughts came to me nevertheless when I was viewing her work. Each sculpture has a smoothly rounded top, with a small nub protruding from the very center. I don’t know if this is an inevitable result of the throwing process (ceramics aren’t my forte) or, probably more likely, intentional, but they all evoked the images of a breast and nipple. It’s possible that this was intentional, because it would tie in with the earthy, natural, somewhat reverent feel of the pieces—a tribute to the idea of clay coming from the earth, which is personified as the mother.
Overall, the work was not really my style, but I found it very interesting and beautiful in its own way.
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