Redefining ceramics through exhibitionary practice (1970-2009)

Abstract

Since the 1960s the field of ceramic practice that developed in the wake of studio pottery has expanded to incorporate diverse uses of clay. In the same period public museums and galleries in Britain have begun to engage with contemporary ceramic works on a more sustained basis. This paper examines how they have attempted to reconcile art-oriented practice, in particular, with existing modes of categorisation through temporary exhibitions. It argues that these ventures also reconstituted the ceramic field, which, like the field of art, became increasingly dependent on context as a means of delineation. It focuses on the period from 1970, when Ceramic Review was founded, to the 2009 exhibition Possibilities and Losses, which craft theorist Glenn Adamson suggested, marks a paradigm shift in ceramics. Extrapolating from Miwon Kwon’s writing on site-specificity it contends that although museums and galleries acted as the functional sites for these exhibitions the discourse around ceramics was a key site of effect.

Keywords

• ceramics
• museums
• medium
• exhibition
• crafts
• decorative arts
• clay
• pottery
• expanded field