R E V IE W E D
Dirt
on Delight:
Impulses
That Form
Clay
S T O R Y B Y
Robin Rice
Institute of Contemporary A rt
University of Pennsylvania
January 15 - June 21,2009
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
icaphila.org
Once you get past the title with its punning
reference to clay, perhaps in its Freudian
fecal sense, and to scandalous gossip, the
most striking thing about “ D irt on Delight:
Impulses that Form Clay” is the anti-hierar-
chical installation of the exhibition. The
pattern of display, seemingly as arbitrary
as a yard sale, transmits key ideas on an al-
most subliminal level. Aside from suggest-
ing the characteristics of flux and growth
through its branching, fragmented organi-
zation, it breezily refuses to tell visitors
where or how to look or what to look for.
“D irt on Delight” ignores the wheezy old
“ sculpture-versus-function” debate that
generally dominates the occasional penetra-
tion of materials-based art into venues like
the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute
of Contemporary Art. These overarching
choices are not countered by the gallery
handout and a brief wall text or by a few
artists’ taped responses to the question
“ How did you come to clay?” (accessible
by cell phone and on the Internet). This
novel (non)organization is disconcerting
to some and liberating for others.
The design of “Dirt on Delight” eschews
the expected modernist grid. More strik-
ingly, it ignores walls as pedestrian guides
and takes as its center an irregular branching
form, a vague Y-shape composed of three
long rectangular pedestal elements in the
middle of the enormous gallery. Around
this center there are many occasional is-
lands, for example Ann Agee’s brown table,
Agee M anufacturing Co. (W in ter Catalogue),
2008, stocked with all-white porcelain bou-
quets of pinked-edged blossoms and dainty
feminist figurine groupings related to Dres-
den shepherdesses.
Near Agee on the stained cement floor
(reminiscent of a school ceramics studio) is
a three-unit flotilla of large fluorescent pink
vessels by Beverly Semmes. Between these
two groups are freestanding works andjes-
sicajackson Hutchins’s
C on viviu m ,
2008,
the title feast suggested by a domestic din-
ing table draped with an embroidered cloth
that bears a crazy-collaged papier-mache
structure supporting ceramic vessels.
The
“ y ”
is home to numerous tabletop-
scale works. In another of its angular bays,
four of Betty' Woodman’s largish slab-sided
W in g ed Figures,
2007, are poised on indi-
vidual raw wood stands. A few pieces are
unexpectedly aligned with the walls of the
room. These include Robert Arneson’s inor-
dinately popular, more or less life-size,
white-glazed
Joh n Figure,
1965, with a face
in a toilet and a real footprint on the floor
tiles. Arneson, a key figure in the develop-
ment of 20th-century clay sculpture, has
eight pieces in the show, mostly small busts—
more than any of the other 21 artists.
Visitor circulation is necessarily inchoate
and self-ordained, a situation which admits
the real likelihood that some work w ill not
be seen by some visitors. The subtitle of the
show, “Impulses That Form Clay,” is borne
out through objects that consistently dis-
play a primal delight in the innate qualities
of clay, impulses often contrary to the his-
toric sub jugation of clay—hand-built, wheel-
thrown or cast—
to the maker’s w ill and skill.
The earliest works, all from around
034 ainerican craft oct/novo9
www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaiza.net
All photos/Aaron Igler; Semmes/collection of Liz and Jay Fenderstock, courtesy of Galerie Bugdahn and Kaimer, Düsseldorf.
