I had to chuckle... I looked at the slide show first for this exhibit
and my initial response to some of it was "I have seen high school
work better than that" (smile).
Art Review | 'Makers and Modelers'
It's Just Clay, but How About a Little Respect?
By ROBERTA SMITH
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/arts/design/07mode.html?ref=arts
Here is an excerpt from the article:
"The frequency of mushy little figures here confirms this. (Ceramics
accommodates so many levels of skill that the statement "My 5-year-old
could do that" has an unusually high rate of accuracy.)"
----------------------------
Well... a five year old could not have made the work selected for the
slide show - definitely take a look if you teach middle school and/or
high school ceramics.
From the article:
>>But, perplexingly, the mainstream art world's appreciation of
contemporary ceramics remains a capricious, on-and-off, up-and-down
thing — even when, as now, it seems to be in on/up mode. The latest
symptom is "Makers and Modelers: Works in Ceramic," a sprawling,
ebullient season opener of works by 31 artists at the Gladstone
Gallery in Chelsea.
This show tries to position ceramics in the mainstream by ignoring
just about anyone who hasn't more or less achieved high-end
acceptance, a snobbish ploy. "Vessels are so over" is the apparent
subtext of this potpourri of the figurative, abstract and
installational.
Makers and Modelers: Works in Ceramic" is at the Gladstone Gallery,
515 West 24th Street, Chelsea, through Oct. 13.
Here is one line I found about her work...
"Kristalova is a storyteller who uses the plasticity of sculpture to
build small micro worlds, where something peculiar has just happened
or is about to happen."
I will probably add a link to Kristalova on my ceramics links page.
