52 Bone China Cups
19 Bone China Cups
SOIL, STONE, BONE
APRIL 5 – MAY 26, 2019
b. 1975, Teaneck, NJ
lives and works in Glenside, PA
Gregg Moore is a Philadelphia-based artist, designer, and educator. Drawing on historic materials and methods, Moore’s work investigates the ongoing co-evolution of ceramics alongside practices of gardening, farming, cooking, and eating. His current work ranges from ceramic tableware, mixed media sculpture, and multimedia and video-based installations.
Moore received his BA in Geosciences from Skidmore College and his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Currently, he is a professor of Visual and Performing Arts and director of the Ceramics program at Arcadia University. Since 2015, Moore has been collaborating with Dan Barber to create tableware for the restaurant.
Set on a table, ceramics connect us to what we eat. This fundamental relationship between meal and plate is an idea that Gregg Moore has considered deeply through an ongoing investigation into the transmutation of matter between farm and kitchen. His bone china cups illustrate the intersection of agriculture and object. Created using the same 18th-century recipe as potter and inventor Josiah Spode, Moore’s bone china is the product of a collaboration with Chef Dan Barber, who raises grass-fed beef for his restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns (Tarrytown, NY). Bone china begins in the pasture. The grass that nourishes the cattle whitens the porcelain, which is made, in part, from a mixture of pulverized bone ash. Once kiln-fired, the cups emerge vitreous and translucent—a material nod to the interplay between flesh and bone, ephemeral and eternal.
“Looking at this sculpture, I see a lengthy relationship with bones—the years and years spent as they went from the farm, to raw bones in the studio, to the way they appear today. There’s a certain intimacy that I have with this material that starts with the experience of working in my father’s slaughterhouse as a child. He was a fourth-generation butcher. What’s interesting, is that I have less intimacy with what 50-degrees does to bone china than to the material itself, despite all the mental energy spent thinking about heat and its effects. 50-degrees can sometimes spell the difference between a cup and a puddle. As a potter, I tiptoe to the edge of the melting point and most often stop but, in this case, I went over the edge.”
– Gregg Moore for the exhibition Melting Point,
on view at Ferrin Contemporary &
Heller Gallery (New York), Summer 2021
You must be logged in to post a comment.