Chris Antemann: An Occasional Craving
Dixon Gallery & Gardens
4339 Park Ave
Memphis, TN
February 9 â April 6, 2025
Join the ACC at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, TN
March 2-3, 2025
Youâre invited to join the American Ceramic Circle for a two-day trip to Memphis, March 2-3, 2025 to explore the Dixon Gallery and Gardens collections and current exhibitions.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
In 2011, American ceramic artist Chris Antemann formed what would become a fruitful partnership with the centuries-old Meissen porcelain manufactory that continues today. With a profound respect for the innovation and artistry of Meissen porcelain, Antemann re-envisions the concept of porcelain figural groupings with a wink of her twenty-first-century eye. Chrisâ colorful, imaginative, and often cheeky ceramic sculptures parody the dynamics between men and women, much as they did in the eighteenth century. And while viewers of rococo porcelain figural groupings would have been cognizant of the coded innuendos that abound in the art of that era, Antemann is much more explicit in her representations (and parodies) of human sexuality.
Chris Antemann: An Occasional Craving presents a variety of Antemannâs works, from her early MEISSEN collaborations to more complex dramatic table-top centerpieces produced in her studio in Joseph, OR. Inspired by the Dixonâs own Warda Stevens Stout Collection of Eighteenth-Century German Porcelain, by the vitality of our beautiful gardens, and by the Berthe Morisot painting in our collection, Peasant Girl among Tulips, Antemann is creating a pair of tulipieres specifically for the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. Visitors to the exhibition will be charmed by her sculptures, which walk a fine line between lighthearted and profound, and come away with a deeper understanding of the nuances of historic German porcelain.
EVENTS
ACC at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, TN
You’re invited to join the American Ceramic Circle for a two-day trip to Memphis, March 2-3, 2025 to explore the Dixon Gallery and Gardens collections and current exhibitions. We will also visit the studio of contemporary artist and University of Memphis professor, Kate Roberts, and the private home of renowned collectors of European porcelain.
At the Dixon, we will go behind the scenes on guided tours of the museum and gardens with curators and horticulturists. We will enjoy a special tour with artist Chris Antemann and Julie Pierotti, curator of the solo exhibition, An Occasion to Gather, featuring a site-responsive commission, masterworks produced in her US studio, and selected vignettes produced during her 10-year collaboration with the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory in Germany.
A discounted rate is available for registered attendees.
Registration: $45 for ACC members, $55 for guests + Eventbrite fees; registration includes admission to the Dixon.
Please note that attendees are responsible for their own accommodations, transportation and meals.
Limited to 20.
ABOUT THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
ABOUT CHRIS ANTEMANN
American
b. 1970 Albany, NY
lives and works between Joseph, OR and Meissen, Germany
Chris Antemann is an American artist known for her frolicking, contemporary feminist parodies of 18th century porcelain figurines. For more than a decade, Antemann has worked collaboratively with the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory in Meissen, Germany to create increasingly ornate and elaborate variations on her lifelong love of the narrative, porcelain figurine. Recent years have seen a tremendous culmination of her time working with MEISSEN. Between 2015-2019, her large-scale installation Forbidden Fruit: Porcelain Sculptor Chris Antemann toured the US, Germany, and culminated at the State Hermitage Museum, Russia. In 2022, her largest, most complex sculpture to-date was unveiled at Hillwood Estate, Museum, & Gardens in Washington, DC; An Occasion to Gather reveals its sumptuous narrative across an eight-foot-long, four-foot-high dining room centerpiece. The relationship with MEISSEN continues and a decade of collaboration will be celebrated with an exhibition at the Meissen Porcelain Museum in Meissen, Germany from July 15, 2022 â February 26, 2023.
Antemann earned her MFA from the University of Minnesota and her BFA in Ceramics and Painting from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She has exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe, Russia, and Asia. Her work can be found in many private and public collections, including the Crocker Art Museum, High Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, the Portland Art Museum, among many others. Her awards include the Virginia A. Groot first prize, and residencies with the Archie Bray Foundation, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology.