Ferrin Contemporary is pleased to present select works for sale from private collections.
These collections offer an opportunity to acquire important works from surveys of studio sculpture and decorative art.
Ferrin Contemporary is pleased to present select works for sale from private collections.
These collections offer an opportunity to acquire important works from surveys of studio sculpture and decorative art.
Sergei Isupov’s newest series of 2025 will be debuted at District Clay Center this Spring.
Isupov’s ANCESTOR unites the collection of figurative works that show the evolution of ideas in his work. As expressed in the characters he portrays, the sculptures’ eyes and gestures activate relationships that are universal and timeless. Isupov explores narratives from the past as well as the present in multiple pieces, bridging memory and place into displays of his work. Born into a family of Russian artists during the USSR, he spent his childhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, educated in Tallinn, Estonia and now lives and works in Western Massachusetts.
“Regardless of our backgrounds or wherever in the world we came to be, our shared experiences as humans are interwoven and passed on from generation to generation. The exhibition Ancestor allowed me to reflect on these works and my sources of inspiration and motivation … When I think of myself and my works, I’m not sure I create them, perhaps they create me.” – Sergei Isupov
“Art is a life style for me. Everything that surrounds and excites me is automatically processed and transformed into the final result: an artwork. It is fascinating to watch the transitions from life to art. The essence of my work is not in the medium or the creative process, but the in human beings and their incredible diversity. When I think of myself and my works, I’m not sure I create them, perhaps they create me.
I find ceramic to be the most versatile material and it is well suited to the expression of my ideas. I consider sculpture to be a canvas for my paintings. All plastic, graphic and painting elements of the piece function as complementary parts of the work.
In this series of two-legged figures, Statuettes, the form is classical but the characters are comical. I like the contrast of serious to humorous – the front is cartoon like but the back of each figure features an intimate painting of the being’s spirit.
While each one expresses an individual personality or character, as a group, they become a population, inhabitants of my imaginary world or visitors from my imagination.”
2009 | “Androgyny: New Work by Sergei Isupov”, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO, October 3 – December 6, 2009
2009 | “Androgyny”, Mesa Contemporary Arts Center, Mesa, AZ, April 10 – August 2, 2009
2008 | “Androgyny, The Preview, Solo Exhibition: Sculpture, Painting, Drawing”; Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield, MA
“My work is about contrasts and relationships. I explore contrasts of human condition with my story lines such as male-female and human-animal relationships, and accompanying emotions of warmth and aggression, love and rejection, and nurture and abandonment. Dynamic and interactive narratives are developed using two and three dimensions at the same time with the sculpted form and painted surface. I use a visual vocabulary and classic tools of design, proportion, perspective and silhouette to both sculpt and paint. Eyes show emotional relationships. Facial and figural gestures develop personalities. Illusionary objects and perspectives suggest motion. As a viewer moves around the work, they see each angle and focus point leading to new chapters and story lines. Combined, these clues tell an overall story.”
Humanimals, transform anthropomorphic sculptures that explore human relationships by blending the expression and gesture of the combined species.
A sculptural surrealist, Isupov first created works in the Humanimal Series around 2011, with a set of “standing figures” (animal/human hybrids) and “riders” (animal figures on animal/human hybrids)
In 2015 Isupov returned to his iconic form of the Humanimal, a series of standing oversized figurines. New groups and works emerge as the artist delves into the right form for each of his concepts. Close Your Eyes Open Your Eyes, Burden II, Butterfly Catcher, Life’s Work, and Strong hail from multiple eras in the artist’s exploration of the series.
“The animal faces and features represent the beast or natural animal instincts that are often in conflict with reason and intellect.
The hand represents the hand of a human or god – both a comforting support for humanity and a force of opposition or challenge to animal instincts.
The two sculptures explore these ideas of opposing forces of nature and humanity, man and beast, integral and constant throughout life. There is nothing literal intended in the choice of imagery or narrative. The images and expressions are of male/female/animal – symbolic, metaphoric, and intended to provide for individual interpretation. ”
Ceramic sculptures are presented with both a multi-dimensional, mixed-media wall installation and independent pedestal-based works. Isupov and Ferrin Contemporary have had exhibitions internationally since 1996. This was the artist’s third solo show in our North Adams gallery location.
Both of Isupov’s 2022 exhibitions include works in porcelain and mixed-media drawings produced at Project Art in Cummington, MA.
Challenged by opportunities to expand his scale, Isupov’s recent exhibition Alliances featured a wall relief sculpture using the carved plywood printing plate (left) and the resulting print (right) bringing together ceramic sculpture, assemblage, and printmaking practices to show the full scope of creative versatility and process. Towering larger than life figures and animated life size tableaus anchor his solo exhibitions in galleries and museums.
Fire sculptures, public art, engage the public in community based projects.
Visible from Main Street, Isupov currently has 3 public works on view along Main Street in Cummington, MA and more around the world. Works are visible by car or foot, neighboring other temporary and permanent public works on Main Street as part of the Cummington Cultural District Art Walk.
To learn more about the Cummington Cultural District and other public art sculptures along Main Street: @cummmingtonculturaldistrict
Sergei worked on a series of prints at Littleton Studios in 2000 and produced the limited edition prints shown in the galleries below.
Each Littleton Print is a Vitreograph, Siligraphy print from glass plate, using Digital Transfer techniques.
The printing process varies from edition to edition. The labor involved in the process, the quality of the paper, and the edition size all affect the price of the print.
Sergei Isupov Artist Portrait, 2021, Photo Credit: John Polak
Estonian-American, b. 1963 Stavropole, USSR,
lives and works between Cummington, MA, USA and Tallinn, Estonia
Sergei Isupov is an Estonian-American sculptor internationally known for his highly detailed, narrative works. Isupov explores painterly figure-ground relationships, creating surreal sculptures with a complex artistic vocabulary that combines two- and three-dimensional narratives and animal/human hybrids. He works in ceramics using traditional hand-building and sculpting techniques to combine surface and form with narrative painting using colored stains highlighted with clear glaze.
Isupov has a long international resume with work included in numerous collections and exhibitions, including the National Gallery of Australia, Museum Angewandte in Kunst, Germany, and in the US at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Crocker Art Museum, Everson Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Museum of Arts and Design, Museum of Fine Arts–Boston, Museum of Fine Arts–Houston, Mint Museum of Art, and Racine Art Museum. In 2017, his solo exhibition at The Erie Art Museum presented selected works in a 20-year career survey titled Hidden Messages, followed by Surreal Promenade e, another survey solo in 2019 at the Russian Museum of Art in Minnesota.
ON HIS WORK
Often called an erotic Surrealist for his daring representations of sexuality, relationships, and human encounter, Isupov takes narrative subject matter and merges it with ceramic sculptural form. Drawing on personal experience, and human observation, he creates works that integrate autobiography with universal narrative.
He states, “Everything that surrounds and excites me is automatically processed and transformed into…an artwork. […] The essence of my work is not in the medium or the creative process, but in the human beings and their incredible diversity. When I think of myself and my works, I’m not sure I create them, perhaps they create me.”
While the robust, and racially distinct facial traits make each sculpture unique, they also make the body of work capable of representing universal experiences. The bold color palette, heavily tattooed faces, and textured surfaces relate these works to the aesthetics of traditional Russian art, as well as to contemporary styles of illustration.
“My work portrays characters placed in situations that are drawn from my imagination but based on my life experiences. My art works capture a composite of fleeting moments, hand gestures, eye movements that follow and reveal the sentiments expressed. These details are all derived from actual observations but are gathered or collected over my lifetime. Through the drawn images and sculpted forms, I capture faces, body types and use symbolic elements to compose, in the same way as you might create a collage. These ideas drift and migrate throughout my work without direct regard to specific individuals, chronology or geography. Universalism is implied and personal interpretation expected. Through my work I get to report about and explore human encounters, comment on the relationships between man and woman, and eventually their sexual union that leads to the final outcome – the passing on of DNA which is the ultimate collection – a combined set of genes and a new life, represented in the child.”
2009 | “Androgyny: New Work by Sergei Isupov”, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO, October 3 – December 6, 2009
2009 | “Androgyny”, Mesa Contemporary Arts Center, Mesa, AZ, April 10 – August 2, 2009
2008 | “Androgyny, The Preview, Solo Exhibition: Sculpture, Painting, Drawing”; Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield, MA
“Art is a life style for me. Everything that surrounds and excites me is automatically processed and transformed into the final result: an artwork. It is fascinating to watch the transitions from life to art. The essence of my work is not in the medium or the creative process, but the in human beings and their incredible diversity. When I think of myself and my works, I’m not sure I create them, perhaps they create me.
I find ceramic to be the most versatile material and it is well suited to the expression of my ideas. I consider sculpture to be a canvas for my paintings. All plastic, graphic and painting elements of the piece function as complementary parts of the work.
In this series of two-legged figures, Statuettes, the form is classical but the characters are comical. I like the contrast of serious to humorous – the front is cartoon like but the back of each figure features an intimate painting of the being’s spirit.
While each one expresses an individual personality or character, as a group, they become a population, inhabitants of my imaginary world or visitors from my imagination.”
Humanimals, transform anthropomorphic sculptures that explore human relationships by blending the expression and gesture of the combined species.
A sculptural surrealist, Isupov first created works in the Humanimal Series around 2011, with a set of “standing figures” (animal/human hybrids) and “riders” (animal figures on animal/human hybrids)
In 2015 Isupov returned to his iconic form of the Humanimal, a series of standing oversized figurines. New groups and works emerge as the artist delves into the right form for each of his concepts. Close Your Eyes Open Your Eyes, Burden II, Butterfly Catcher, Life’s Work, and Strong hail from multiple eras in the artist’s exploration of the series.
“The animal faces and features represent the beast or natural animal instincts that are often in conflict with reason and intellect.
The hand represents the hand of a human or god – both a comforting support for humanity and a force of opposition or challenge to animal instincts.
The two sculptures explore these ideas of opposing forces of nature and humanity, man and beast, integral and constant throughout life. There is nothing literal intended in the choice of imagery or narrative. The images and expressions are of male/female/animal – symbolic, metaphoric, and intended to provide for individual interpretation. ”
Sergei Isupov, Moments from Eternity Banner
2025 | Solo Exhibition at District Clay Center | Washington, DC
April 25 – May 25, 2025
“Sergei Isupov: Ancestor”, Exhibition in the Anderson Gallery at Bridgewater State University, November 1 through February 18, 2025
2024 | Solo Exhibition at Anderson Gallery at Bridgewater State University | Bridgewater, MA
November 1 – February 18, 2025
50 Years in the Making: Alumni Exhibition at The Clay Studio, June 13th – September 1st, 2024, featuring Sergei Isupov, Paul Scott, and Lauren Mabry
2024 | Group Exhibition at The Clay Studio | Philadelphia, PA
featuring work by Paul Scott, Sergei Isupov, and Lauren Mabry
June 13th through Sep 1st, 2024
This Alumni Exhibition showcases artwork to reflect the current practice of the This Alumni Exhibition showcases artwork to reflect the current practice of the over 150 artist who have participated in The Clay Studio’s Resident Artist Program, Guest Artist Program, and Associate Artist Program over the 50 years since its founding.
Kadri Pärnamets, “Fragments of Waves”, 2024, porcelain, slip, glaze
2024 | Group Exhibition at Claytopia at Guldagergaard | Skælskør, Denmark
featuring work by Sergei Isupov & Kadri Pärnamets
July 10th through August 10th, 2024
Claytopia is Guldagergaard’s initiative geared towards engaging the public, offering a unique space within the beautiful park surrounding Guldagergaard.
Among Claytopia’s activities are outdoor art exhibitions, concerts, discussion salons, and a design boutique.
Ferrin Contemporary presents Paul Scott in “Our America/Whose America?”. Installation for NCECA Richmond, 2024 at the Wickham House at The Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA. Image courtesy of The Valentine Museum.
2024 | Group Exhibition in the Wickham House at the Valentine Museum | Richmond, VA
February 20, 2024 – April 21, 2024
Our America/Whose America? Is a “call and response” exhibition between contemporary artists and historic ceramic objects.
Ferrin Contemporary “Our America/Whose America?” Dining Room Installation at the Wickham House, Richmond, VA, 2024
Sergei Isupov, “Ancestor”, 2023, oil ink print on paper, 98 x 98″. Photo by John Polak Photography.
2024 | Solo Exhibition at Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, Keene State College | Keene, NH
October 25, 2023 – December 9, 2023
Sergei Isupov’s 22nd Solo Exhibition, Featuring artworks from the artist’s archive and new productions from his studio.
Installation Title Wall, featuring the artist’s tools and drawings from Sergei Isupov’s “Lips, Eyes, Ears, Eyebrows” and works in progress drawing series. Sculptures include “Crazy”, “Duel” (2006), and “Midnight Son” (2009). Photo by John Polak Photography. “SERGEI ISUPOV: Alliances”, Exhibition Installation at Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, Keene State College, Keene, NH, October 25-December 6, 2023.
2023 | Group Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA
October 25, 2023 – December 9, 2023
Isupov and Ferrin Contemporary have had exhibitions internationally since 1996, including key exhibitions and monumental installations that display various themes and series, which Isupov builds upon and pulls from to compose new environments and show content.
Isupov’s exhibitions include works in porcelain and mixed-media drawings produced at Project Art in Cummington, MA.
Are We There Yet? 2023, Chris Antemann, Sergei Isupov, Lauren Mabry
Sergei Isupov: Past & Present, 2022, Installation View
2022 Solo Exhibition | Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA
Ferrin Contemporary at The Wickham House
The Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA
February 20 – April 21, 2024
Anderson Gallery, Bridgewater State University
November 1 – February 24, 2025
Ferrin Contemporary at The Wickham House
The Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA
February 20 – April 21, 2024
Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery at Keene State College | Keene, NH
October 25 – December 9, 2023
Sergei Isupov: Ancestor, 2024 Catalog Cover Page
DESCRIPTION
Special thanks to Jay Block, associate director of collections and exhibitions at Bridgewater State University.
$5.00
DESCRIPTION
Special thanks to co-curators, Paul McMullan, professor at Keene State College and Leslie Ferrin, director, Ferrin Contemporary and for editorial support by Alexandra Jelleberg, associate director, Ferrin Contemporary.
Isupov’s artworks form alliances with one another as they move between media, explore scale, and are presented in curated exhibitions. Recent opportunities to create public works like his fire sculpture production and performances, along with solo exhibitions that show the full scope of Isupov’s creative versatility and process, have led to new works on paper, prints and wall installations combining ceramics with other materials.
FREE ON ISSUU
DESCRIPTION:
Ferrin Contemporary is proud to present new works from internationally renowned sculptor Sergei Isupov. Sergei Isupov: PAST & PRESENT features new ceramic sculptures presented with both a multi-dimensional, mixed-media wall installation and independent pedestal-based works. Isupov and Ferrin Contemporary have been working together and presenting exhibitions internationally since 1996 and this will be the artist’s third solo show in our North Adams gallery location.
Collection Focus: Sergei Isupov at RAM
$5.00
DESCRIPTION:
28-page, full-color exhibition catalog
PURCHASE THE CATALOG HERE SERGEI ISUPOV: ALLIANCES Exhibition Catalog Thorne/Sagendorph Art Gallery Ferrin Contemporary is proud to present new works from internationally renowned sculptor Sergei Isupov. SERGEI ISUPOV: ALLIANCES Isupov's artworks form alliances with one another as they move between media, explore scale, and are presented in curated exhibitions. Recent opportunities to create public worksContinue reading →
Figuring Space Exhibition Catalog The Clay Studio: Figuring Space Publication Date: January 2023. This catalog features highlights on the artists in the exhibition and includes commentary by Jennifer Zwilling, Curator & Director of Artistic Programs at TCS, and Dr. Kelli Morgan, who are working together to make Figuring Space relevant to our audiences and the art historicalContinue reading →
Mastering Sculpture: The Figure in Clay Explore the human form in-depth, from concept sketches and armatures to detailed instructions for constructing legs, torso, arms, hands, and head from clay. In Mastering Sculpture: The Figure in Clay, renowned sculptor and instructor Cristina Córdova teaches everything you need to know to replicate the full human figure usingContinue reading →
Sergei Isupov: PAST & PRESENT Exhibition Catalog Ferrin Contemporary is proud to present new works from internationally renowned sculptor Sergei Isupov. Sergei Isupov: PAST & PRESENT features new ceramic sculptures presented with both a multi-dimensional, mixed-media wall installation and independent pedestal-based works. Isupov and Ferrin Contemporary have been working together and presenting exhibitions internationally sinceContinue reading →
About Face: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture About Face: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture This catalog features a foreword by Director Angie Dodson and two essays: one by Glenn Adamson, an expert in craft, ceramic, and contemporary art, and one by MMFA Curator of Art Jennifer Jankauskas, Ph.D. The exhibition catalog also includes color photography of select works inContinue reading →
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION February 23 - June 8, 2014 Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI A mid-career retrospective for an innovative artist who has pushed the possibilities of clay by combining two-dimensional narrative with three-dimensional ceramic form. Isupov explores the human condition. His vocabulary includes human beings and animals, gender, identity, and relationship issues, autobiography, artContinue reading →
EXPOSED: Heads, Busts, and Nudes figural ceramic sculpture from 1970 to the present Work by 25 contemporary artists “working in clay and for whom the figure has been a rich and enduring motif.” Catalog includes work from the exhibit at Ferrin Contemporary as well as pieces available from private collections and artist studios. Introduction byContinue reading →
Sergei Isupov, "Ring of Fire", 2004, porcelain, 20 x 10 x 8". Sergei Isupov: 1996-2006 Published in 2006 by Ferrin Gallery, Lenox, MA This visual survey marks the tenth anniversary of the working relationship between the artist and Ferrin Gallery. Features works from 1996–2006 with short biographical essay and curriculum vitae. Sergei Isupov Catalog 1996-2006Continue reading →
Sergei Isupov, "Say Nothing", 2008, stoneware, stain, glaze, 33 x 16 x 11". Sergei Isupov: Androgyny Published in 2009 by Mesa Contemporary Arts Center, Mesa AZ • Essay by Sonya Bekkerman, Senior Vice President, Russian Art, Sotheby’s • Introduction by Patty Haberman, Curator, Mesa Contemporary Arts • Project Summary by Leslie Ferrin, Director, Ferrin GalleryContinue reading →
Additional works may be available to acquire, but not listed here.
If interested in lists of all works and series: Send us a message
War & Pieces is Bouke de Vries’ contemporary interpretation of the decorative sculptures that adorned 17th- and 18th-century banqueting tables.
War & Pieces is currently traveling North America in its extensive tour, landing at its sixth US location in 2022. The installation has been exhibited at venues in Europe and Asia, beginning in 2012 at the Holburne Museum in Bath, England with support from the Arts Council of Great Britain. At each venue, de Vries works with the curators and the collection by responding to the region and its history and interacting with the interior settings. In some venues, he was able to add to the installation using relevant objects from the collection, as at Charlottenburg Palace, which was looted in the Seven Years’ War and almost completely destroyed in the Second World War, adding a special meaning to this era-spanning work.
This spring, the Lightner Museum’s grand ballroom gallery will be transformed by a dramatic ceramic centerpiece created from thousands of fragments of white porcelain.
War & Pieces is an eight-meter (26-foot) installation by Dutch-born artist Bouke de Vries inspired by the sophisticated figural centerpieces that decorated eighteenth-century European rulers’ banqueting tables. Displayed during the dessert course on special occasions, these figures first made of sugar and later increasingly porcelain, told stories or conveyed political messages to the diners.
Bouke de Vries draws on such traditions in his modern centerpiece, arranged around the mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion whose force appears to have turned the entire table into a wasteland. Battle rages across this heap of shards old and new, fought by myriad miniature figures with conventional arms. Jesus on the cross and the Chinese Buddhist goddess of compassion, Guanyin, watch over the death and destruction.
Born in Utrecht, The Netherlands, Bouke de Vries studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven and Central St Martin’s, London. After working with John Galliano, Stephen Jones, and Zandra Rhodes, he switched careers and studied ceramics conservation and restoration at West Dean College. He has been a full-time studio artist based in London since 2010.
Bouke de Vries, “War & Pieces”, detail
Berrington Hall | UK | 2017
Gemeente Museum | Netherlands | 2015–6
Castle d’Ursel | Belgium | 2015
Chateau de Nyon | Switzerland | 2014–5
Yingge Ceramics Museum | Taiwan | 2014
Charlottenburg Palace | Germany | 2013
Whitespace | Netherlands | 2013
Alnwick Castle | UK | 2013
Charlottenburg Palace | Germany | 2013
• Public Programs at The Wadsworth Atheneum
July 15 – October 17, 2021
Macao Museum of Art
Macao, SAR, China
A four-month mega international cultural and artistic event, “Art Macao: Macao International Art Biennale 2021” will be inaugurated on Thursday (15 July), on the 1st floor of the Macao Museum of Art, presenting a movable feast of the city. On the occasion, the Main Exhibition themed “Advance and Retreat of Globalization” will also be inaugurated, with three exhibitions, distributed through various areas of the Macao Museum of Art, reflecting on the advances and retreats of globalization through the arts.
“Art Macao” will present 30 art exhibitions in 25 locations from July to October, bringing an immersive cultural atmosphere to the entire city as a gallery and an art garden, allowing the public to enjoy the beauty and vividness of art. This edition is curated by Professor Qiu Zhijie, one of the most influential contemporary artists in China and Dean of the School of Experimental Art of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, focusing on contemporary visual arts. “Art Macao” is divided into several sections: Main Exhibition, Special Exhibition of Resorts and Hotels, Creative City Pavilion, Public Art Exhibition, Selected Works by Local Artists and Collateral Exhibition, aiming to reshape the humanistic spirit in the post-epidemic era.
Curated by Qiu Zhijie, the Main Exhibition at the Macao Museum of Art is divided into three parts: “The Dream of Mazu”, “Matteo Ricci’s Labyrinth of Memory” and “Advance and Retreat of Globalization”, providing a space for reflection and discussion on globalization and individuality, life and dreams, remoteness and proximity, security and happiness, among others. The three thematic exhibitions feature over 40 artists from nearly 20 countries and regions, presenting more than 100 pieces/sets of artworks.
Sergei Isupov is an Estonian-American sculptor internationally known for his highly detailed, narrative works. Isupov explores painterly figure-ground relationships, creating surreal sculptures with a complex artistic vocabulary that combines two- and three-dimensional narratives and animal/human hybrids. He works in ceramic using traditional hand building and sculpting techniques to combine surface and form with narrative painting using stains and clear glaze.
“Everything that surrounds and excites me is automatically processed and transformed into an artwork. The essence of my work is not in the medium or the creative process, but in the human beings and their incredible diversity. When I think of myself and my works, I’m not sure I create them, perhaps they create me.”
Isupov has a long international resume with work included in numerous collections and exhibitions, including the National Gallery of Australia, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (TX), Museum of Arts and Design (NY), Racine Art Museum (WI), Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MA), and the Erie Art Museum (PA), at which he presented selected works in a 20-year career survey Hidden Messages in 2017 and Surreal Promenade in 2019 at the Russian Museum of Art (MN).
Sergei has produced two video workshops available for online viewing or download. This is a wonderful opportunity to watch Sergei at work describing his process.
The first workshop, Sculpture as Canvas, shows the creation of his sculpture “Earth and Sky”, currently on display at the Macao International Art Biennale 2021.
In the second workshop, The Narrative Cup, Sergei demonstrates how to build and decorate a functional narrative vessel. This workshop also includes a PDF of tools and materials.
Please visit the links for more information about purchasing these videos.
Published in 2021 by Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI
Contents:
20-page, full-color exhibition catalog
$5.00
ABOUT FACE: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture explores the lineage and influence between the revolutionary first generation of artists working in the figural genre and contemporary artists. The exhibition, curated by Jennifer Jankauskus, will investigate how history and place inform the work of contemporary ceramists bringing approximately 44 objects by 30 emerging, mid-career, and master artists from around the nation who work within a narrative figurative clay tradition. Creating both sculptural and relief objects, from busts to full figures, the artists all highlight the human form as a way to explore issues relating to the body, to various cultural ties, and to ideas of the female/male gaze.
Images courtesy of Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Art Museum of South Texas, and Figge Art Museum
Wesley Anderegg
Robert Arneson*
Chris Antemann*
Rudy Autio*
Russell Biles*
Cristina Córdova*
Jack Earl*
Edward Eberle*
Sean Erwin*
Viola Frey*
Alessandro Gallo*
David Gilhooly *
Gerit Grimm *
Sergei Isupov*
Doug Jeck*
Howard Kottler*
Michael Lucero *
Walter McConnell
Gerardo Monterrubio
Jim Neel
Virgil Ortiz
Andrew Raftery
Allan Rosenbaum
Akio Takimori *
Yoshio Taylor
Tip Toland
Jason Walker *
Kurt Weiser *
Beatrice Wood *
Sun Koo Yuh
*indicates artists with available works for sale through Ferrin Contemporary
Curator Talk: Dr. Jennifer Jankauskas
Thursday, July 16
6:30 p.m. Virtual
Curator of Art at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and exhibition curator Dr. Jennifer Jankauskas, will discuss the artists and themes exhibited in About Face in a virtual presentation.
View Virtual Curator Talk • HERE •
Artist Panel
Thursday, August 20
6:30 p.m. talk
Local ceramic artists will give insight into the imagery and techniques used in the works featured in About Face.
About Face is accompanied by a full-color catalogue with essays by exhibition curator, Jennifer Jankauskas, PhD, and Glenn Adamson, Senior Scholar at the Yale Center for British Art and will be on view in the fourth-floor gallery through August 30, 2020.
From raw textures to meticulous details, to glazes bursting with color, the works in Cool Clay represent one of the most exciting and expansive fields of contemporary art. This exhibition highlights a selection of notable acquisitions that strengthen the Crocker Art Museum’s ceramics holdings in both diversity and scope. These pieces represent the work of influential figures such as Rudy Autio, Jun Kaneko, Tony Marsh, Edwin Scheier, Nancy Selvin, and Akio Takamori, as well as more recent leaders like Peter Olson, Zemer Peled, Brian Rochefort, and Dirk Staschke. Although the artists pursue a great variety of approaches and techniques, each embraces the experimental and playful sensibility this versatile medium engenders. Spanning six decades of studio practice, this exhibition celebrates the ground-breaking achievements of 20th-century ceramists as well as those who today continue to reimagine the possibilities of working in clay.
Read more on the Crocker’s blog, the Oculus, HERE.
Exhibiting Artists:
Anthony Bennett, Claude Conover, Annette Corcoran, Viola Frey, David Gilhooly, Babs Haenen, Matthias Merkel Hess, Anne Hirondelle, Sergei Isupov, Cliff Lee, Ah Leon, Whitney Lowe, Kris Lyons, Calvin Ma, Mineo Mizuno, Steven Montgomery, Peter Olson, Edwin Scheier, Nancy Selvin, Peter Shire, Mara Superior, Akio Takamori, Claudia Tarantino, Cheryl Ann Thomas, Peter VandenBerge,
Learn more about FC Artists:
and from the archives:
September 27–November 4, 2018 at Ferrin Contemporary
Ferrin Contemporary is pleased to present Canary Syndrome, a group show featuring recent works by U.S. and U.K.-based artists including Elizabeth Alexander, Evan Hauser, Elliott Kayser, Stephen Young Lee, Beth Lipman, Livia Marin, Paul Scott, Bouke de Vries, and Jason Walker, on view Sept. 27 to Nov. 4. An opening reception will be held at Ferrin Contemporary, located at 1315 MASS MoCA Way, on Sept. 27, from 5 to 7 p.m., in conjunction with DownStreet Art, a program of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts’ Berkshire Cultural Resources Center. The reception is free and open to the public.
The exhibition, inspired by the saying “canary in the coal mine”, suggests that artists, much like the caged canaries once used by coal miners as early indicators of dangerous gases in tunnels, are hypersensitive to the adverse conditions and forces that jeopardize human existence. Through their artwork, the artists in Canary Syndrome employ visual means to accentuate threats to the health of the environment, culture, and ethics — really, the condition of civilization in general, and to warn of worse things to come.
The now-discontinued practice of carrying canaries deep into coal mines to detect carbon monoxide and other toxic gases dates back to 1911. The phrase “canary in the coal mine” is widely used as an allusion by whistleblowers sounding an early alert for broken systems and dangerous conditions. Al Gore used the phrase in reference to indicators of global warming in his book and film, “An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It”. The planet’s “canaries”, Gore said, are the melting polar icecaps, a result of increasing levels of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere.
“Ferrin Contemporary is presenting Canary Syndrome as both an opportunity to reflect upon fragile beauty as well as provide inspiration to fellow travelers who are facing an overwhelming sense of antipathy and futility in our world today,” said Gallery Director Leslie Ferrin. “It’s our hope that art and artists will motivate others and help to fuel a societal call to action.”
The diverse and thought-provoking artworks in the exhibition invoke ominous portents and herald a call for change on a global level. The works of Elizabeth Alexander, Elliot Kayser, Steven Young Lee, Beth Lipman, Livia Marin, Paul Scott, and Bouke de Vries explore the concept of the flaw, the crack, the mistake, and the resulting debris, within the delicate world of ceramics and fragile glass.
De Vries’s glass cloud is an assemblage of shards of glass from recognizable broken objects, forming a 21-inch-high mushroom cloud. Kayser uses glaze “blisters” on black cow figurines and Scott repurposes a 19th-century platter with the addition of a photo collage of Houston that memorializes Hurricane Harvey’s rising waters. Alexander, Lee, Lipman, and Marin work with processes that exploit melting, etching, breakage, and erasing to produce metaphoric imagery that is often a harbinger of doom. The artists reference forms and history associated with familiar domestic objects such as plates and figurines, along with pottery shards, to reveal something new, carrying a foreboding warning.
Artists in the exhibition who use imagery to deliver their message include Evan Hauser, whose use of ceramic decal prints of Hudson River School paintings applied to Styrofoam cooler lids, cast in porcelain, reexamines historic and cultural scenes in a contemporary context. Jason Walker explores the consequences of manifest destiny, referencing the inherent conflict between man and nature, with meticulous illustrations painted on porcelain sculptures of birds and fish, which he has combined with cast porcelain machine parts made from gears, conduit, and aerators, and used as formal elements.
“The very act of creating provides these artists with an outlet for the anxiety caused by relentless exposure to contemporary conflicts,” said Ferrin. “They are compelled to address environmental and societal issues through their practice and are sounding the alarm in the form of beautiful and compelling pieces of art.”
For more information about the exhibition and individual artists, see ferrincontemporary.com
Elizabeth Alexander
Evan Hauser
Elliott Kayser
Stephen Young Lee
Beth Lipman
Livia Marin
Paul Scott
Bouke de Vries
Jason Walker
