FEBRUARY 20, 2024 – APRIL 21, 2024
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
OUR AMERICA/WHOSE AMERICA?
Our America/Whose America? is a call and response exhibition between contemporary ceramic artists and commercially produced historic ceramic plates, figurines and objects placed in conversation with one another, installed on period furniture throughout the Wickham House at the Valentine.
Featured artists include Elizabeth Alexander, Chris Antemann, Russell Biles, Jacqueline Bishop, Judy Chartrand, Cristina Córdova, CRANK, Connor Czora, Michelle Erickson, Sergei Isupov, Steven Young Lee, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Beth Lo, Justin Rothshank, Paul Scott, Kevin Snipes, Rae Stern, Mara Superior, Momoko Usami and Jason Walker. Historical Works include selections from Ferrin Contemporary’s collection of commercially produced ceramics.
This exhibit is organized by Ferrin Contemporary in conjunction with Coalescence, the 58th annual conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts held March 20-23, 2024 in Richmond, Virginia.
EXHIBITING ARTISTS
Throughout our forty-year history, we have used multi-artist survey exhibitions as a platform to explore social issues. We’ve focused on gender and feminist perspectives, broached relationship taboos, and challenged historical notions of ceramics and art.
The contemporary artists we’ve invited use their work to assert their autonomy and subjectivity by presenting intertwined cultural critiques through lenses of their own choosing, starting with race, gender, and class. Each of these categories is tentacular and touches upon myriad other ideas including nature, warfare, food and water inequity, and more.
PROGRAMMING
Special Preview on February 21, 2024 from 5 – 7 pm
– Leslie Ferrin & Alex Jelleberg on-site Conference Preview with The Valentine
Coalescence, the 58th annual conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts takes place in Richmond, Virginia.
FERRIN CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS AT NCECA
Location: The Valentine 10th and East Clay Street in historic downtown Richmond
This exhibition is organized by Dara Hartman in conjunction with Coalescence
50 Years in the Making – NCECA Richmond
Mar 20, 2024 – Mar 23, 2024
Group show with Lauren Mabry
50 Years in the Making will examine how 75 Residents since 1974 have coalesced to form the creative identity of The Clay Studio.
Event
Opening Reception
Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 7-9pm
RSVP HERE
Location: Common House | 303 W. Broad Street, Richmond, VA
EVENTS & TOUR DATES
Location for All Events:
The Valentine 10th and East Clay Street in historic downtown Richmond
Wednesday, March 20, 2024 – Ferrin Contemporary + Wickham House Tour – Regular Hours
– Alex Jelleberg & Isabel Twanmo on-site with docents to provide guided tours at scheduled times
11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm
The Valentine is open regular hours during the conference. The Wickham House offers guided tours on the hour. Tours are free to the public with museum admission (free admission on Thursday, March 21!) & free for all NCECA attendees. First come first serve, limit 15 guests per tour.
Thursday, March 21, 2024 – NCECA – MEET THE ARTISTS – 5 – 7 pm
Open to the public all NCECA attendees – Alex Jelleberg & Isabel Twanmo
OAWA Tour Graphic April 2024
Sunday, April 21, 2024 – Final Guided Tour of Our America/Whose America? | 2-3pm
Join Ferrin Contemporary’s Leslie Ferrin & Alexandra Jelleberg on-site with Valentine Museum docents to provide a final guided tour of Our America/Whose America? in the Wickham House – Open to the public.
The Richmond Stories™ section of this site, which includes an interactive history timeline, features many of the stories that bring history to life in creative, engaging and inclusive ways.
Through educational programs that engage over 14,000 students and teachers each year to community conversations, walking tours, group visits and more, the Valentine offers compelling experiences for visitors of all ages.
The Wickham House at the Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA. Image courtesy of The Valentine Museum.
A dialogue-based guided tour of the Wickham House, a National Historic Landmark built in 1812, challenges guests to explore aspects of life in the early 19th century. The Wickham House was purchased by Mann Valentine Jr. and in 1898 became the first home of the Valentine Museum. This historic home allows us to tell the complicated story of the Wickham family, the home’s enslaved occupants, sharing spaces, the realities of urban slavery and more.
Links to Resources to View & Learn More
- Wickham House Virtual Tour
- V Exhibition Portfolio | OAWA
(The Valentine Exhibition Portfolio for OAWA) - Richmond History – The Valentine Explores Richmond Stories
- The Valentine – Monument Avenue
- The Valentine Sculpture Studio/Lost Cause
- The American Civil War Museum
(Historic Tredegar, Richmond, VA)
(YouTube Channel Link) - Let’s Talk: Monument Avenue Statues by The American Civil War Museum
(Featuring public historian Ana Edwards, historian Kevin Levin, and journalist Brian Palmer.) - On Monument Avenue
The AMCWM Site To help explore the complex history of Monument Avenue, the Museum offers a document reader, an online exhibit, a select reading list, and a blog series. - Link to Aerial View of Monument Avenue
(Canossa Aerials YouTube Channel Link)
Superior has exhibited at the American Museum of Ceramic Art, (Pomona, CA), Scripps Women’s College, (Claremont, CA), and the Fuller Craft Museum, (Brockton, MA) among many other institutions. Her work can be found in the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, (Washington, DC), the Museum of Arts and Design, (New York, NY), the Peabody Essex Museum, (Salem, MA), Philadelphia Museum of Art, (Philadelphia, PA) the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (Los Angeles, CA), White House Collection of American Craft, (Little Rock, AK). In 2018, through the generous support of the Kohler Foundation, gifts of art by Mara Superior were made to fifteen museums throughout the USA, increasing the public holdings of Superior’s artworks and including an in depth collection acquired by the Racine Art Museum, (Racine, WI) and shown in 2020 in Collection Focus: Mara Superior. In 2010 she was interviewed for the oral history program of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, (Washington, DC).
