June 9, 2024 – September 8, 2024
CROCKER ART MUSEUM
216 O Street Sacramento, CA 95814
featuring work by
MORE ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
& INSTALLATION IMAGES
The Portland Vase: Mania and Muse asks why and how a singular Classical vase becomes a legend, an “influencer,” and an artistic and commercial muse across time and place.
The Portland Vase, an ancient Roman glass cameo amphora, has resonated with artists, makers, collectors, and consumers for centuries. The Portland Vase: Mania and Muse asks why and how a singular Classical vase becomes a legend, an “influencer,” and an artistic and commercial muse across time and place from artists such as Josiah Wedgwood to sculptor Viola Frey. Featuring more than sixty-five artworks, this exhibition examines the role of brands in our culture, considers why Classical traditions dominate the artistic canon, and how that tradition might be reconsidered and disrupted.
Guest curated by Rachel Gotlieb, PhD.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
American
b. 1970 Albany, NY
lives and works between Joseph, OR and Meissen, Germany
Chris Antemann upends not only the Portland Vase but also the famous Bouquet de la Dauphine made by Vincennes, the Royal French manufactory and precursor to Sèvres to illustrate that its porcelain skills rivaled if not superseded German Meissen. Referencing a surtout de table, an ornamental centerpiece displayed in a formal dining room, the forms and pastel colors of her work evoke the exuberance of the 18th-century Rococo style. However, Antemann’s tableau is very much part of the 21st century, critiquing and challenging contemporary gender politics.
-Rachel Gotlieb, Guest Curator, Portland Vase: Mania and Muse, 2024
– Chris Antemann, 2024
b. 1982 Rochester, NY,
lives and works in Penfield, NY
“Much like Wedgwood, Pincus adeptly balanced appropriation, innovation, and cross-cultural influences, harnessing the creative tools of clay, technology, and Neoclassical aesthetics to reshape our understanding of the ancient past.”
– Rachel Gotlieb, PH.D, Guest Curator, “The Portland Vase: Mania and Muse”, pg. 80.
American, b. 1951, New York, NY
lives and works in Williamsburg, MA
“Mara Superior responded to the Portland Vase through a broad lens of ceramic histories but specifically aligned her work with Wedgwood’s replicas to dismantle notions of British empire and perfection.”
– Rachel Gotlieb, PH.D, Guest Curator, “The Portland Vase: Mania and Muse”, pg. 84.
PAST PROGRAMMING
Rachel Gotlieb, Ph.D. served as the Ruth Rippon Curator of Ceramics at the Crocker Art Museum (2021-2023). She previously worked ad Chief Curator and Interim Executive Director of the Gardiner Museum in Toronto (2011-2014).
Backstory – Portland Vase: Mania and Muse (via YouTube Live)
Saturday, August 3rd | 12pm
$8 – $12
Go behind the scenes of the exhibition The Portland Vase: Mania and Muse with this virtual panel discussion featuring speakers across three continents. Moderated by exhibition curator Rachel Gotlieb, with artists Clare Twomey, Glenn Barkley, and Nancy Selvin, this international conversation considers how and why a singular Classical vase became an artistic and commercial muse across time and place, and how these contemporary artists are rethinking and addressing art and social histories through reinterpretations of this iconic vessel.
Member Reception
Friday, June 28 | 5:30pm
Join the Crocker Art Museum for a special member reception celebrating the exhibitions:
Tour – Portland Vase: Mania and Muse
Wednesday, June 12 | 1pm
Free with museum admission
Journey into art on view with docents to guide your visit. Enjoy a drop-in tour any day the Museum is open, or plan ahead for one of the themed tours outlined below. Some tours may be requested in American Sign Language, Cantonese, French, Madarin, and Spanish with a two-week advance notice. Email education@crockerart.org to inquire.
Distributed for Hirmer Publishers
The University of Chicago Press
PRESS & PRINT
Exhibition Catalog
Portland Vase
Mania and Muse (1780–2023)
Traces the history of the Portland Vase as a global influencer in art and ceramics.
The Portland Vase, an ancient Roman glass cameo amphora held in the British Museum, has been a global brand that has resonated with makers, collectors, and consumers for centuries, replicated and reinterpreted countless times. The Portland Vase: Mania and Muse asks why and how a singular Classical vase becomes a legend, an “influencer,” and an artistic and commercial muse across time and place to artists such as Josiah Wedgwood, Viola Frey, Chris Wight, Michael Eden, Nicole Cherubini, and Clare Twomey. Featuring more than sixty-five artworks, this richly illustrated catalog examines the role of brands in our culture, considers why Classical traditions dominate the artistic canon, and speculates on how that tradition might be reconsidered and disrupted.
112 pages | 70 color plates | 10 x 10 | © 2024
FEATURE: Curators in Conversation: The Portland Vase
Sara Morris, the Crocker’s Ruth Rippon Curator of Ceramics, asks Rachel Gotlieb, guest curator of “The Portland Vase: Mania and Muse,” to share a little bit more about her relationship with the Portland Vase and her experience organizing the exhibition.
The Portland Vase: Mania and Muse is a new exhibition at the Crocker guest-curated by Rachel Gotlieb, PhD. The exhibition examines the legacy and influence of the ancient Roman glass cameo The Portland Vase in the collection of the British Museum. For over two centuries, the Vase has served as inspiration for artists, including Josiah Wedgewood, Viola Frey, and Clare Twomey, contributing to its fame and significance in the artistic canon. Sara Morris, the Crocker’s Ruth Rippon Curator of Ceramics, asked Gotlieb to share a little bit more about her relationship with the Portland Vase and her experience organizing the exhibition.
FEATURE: Tracing the history of the Portland Vase as a global influencer in art and ceramics.
“The words “Portland Vase” yield 16,100,000 search results on Google. Entries include the unique ancient glass masterpiece housed in the British Museum, Josiah Wedgwood’s limited-edition 18th-century copies, and countless modern commercial replicas produced in many shapes, sizes, and materials. On Instagram, images of the Portland Vase surface as an aspirational pin-up photo, tattoo, non-fungible token (NFT), and other novelties. The Portland Vase has also served as a plot device in films and musicals, including, most notably Make Me an Offer (1954), starring Peter Finch as an antique dealer in search of a rare green version of the Vase made by Josiah Wedgwood. According to the Corning Museum of Glass, the Portland Vase is as famous as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.”
ABOUT CROCKER ART MUSEUM
Discover a diverse collection of artworks that span centuries, continents, and cultures at the Crocker Art Museum, the primary resource for the study and appreciation of fine art in the Sacramento region. In addition to a robust schedule of changing exhibitions, visitors can explore California art dating from the Gold Rush to the present; a renowned collection of Master Drawings and European paintings; one of the largest international ceramics collections in the United States; and collections of Asian, African, and Oceanic art.
Engagement with art is at the heart of everything we do, and our calendar of events offers innovative art experiences for visitors of all ages, including family-friendly programs, thought-provoking talks and conversations, inspiring concerts and films, and more.
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). An in depth collection of her work was recently acquired by the Racine Art Museum, (Racine, WI) with the support of Kohler Foundation, (Sheboygan, WI). In 2010 she was interviewed for the oral history program of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, (Washington, DC). Superior studied at the Pratt Institute and Hartford Art School, completing her BFA in painting from the University of Connecticut followed by a MAT in ceramics from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. She is represented by Ferrin Contemporary.
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