Project Type: 2016

POISE: Peter Christian Johnson

POISE: Peter Christian Johnson

POISE: Peter Christian Johnson

November 18–December 31, 2016
Ferrin Contemporary
1315 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA

EVENTS
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 19, 4–6pm

“POISE explores the tension between acts of labor and collapse, between precision and failure.  It is a meditation on entropy that uses Gothic cathedrals as a foil to examine the dichotomy of beauty and loss. For this exhibition Johnson has created a series of highly organized architectural forms based on the floor plans of historic cathedrals. These forms are distorted and deconstructed under the weight of the glaze in an attempt to find virtue in brokenness.” — Peter Christian Johnson

Click here to view more work by Peter Christian Johnson.
Click here to view or download press release.

EXHIBITION CATALOG

Glenn Adamson has written an insightful essay on Johnson and his work in POISE.

“In the kiln, the works melt, crumpling into themselves. The ceramic grid is unable to support its own weight, and that of the heavy, glassy, colored material on top. By the time the piece is fully fired, it seems on the verge of total collapse, a few degrees of heat away from becoming a heap of slag. And that, of course, is just how Johnson wants it.”

Click here to view catalog online.

PORCELAINIA: East Meets West

PORCELAINIA: East Meets West

PORCELANIA: East Meets West

November 10–December 8, 2016
Cross MacKenzie Gallery, Washington, DC

EVENTS
Talk and Reception with curator Leslie Ferrin and artist Paul Scott Talk
Sunday, November 13, 2016, 3–5pm

This exhibition presents tradition and identity found in contemporary porcelain. Artists Sin-ying Ho, Steven Young Lee, Walter McConnell, and Paul Scott explore ceramic traditions, interpret identity, and create social commentary in their work reflecting on global consumerism, changing landscape, and cross-cultural exchange.

Click here to read review of “Porcelainia” in Washington Post.

KNOW JUSTICE | Justin and Brooke Rothshank

KNOW JUSTICE | Justin and Brooke Rothshank

INSTALLATION AT FERRIN CONTEMPORARY


September 10-November 12, 2016 | 1315 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


KNOW JUSTICE presents a two-person show by Justin and Brooke Rothshank focusing on American politics, the Supreme Court, and presidential history. Brooke’s miniature watercolor portraits are complemented by Justin’s decal-printed tableware.

“We believe that artwork and creativity are a catalyst for social change and economic improvement as well as enhancing everyday lives with beauty. Art gives a voice to the voiceless, enables self understanding, and provides a window into other cultures. These are among the reasons we have chosen to pursue lives as working artists.”

“We’ve grown up and live in a Mennonite community where simplicity, functionality, craftsmanship, and knowledge have been valued and taught. These values have shaped our personal and professional lives. At times, its been difficult to see where fine art and craft fit within this context, but these have also felt like important themes to fall back on.”

“This show is about a general introduction of the Supreme Court Justices, and our country’s long history of elected government leadership. The supreme court has shaped the laws of our country for generations. Perhaps more now than ever before the court has become part of the context of political and social conversation. Knowing these leaders, how they lean politically, who appointed them, and what they stand for is a way to start a conversation about how justice is shaped in our country.

“This show is about the conversation. What we make is simple and functional. We value good craftsmanship and knowledge. Our pots and paintings are influenced by our own research, and also by the framework in which we live. They are distinctly American, but shaped by our awareness of a larger world view.”

-Brooke and Justin Rothshank

KNOW JUSTICE: Brooke & Justin Rothshank


PAST PROGRAMMING & EVENTS


EVENTS

PRESIDENTIAL TABLE PREVIEW
Beginning Saturday, August 13, 2016
As a preview to the show, this tablescape presents place settings of ceramic pieces representing the 44 presidents.

CLAY POLITICS | MEET THE ARTIST
Saturday, October 15, 2016
with Justin Rothshank and Elenor Wilson, editor Studio Potter Journal
Click here for more.

January 19–22, 2017

Selections from KNOW JUSTICE: Brooke and Justin Rothshank
New York Ceramic & Glass Fair, Bohemian Hall, NYC

ongoing
ONLINE SHOP

Click here to browse the full line of Rothshank pieces available on their website.
Click here to browse additional pieces available from Ferrin Contemporary. Other small works and catalogs are also available in our online shop.

SERGEI ISUPOV: The Rising

SERGEI ISUPOV: The Rising

FERRIN CONTEMPORARY presents
SERGEI ISUPOV: THE RISING at

March 3–6, 2016
Ferrin Contemporary at PULSE NEW YORK 2016
The Metropolitan Pavilion
125 West 18th Street, NYC

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

The Rising, a solo installation by Sergei Isupov presents his first eight-foot colossal figural sculpture​,​ ​”Risen”. ​​S​urrounded by mural style paintings that incorporate his small sculptures​, ​t​he standing male figure features back-to-back paintings of ​”Man” and “Woman.” This piece, “Risen,” built of several interlocking sections, is completely illustrated—part tattoo, part in-the-round paintings. Smaller, related works provide a more intimate view into Isupov’s erotic surrealism that engages an animated push-pull dialog between surface and form, two and three dimensions, and the opposing and complementary.
 
In his first massive-scale figure and related installation, Isupov continues his exploration of opposites. Emotional exchanges between men and women allude to romance, an affair, or simply a mystery. Our own imaginations are asked to fill in and finish the narrative using personal associations. His debate is not in a tradition of good vs. evil, man against woman, instead he asks us to observe distinctions and relationships and to examine what lies between.

ABOUT SERGEI ISUPOV

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).

THE PULSE PRIZE

Sergei Isupov is a nominee for the PULSE PRIZE, a jury-awarded cash grant given to an artist of distinction featured in a solo exhibition at the fair.

EVENTS + HOURS

Thursday, March 3
Private Preview Brunch (by VIP invitation), 10–1pm
Public Hours 1–6
Young Collectors Cocktails 6–8 (by invitation only)

Friday, March 4
Public Hours, 11am–8pm
Museum Member Hours, 5–8pm

Saturday, March 5, 11am–8pm
Sunday, March 6, 11am–8pm

Public Transit

1 train at 18th Street and 7th Avenue
F, M trains at 23rd Street and 6th Avenue
1,2,3 trains at 14th Street and 7th Avenue
F, M trains at 14th Street and 6th Avenue

A complimentary shuttle bus will run between PULSE New York and The Armory Show at Piers 92 & 94.

PULSE NEW YORK is recognized for providing its international community of emerging and established galleries with a dynamic platform for connecting with a global audience. PULSE offers visitors an engaging environment in which to discover and collect the most compelling contemporary art being produced today.

RE—Reanimate, Repair, Mend and Meld

RE—Reanimate, Repair, Mend and Meld

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

January 21–24, 2016
NEW YORK CERAMICS & GLASS FAIR
Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, New York, NY

February 13–April 17, 2016
Ferrin Contemporary
1315 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA, US

Oct 10–Nov 14, 2015
Bluecoat Display Centre
Liverpool, England, UK

Co-curated by Paul Scott and Andrew Baseman

This group exhibition examines the contemporary artistic interest in repaired ceramics. It focuses on materially related forms and graphic material by leading contemporary artists who exploit and explore the surrounding issues of conservation, restoration, over-consumption, reuse, and recycling.

“Before the advent of modern glues, broken ceramics or glass objects were drilled, wired, stapled or riveted together, textiles used to be darned or patched. Home-made or improvised ‘make do and mend’ repairs were made to a loved plate or jug and finer variations of these techniques used by serious conservators. The preciousness of these intimately repaired objects faded with time and in conservation circles practices which interfered with the ‘integrity of the object’ became actively discouraged and disapproved. A few years ago, in spite of their beauty, rivets in plates and wired handles hugely devalued a piece of antique tableware. In some museum collections even the evidence of a staple or riveted repair would be removed and hidden if new conservations took place.

“In more recent times, as we struggle to come to terms with our over consumption of finite resources, the concept of re-cycling has become a central tenet of modern life. There is an increasing interest for crafted, restored, once loved objects so that the obviously repaired,‘traditional’ processes again appear beautiful, functional and intriguing. Whilst their display is not yet common in our public museums, private collections and interests are building. Enthusiast Andrew Baseman has a comprehensive archive of beautifully repaired glass, and ceramic objects, which he makes available to wider public though his wonderful blog.

“For many artists, re-cycling and reuse has long been a natural part of practice; as well as ecological soundness, trash is generally cheap (if not free). Existent, damaged worn or broken objects carry messages, they have already had a life and carry evidence of their journey in material fabric. This realized physicality can be used or exploited in aesthetic form, as conceptual device or collateral evidence. Discarded graphic material has long been used in collage and more recently material from industrial archives are also being used to create new iterations.”

— Paul Scott, co-curator and artist

Click here to view or download press release.

Click here to view press coverage of “Mended Ways: The Inventive Art of Repair.”

Click here to view press coverage from C-File April 28, 2016.

Click here to view the video of Paul Scott presenting work from this exhibition at the Bluecoat Display Centre in October 2015. (His segment begins at 11:55 minutes.)

paulscottscreencapture

MENDED WAYS | The Art of Inventive Repair

MENDED WAYS | The Art of Inventive Repair

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

MENDED WAYS: The Art of Inventive Repair

A special exhibition presented by Andrew Baseman

January 21–24, 2016
New York Ceramics & Glass Fair
Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, New York, NY

An exhibit of repaired historic pieces from Baseman’s collection complemented with work from contemporary ceramic artists whose work imitates, replicates, or honors the inventive repairs of the past.

“Before the invention of Krazy Glue, broken household items were brought back to life with flair and ingenuity.” Examples of repaired historic pieces from Baseman’s collection will be complimented with work from contemporary ceramic artists whose work imitates, replicates, or honors the inventive repairs of the past.

Baseman presented a lecture at the New York Ceramics & Glass Fair 2016.
Click here for  part one and  part two.

RE—Reanimate, Repair, Mend and Meld

This curated exhibition examines the contemporary artistic interest in repaired ceramics. It focuses on materially related forms and graphic material by leading contemporary artists who exploit and explore the surrounding issues of conservation, restoration, overconsumption, reuse, and recycling.

SERGEI ISUPOV: Head On

SERGEI ISUPOV: Head On

January 7 – March 3, 2016

SOLO EXHIBITION

de Menil Gallery at Groton School


282 Farmers Row, Route 111, Groton, MA

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


Groton, Mass. –

Sergei Isupov’s solo exhibition, Head On, will run through March 3, 2016 at the de Menil Gallery at Groton School in Groton. It features Isupov’s ceramic sculpture, exploring the literal and metaphoric form of the human head. Selections from Isupov’s recent work are combined with pieces from the span of his career, to illustrate a progression and continuance of ideas about the relationships between the head, face, and body.

Through this exhibition Isupov wants viewers to contemplate the head and imagine the invisible body, continuing the story on their own and as their own. Isupov’s surrealist works pulse with life in an animated dialog between surface and form. The heads are painted with detailed imagery depicting emotional exchanges between men and women. It is easy to get drawn in by allusions to romance, or mysteries, and then our own imaginations finish the cycle by personal associations. “I chose the focus of this show to be the form of the head, both as a physical object and as the subject to convey human experience,” Isupov says. “The subject matter I address on the surface through painted images draws from stories first experienced, then remembered, and finally told.”

The de Menil Gallery presents Sergei Isupov in HEAD ON. Located at the Groton School, The de Menil Gallery is a state-of-the-art gallery with approximately 900 square feet of exhibition space. 

ARTWORKS IN THE INSTALLATION


The Installation displays 20 artworks, including two works that are among the largest pieces produced by Isupov in an exhibition.

Head On“, 2016, an 9 x 11′ Site-specific Wall Painting

“Risen”, 2016, an 8′ Multi-Part Sculpture.

Additional pieces were pulled from the artist’s archives and range in dates from 1995 – 2016.

HEAD ON

RISEN

MORE ON SERGEI ISUPOV

Public Lecture and Discussion with the Artist
The public is invited to an Artist’s Lecture on Wednesday, January 27, 2016, at 7:00 p.m. at the de Menil
Gallery. Isupov will share his exploration of the theme, Head On, followed by a discussion.

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).

NEW YORK CERAMICS & GLASS FAIR 2016

NEW YORK CERAMICS & GLASS FAIR 2016

NYCGFlogo

ABOUT THE NYCGF

January 21–24, 2016
Bohemian National Hall
321 East 73rd Street, New York, NY 10021

HOURS

Thursday to Saturday 11:00am–7:00pm
Sunday 11:00am–4:00pm (no admittance Sunday after 3:30)

EVENTS

ABOUT THE ART OF INVENTIVE REPAIR

“Before the invention of Krazy Glue, broken household items were brought back to life with flair and ingenuity.” Examples of repaired historic pieces from Baseman’s collection will be complimented with work from contemporary ceramic artists whose work imitates, replicates, or honors the inventive repairs of the past.

BERNARDAUD: My Blue China

BERNARDAUD: My Blue China

Fondation d’entreprise Bernardaud presents:

My Blue China | la Mondialisation en Bleu et Blanc

December 16, 2015–February 28, 2016
Ariana Musée Suisse de la Céramique et du Verre
Avenue de la Paix 10, CH-1202 Geneva, Switzerland

June 11–November 21, 2015
Fondation d’entreprise Bernardaud
27 Avenue Albert Thomas, Limoges, France

The exhibition features Ferrin Contemporary artists Sin-ying Ho and Caroline Slotte.

Click here for Blouin Art Info review with slideshow.
Click here for CFile: My Blue China with essay by the curator Laurent de Verneuil.

MyBlueChinaredtableIMG_7404700px

MyBlueChinaSin-YingHoIMG_7402700px

C Slotte IMG_7470MyBlueChinastackinstalled 700px

MyBlueChinaCSlotteIMG_7473 700px

“Recent cases of withdrawal into cultural identity have led many artists to ponder the phenomenon of cultural globalization. “My Blue China” sheds new light on the issues at hand, bringing together the works of 12 internationally renowned contemporary artists that make explicit reference to blue and white porcelain. The exhibition shows the extent to which this universal leitmotif – whether applied to ceramics, painting, photography or video-making – refreshes our reflections on aesthetics, identity, hybrid art and cultural imperialism.”

 — Laurent de Verneuil, exhibition curator

AT YOUR SERVICE: Exploring the Plate as a Site for Cultural Exploration

AT YOUR SERVICE: Exploring the Plate as a Site for Cultural Exploration

AT YOUR SERVICE: Exploring the Plate as a Site for Cultural Exploration

February 5 – May 8, 2016
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft

EVENTS

Saturday, February 6, 4pm
Artist Talks
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft
Houston, TX

Objects of daily use often become intimately important and indispensable to people. Aside from their utility, such objects can be seen as representations of their owners or even extensions of the self. This kind of sentiment applies to a wide range of possible possessions including the seemingly humble and utilitarian plate. In At Your Service ten artists come together to encourage the viewer to consider and question the significance and wider implications of this common household item.

At Your Service is curated by artists Niki Johnson and Amelia Toelke, who have brought their own work together with the work of several other artists with a shared interest in the plate who have inspired them. In addition to the curators, artists featured in the exhibition include: Ariel Brice, GĂ©sine Hackenberg, Molly Hatch, Giselle Hicks, Garth Johnson, Sue Johnson, Emily Loehle, and Caroline Slotte.

About the Artists
Giselle Hicks is an independent artist currently working at Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana. Hicks was a resident artist at Project Art in Cummington, Massachusetts 2006–2008. She is represented by Ferrin Contemporary.

Caroline Slotte lives and works in Helsinki, Finland and holds a masters degree from Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Norway. The reworking of second hand objects play a pivotal role in Slotte’s practice. Represented by Ferrin Contemporary in the USA.

Garth Johnson is a studio artist, writer, and educator who lives in Eureka, California. He is a craft activist who explores craft’s influence and relevance in the 21st century.

The original At Your Service exhibition was held at
Bellevue Arts Museum in Bellevue, Washington from February 14, 2014 through September 21, 2014