Slip Tease

Shawanda Corbett, Francesca DiMattio, Sharif Farrag, Paz G, Karin Gulbran, Marie Herwald Hermann, Elliott Hundley, Julia Isidrez, Clementine Keith-Roach, Se Oh, Brian Rochefort, Jennifer Rochlin, Anders Herwald Ruhwald, Adam Silverman, Krzysztof Strzelecki, and Elif Uras.

Slip Tease features ceramic works by sixteen international contemporary artists whose explorations into the functional and sculptural possibilities of the vessel demonstrate the form’s timeless resonance and its continued fertility. A material within ceramic production, slip is a clay slurry that’s used as a method for casting, decorating, and adherence. The slip can be unpredictable, just as is the process of exposing the pot to the heat of the kiln, and the glazes applied and heated thereafter. What can result from the careful union of chance and skill within any of these stages is something the exhibition alludes to throughout, both materially and thematically.

Hollow objects occupy a singular place in the diverse practices of the artists. For some, the vessel serves as a starting point, a blank canvas for formal and conceptual experimentation. For others, the medium allows an exploration of the long tradition of storytelling on the vessel’s surface; the narratives they touch on span a broad range of subjects, from history and folklore to current affairs, cultural commentary and personal narratives. The inherent anthropomorphism of the vessel is seductive, with even the language of its components – lip, neck, shoulder and foot – echoing the language of the human body. Spanning theories of representation, formal abstraction, queer culture, migration, and disability, Slip Tease reflects one of the founding traditions in pottery—the vessel as both a sculpture and a representation of ourselves.