SUBLIME BASTARDS

ASGER JORN, CRISTIAN ANDERSEN, DAVID ZINK YI, GÜNTHER FÖRG, JESPER DALGAARD, KASPER HESSELBJERG, KIRSTEN JUSTESEN, MANFRED PERNICE, MARC-CAMILLE CHAIMOWICZ, MARKUS KARSTIESS, MELLI INK, METTE WINCKELMANN, MORTEN LØBNER ESPERSEN, SEBASTIAN STÖHRER, TALR & THOMAS ZIPP

January / February 2016

With the group exhibition Sublime Bastards, Avlskarl Gallery wishes to acknowledge the rapidly growing interest in ceramics, and therefore we have invited 11 Danish and international contemporary artist to present their version of ceramic art.

Working with clay belongs to the most original ways man has expressed himself – five thousand years ago clay work was the cornerstone of Mesopotamian art and also among the ancient Greeks who narrated the myths and the life of the Gods. But the modern artist uses clay to narrate completely different stories.

Asger Jorn found the old clay workshops, close to the city of Silkeborg, very inspiring. In Sorring – and later in Albiscola, Italy – he used clay in a series of experiments. Like many contemporary artists he was fascinated by a material that was both compliant and flexible. Clay seduces into a spontaneous shaping and under the touch of creative hands it responds immediately and directly. Ceramics open up a wealth of possibilities. Modelling makes it possible to create both flat and perfectly round shapes, and compared to the two dimensional universe of the visual arts, which always stops at the edge of the painting, many ceramic objects have no edge or end to them.

The contemporary artist often uses clay in imaginative, fantastic and boundless ways, the design not directed or controlled by a specific artistic direction or school. Rather contemporary ceramic art could be described as conglomerates, or excellent and sublime bastards.