A visual analysis on Antemann’s “European banquet” and Sandlin’s “Chinese totem” The Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery of Scripps College has a world famous tradition of holding annual ceramics exhibitions. The 73th Ceramic Annual this year is named the “Sense of Place” and features new creative artworks by eight artists. As one of the most ancient forms of art, ceramics has always fascinated me, particularly because I was raised in China and saw all kinds of Chinese ceramics since I was little. Compared to most Chinese ceramics works, which are painted in a traditional way, the ceramic works presented in this exhibition seem more like modern interpretations of classical themes. All eight artists work in their own distinctive styles—some of their works are made with traditional red clay, and others are made with porcelain adorned by colorful glaze. The exhibition conjoins the various artworks in a fusion of different cultures and a very creative mix. The whole exhibition room is like a giant ceramic artwork in its exquisiteness and elegance. Applying white walls as the background, the curators installed a series of hanging ceramics at the center of each wall. In every one of the four corners, there is a series of ceramic works by a different artist. For me, the theme of this exhibition, “The Sense of Place” can be interpreted in three ways. One is that ceramics, made originally from different kinds of soil, connects us to the earth, or the “Place of Origin.” On the other hand, the title can also be interpreted as pointing to the place that the artists are longing for—the place that they depict in their artwork could also be their “Place of Inspiration.” The third meaning is that since the artworks are installed here, at this particular time and location, it connects the viewer with the artwork’s place of origin and its place of inspiration. As Carol Duncan says in her essay The Art Museum As Ritual, “the installations thus take visitors on a kind of mental journey, a stepping out of the present into a universe of timeless values.”[1] The gallery itself and the way that curators installed these artworks, give a new representation of each artwork, and this is their “Place of the Present.” In this Exhibition paper, I will focus on two particular artworks, one by Chris Antemann and another by Red Weldon Sandlin, to illustrate how their artworks express this “Sense of Place”, and how these three senses of place are interconnected. As a French learner who has always been fascinated with European art, “An Occasional Craving” by Chris Antemann caught my eye immediately when I walked into this exhibition. Inspired by 18th century European art, Antemann depicts an 18th century lavish European banquet with this porcelain. Decorated by over-glazed painting and floral colors, it depicts a scene of joy, a frozen moment of pleasure. Applying rococo-style light blue as the theme color, Antemann uses floral decoration—a very feminine, baroque, and Chinoiserie style of decoration—in every detail of this work. There are flowers on the floor, on the back of chairs, on the tables, and even on the bodies of the women. Six pair of males and females are sitting around a table on which fruits and desserts are served. This “banquet-style” theme of artwork is also reflected by its location of the whole exhibition. Installed by curators in the center of the room and surrounded by all the other ceramics, “An Occasional Craving” does not only represent a celebration of 18th century European life, but also epitomizes a celebration of this exhibition. In this Rococo and Chinoiserie-style banquet, all the men are naked while all the women have floral tattoos on their bodies. Everyone is flirting with the person next to them. With all the desserts and fruits on the table—chocolates, strawberries, cakes, macarons towers—this is a delicious, heavily saccharine, presentation of ceramics. A man and a woman are sitting in the middle of the table, leaning towards each other. The woman, with her highly raised, exaggerated hair style, places one hand on the man’s shoulder, and the other on his hand. The man, bending slightly backwards, passionately looks into the woman’s eyes. Their hands are tightly clasped as if they are isolated from the outside world. Each part of their bodies are so close to the utensils on table that any movement of theirs would knock the utensils over and ruin the whole scene. However, time is frozen at this moment—not a moment of love, of course—but a moment of desire, temptation, lust, and primitive satisfaction. After looking at its visual details, I started to think about how it might relate to the theme of this exhibition, “the Sense of Place.” Raised in the rural areas of Oregon, Chris Antemann has been fascinated with the lavish life in big cities since she was young. Her “sense of place” is not embedded in where she lives, or her place of origin, but is instead embedded in the place which gives her emotional inspiration, which she found in the life in 18th century Europe. Art can always help people express their feelings. Antemann projects her longings for a time long past onto the porcelain works, and presents to us this unrealistic and whimsical fantasy. The life that she depicts in her works is a life without ordinary concerns. All of the people in the scene enjoy a patrician way of life, which is categorized by abundance and luxury. Everybody is enjoying this lavish banquet, and no one seems to care about other more mundane aspects of life – politics, military affairs, labor. This was the true spirit of Europe, or particularly, the spirit of 18th century France, from whence the styles of rococo and Chinoiserie had originated. As Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand said in 1814, “he who has not lived during the years around 1789 cannot know what is meant by the pleasure of life.”[2] The artist, Antemann, however, depicts the fairy-tale of 18th century Europe, which is usually represented in old-fashioned oil paintings, through this three-dimensional porcelain work. Furthermore, her representation of the decadent European lifestyle of the 18th century also call to elements of life in the present day. This lavish life style also represents the extravagant life of those people, especially the young millennials, who live in the Cosmopolitan areas today. This way of life embodies absolute pleasure, which always gives people conflicting feelings because it is just “too good to be true.” Antemann may have created these artworks just for the pure visual pleasure, but it is also possible that she wants to express her complicated feelings towards this lifestyle that is beautiful but “unreal.” In contrast to “An Occasional Craving,” which is a visual display of a snapshot in time, the second artwork reveals the artist’s attempt to tell a story with ceramics. “The Chinese Quin Teapots”, made by Red Weldon Sandlin, depicts a Chinese boy, whose body is comprised of five teapots (Picture 4, 5, 6, 7). Inspired by ancient Chinese ceramics from the Ming Dynasty, Sandlin covers the work with typical Chinese blue and white decorations. Placed in the back of the room, just behind the epitome of 18th century fantasies, “The Chinese Quin Teapots” looks like a totem built from teapots standing against the white wall (Picture 8). As a Chinese student, I first found this piece of ceramics very hard to interpret: apart from the signature Chinese patterns that I observed—a rooster, a dragon, plum blossoms, etc.—the other parts of this ceramics are rather enigmatic. Different from the previous artwork which can mostly be interpreted by analyzing its visual details, the “Chinese Quin Teapots” requires some background information to better understand the work. This artwork was inspired by “The Five Chinese Brothers,” an American children’s book written by Claire Huchet Bishop. It tells a story of five identical brothers, each possessing a superpower, who are accused of murder and sentenced to death, even though they were innocent. However, the five brothers were able to save each other with their collective wisdom and special talents, and they finally return home to live happily with their mother. After knowing the background story, we can interpret the visual representation of this work. Their collective power can be reflected by the form of the five teapots—each carrying the weight of the other to support a totem-like porcelain column. A boy’s head rests on top of the five teapots, and the butterfly on his right cheek expresses the “fantasy” of this artwork. The five identical teapots which comprise the body of the boy are inscribed with different characters and patterns. From top to bottom, each teapot carries a different Chinese character, which respectively means “Water,” “Iron,” “Fire,” “Sun,” and “Smoke.” Each character stands for the special talent of one boy. The patterns on each teapot depict a part of the story, and the five teapots complete each other to give us a sense of this “Five Chinese Bothers” tale. At the bottom of “The Chinese Quin Teapot,” there is an inscription of “媽媽” (Mother), which represents the ultimate home of the five brothers. This ceramic work, which is grounded in the tradition of storytelling, also expresses the story of the artist. As a young girl raised in a small town in Georgia, Sandlin was attracted by Chinese culture at a very early stage[3]. Without much access to the outside world, she used to spend her time in the local library, pouring over Chinese children’s books. For her, China represented an exotic culture which she could not easily understand. Due to her fascination with children’s books about Chinese culture, she put a children’s book under every piece of her artwork. It functions not only as a base of her artwork, but also as the root of her inspirations. The inscription on each teapot stands for each boy’s superpower, and the base, which reads “mother,” represents the notion of home. Like Antemann, Sandlin’s “Sense of place” does not originate from the place where she was brought up, but is embedded in somewhere that she had never been to, somewhere that she never got to know, somewhere which is also the place that inspires her. For her, those Chinese stories take her on journeys to the exotic land and are the origin of her imagination. Depicted in her artwork is her “Place of Inspiration.” We all have our childhood fantasies, and, for Sandlin, these are the exotic world of China. Even her first name “Red”, which she changed from “Laura,” can imply her fascination with Chinese culture, as “red” is the signature color of China, which represents luck and good fortune. It is difficult to read her artwork until you know the story behind it. As Sandlin said, “clay gives me a voice.” For all artists, their pieces do not come out of nowhere, but from the voice of their hearts as an expression of their inspirations. “The Sense of Place” carries three meanings, it is not only the “Place of Origin”, but also the “Place of Inspiration” and the “Place of Present.” From the work of Chris Antemann, “An Occasional Craving,” and that of Red Weldon Sandlin, “The Chinese Quin Teapot,” we can see how artists embed their “Place of Inspiration” into their works, not only through the form of the work, but also through the stories that they tell. Moreover, the artworks’ place in the exhibition, installed by curators, also express the theme of each artwork—the “banquet” in the center of the room, and the “totem” in the back. With a history of almost thirty thousand years, ceramics can be considered a form of art which is ancient and primitive compared to phytography, oil painting, and others. However, when put into the hands of contemporary artists, this old form of expression merges perfectly with the modern times, telling current stories in its old-fashioned way. As Joan Takayama-Ogawa, the curator of this exhibition says in the Curatorial Statement of this exhibition, “these artists are not typical in today’s restless world of instant gratification; instead, they are willing to labor for months, with exacting precision, to keep the spirit of each piece alive[4].” Using their hands and time, these artiest laboriously mold their works, little by little, to present their “Sense of Place” to the world. References:
[1] Duncan, Carol. The Art Museum as Rituals. Preziosi, Donald. The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. [2] Jacobson, Dawn. Chinoiserie. London: Phaidon, 2007. [3] Lauria, Jo. A Sense of Place. Scripps: 2017 Scripps College 73rd Ceramics Annual, 2017. [4] Takayama-Ogawa, Joan. Curatorial Statement. Scripps: 2017 Scripps College 73rd Ceramics Annual, 2017. |
AuthorLayne |