The Clay

Short texticule for the exhibition The Clay, curated by Katja Serber in Albrechtsen’s Bunker, Kgs Have, Copenhagen, september 2013.

Contrary to exhibitions of most other things, exhibitions of formed and fired clay leave the spectator with a certain feel­ing of something incomplete, of something not yet received, that is, of something which have been left hidden and occult for the vision of the observer. This ceramic oc­cult­ism or in­com­ple­te­ness is, I believe, not an in­ci­dental sensation, but rather an inherent quality of ceramics as such, a quality which makes ceramics to something very dif­fer­ent from paint­ing, sculp­tu­re and architecture, the three disciplines that have formed our concept of the fine arts.

The most obvious cause for this feel­ing of in­com­ple­te­ness is that any mere visual per­cept­ion of a ceramic piece is tho­rough­ly inadequate. Standing and looking at a ceramic work is analogous to hearing a description of a paint­ing; an art of poetry in itself, evidently, but still essentially unrelated with any painterly sensation. Any ceramic work must of course be visual as well, and tiles and enamel paint­ing are pre­emi­nent­ly visual. But when admiring tiles, who can restrain from touching it? And isn’t enamel paint­ing precisely made to be touched while looking? This is the point: ceramics is only encountered when you hold it in your hands, and furthermore: it is not so that the eye guides the hand, it is the other way around: the hand guides the eye. The per­cept­ion of ceramics is tactile to the degree that what is seen is determined by the sensuous touch. This is probably why ceramics is so out of joint with the concept of fine art: intimate, rather than public, tactile rather than visual, to be seen in reflected light rather than in direct light, and its marvel is that it might come alive, resurrected from the earth, when in the hands of its recipient.

This resurrection of matter into sensuous experience has its physical root in an other, less obvious, oc­cult­ism; an oc­cult­ism ceramics share with the other arts of the fire: enamel-paint­ing and glass-making. The transformations of the matter is effectuated in the closed space of the kiln. It is in this sense ceramics is a philosophical or scientific art, giving form to creation in its most profound sense. But as this creation or transmutation is hidden in the kiln, the artist’s “tools” are the elements: the proportions of earth and water, and the administration of fire through air.

Jan Bäcklund