Further Thoughts on Earthy Materials

Captions see below

---

FURTHER THOUGHTS ON EARTHY MATERIALS

Opening reception Kunsthaus Hamburg
Monday, 10 September 2018, 7 pm
Speakers: Katja Schroeder (Artistic Director), und Janneke de Vries (Director GAK Bremen)

Opening reception Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst Bremen
Friday, 14 September 2018, 7 pm
7:15 pm: Performance by Andrej Polukord
from 10 pm: Party at TAU

---

PROGRAMME ACCOMPANYING THE EXHIBITIONS

Every Thursday, 5–7 pm ⋅ GAK Bremen (registration is necessary)
Homo hapticus
Participatory event with Doris Weinberger

Wednesday, 12 September, 7 pm ⋅ Kunsthaus Hamburg
On the Disappearance of a Cultural Heritage
Talk by Neil Brownsword (artist, UK), in English language

Monday, 24 September, 7 pm ⋅ Kunsthaus Hamburg
Don’t Know We’ll See – The Work of Karen Karnes (documentary, USA 2008, 60 min)
The life of a legendary master of ceramics (1925– 2016)

Tuesday, 16 October, 7 pm ⋅ GAK Bremen
Alex Müller: »Der Takt vom Orchester« and Fabio Cirillo: »Vesuviaja«
Performances

Monday, 22 October, 7 pm ⋅ Kunsthaus Hamburg
Clay as a Transformer
Talk by Prof Dr Petra Lange-Berndt (Art historian/ Curator, Hamburg) about the artist Charles Simonds, in German language

Thursday, 1 November, 7 pm ⋅ GAK Bremen (booking is necessary)
»Tableware« by and with Irene Strese
Evening with ceramics, talks and dinner at TAU

Thursday, 8 November, 7 pm ⋅ GAK Bremen
Misshappen Clay: How Emerging Artists Are Rethinking Ceramics
Talk by Francesca Gavin (Authour/ Curator, London/ Berlin), in English language

Sunday, 25 November, 3 pm ⋅ Kunsthaus Hamburg
Closing event with a performance by Jennifer Tee

---

In times when contemporary art more strongly reflects the conditions and aesthetics of virtual realities, post-human theories abound, and the digitization of the world has created a fascination with surfaces and found images, a parallel art production is emerging, one that deliberately uses haptic materials and artisan production processes.

The two-part exhibition project Further Thoughts on Earthy Materials at Kunsthaus Hamburg and GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst Bremen asks what the underlying questions of the shift towards techniques and the material of ceramics in the artistic production of the 21st century are. Further Thoughts on Earthy Materials brings together works of a younger generation of artists that take an unconventional approach to ceramic material and establish references to the present. Thereby, the two group exhibitions in Bremen and Hamburg are dedicated to different aspects. The chapter at GAK Bremen focusses on the presence of the body.

The Kunsthaus Hamburg chapter addresses the inherent paradox of fired clay: both its being one of the oldest cultural techniques of serial (re)production (i.e. bricks, porcelain) and its haptic qualities that highlight immediate and time-consuming sculptural creation and craftsmanship.

The exhibition at the Kunsthaus thus presents artistic approaches that employ ceramics, being a cultural technique which has been handed down from generation to generation, as a medium of engaging with contemporary technologies and issues, and question these in their current relevance: which role does the recreation, depiction, and reproduction of three-dimensional forms though fired clay play today (in the era of 3D scans and printers)? Which material, cultural, moral, or technical implications are connected with the medium? The selected works take up questions concerning the significance of seriality, authenticity, and originality as well as the archeological, anarchic, and dystopic character of the material.

Curated by Janneke de Vries and Katja Schroeder

Following the exhibitions, a catalogue is going to be published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König.

Current editions of the exhibition can be found here.

You can download our exhibition brochure here.

---

Kindly supported by