Deviants at Hove
Deviants: A Crafts Council touring exhibition at Hove Museum & Art Gallery, 6 June to 13 September 2009.
Deviants is an exhibition of 16 curious pieces from the Crafts Council’s Collection that deviate wildly from what we think of as traditional craft. These pieces are by ten of the UK’s leading craft makers, including Jill Crowley, Carol McNicoll, Hans Stofer and local resident Richard Slee. Richard Slee is a ceramicist of international reputation and Principal Lecturer of Ceramics at Camberwell College of Art whose work is represented in numerous collections world-wide, including Hove Museum & Art Gallery. Slee has worked from his studio in Brighton for nearly 30 years and is one of the UK’s most influential makers with work that is provocative and humorous.
All of the makers on show are highly skilled in the age-old techniques of their particular craft, yet skills in the hands of these maverick makers become utilised in very different and unusual ways. We are presented with playful, mischievous and bizarre aberrations of familiar objects; teapots with legs, an unfurling jug, a pot with ears or a glove with 25 fingers. The ordinary becomes the extraordinary and the functional becomes the dysfunctional.
Accompanying the exhibition is an alternative gallery guide written by the Dundee-based writer and artist The Lonely Piper. Through his own musings and imaginative stories about each piece, The Lonely Piper captures the unconventional essence of these deviant objects. For him, Henry Pim’s A Pot with Ears “spies on its owner by covertly eavesdropping on conversation”, Hans Stofer’s Grape Trap “portrays a grape imprisoned for the crime of being not green enough” and Angus Suttie’s Teapot is “a painted clay celebration that’s not for the prudish of nature”
The current Crafts Council programme of touring exhibitions includes three exhibitions drawn from or inspired by the Crafts Council Collection; Collecting a Kaleidoscope, Deviants and Object as Muse, and two presented with partner organisations; Out of the Ordinary with the V&A and WOOD with Studio TEN.
Deviants delights and disarms in equal measure and provokes many different reactions; a chuckle, a squirm, a quizzical look. Whatever the reaction, this subversive face of craft challenges us to look at objects with new eyes and set our imaginations free.
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For more information and electronic images please contact Jill Read in the Crafts Council Press Office on Tel: +44 (0) 20 7806 2549, Email: media@craftscouncil.org.uk
Notes to Editors
• Hove Museum & Art Gallery is one of the most family friendly museums in the south east. Alongside significant collections of toys, pioneering film ephemera, local history and fine art displays, it boasts one of the finest permanent collections of contemporary craft in the country.
• Deviants is part of the Crafts Council Touring Exhibition Initiative that offers museums and galleries the opportunity to host innovative curated exhibitions showcasing the Crafts Council Collection.
• Deviants is now available for hire. Please contact Charlotte Dew, Exhibitions Project Officer, Crafts Council, c_dew@craftscouncil.org.uk or tel: 020 7806 2515
• The Crafts Council is the national development agency for contemporary crafts. It aims to position the UK as the best place in the world for making, seeing and collecting contemporary craft.
• For further information about the Crafts Council visit www.craftscouncil.org.uk
• The Crafts Council is supported by Arts Council England. Arts Council England works to get great art to everyone by championing, developing and investing in artistic experiences that enrich people’s lives. As the national development agency for the arts, it supports a range of artistic activities from theatre to music, literature to dance, photography to digital art, and carnival to crafts. Between 2008 and 2011, Arts Council England will invest £1.3 billion of public money from government and a further £0.3 billion from the National Lottery to create these experiences for as many people as possible across the country.
*Visitor Information *
Free admission
Hove Museum & Art Gallery
19 New Church Road
Hove
BN3 4AB
Tel: 0 3000 290900
www.virtualmuseum.info
Opening Times
Tuesday – Saturday 10-5pm
Sundays 2-5pm
