Possibilities and Losses
mima and the Crafts Council present Possibilities and Losses, an exhibition featuring four artists who work with clay. The exhibition has been curated by mima together with Clare Twomey, an artist at the forefront of practice in this area.
Clare Twoney’s work is featured in the exhibition alongside works by Keith Harrison, Linda Sormin and Neil Brownsword.
Major new commissions will be included in the exhibition, in direct response to mima’s gallery spaces. Together they will offer an insight into the experimental large-scale clay work emerging from contemporary, contextually aware, ambitious and material-specific artists.
Positioning itself at a moment of change in contemporary ceramic practice Possibilities and Losses exposes contemporary thinking and making in this media. These artists challenge traditional perceptions about clay practice and its relationship to the historic model of craft, they present certain possibilities for clay as a specific media, while at the same time recognizing that change is inevitably at the expense of that which came before.
Included in the exhibition is Monument by Clare Twomey, inspired by a monumental pitcher pile she witnessed at a tile factory in Stoke-on-Trent. The broken vessels she observed were due to be ground back down to dust, and used to reconstitute raw clay body to be re-used by the factory. For Twomey, this neatly articulated the poignancy of broken china, both in terms of a personal relation to the vessel form, and an understanding of a great industrial tradition in decay, simultaneously gesturing towards a future hope.
Visitors to the exhibition will be confronted with a recreation of the artist’s experience, as hundreds of ceramic shards cascade towards them from the height of the 10metre cube gallery, creating an intensely emotive, perhaps claustrophobic, but also very beautiful work.
Next to Clare Twomey’s work, an installation by Neil Brownsword from his Salvage Series confronts the changing nature of the ceramic industry in Stoke on Trent, considering the loss of centuries old skills and the implications of this shifting landscape for the ceramic artist. Between these two works the viewer is faced with both the possibilities and the losses of the ceramic industry in Britain.
Loss and transition are similarly experienced through works by Keith Harrison and Linda Sormin. Both have previously made work in which an element of performance is intrinsic to the final piece. For Possibilities and Losses both artists will consider the more ephemeral nature of their practice whilst considering the context of prolonged exposure in a gallery setting. Harrison’s work will combine his interest in materiality with the transformative properties of electricity, and his work will be gradually fired over the course of the exhibition. For Sormin a transformation will occur over the life of the exhibition as elements of her work are broken and crumble away. Between them these two commissions will articulate the process of making and unmaking.
All the artists in the exhibition are leading the way in working on the borders of craft knowledge and the wider visual arts. Possibilities and Losses will explore current thinking and critical debate surrounding the relationships between the wider visual arts and challenges faced by contemporary craft makers.
An accompanying publication priced at £15 will feature a text by Jorunn Veiteberg which expands the field of the exhibition, mapping the dialogues and histories that have led crafts makers to seek conceptually challenging practice outside of linear craft thinking.
Possibilities and Losses is a mima exhibition in partnership with the Crafts Council
Notes to Editors
About mima
mima presents temporary exhibitions of fine art and craft from 1900 to the present. Featuring work by internationally acclaimed artists, the programme includes painting, drawing, ceramics, jewellery, design, sound, film, mixed media, photography and sculpture. Exhibitions change every quarter.
About the Crafts Council
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. The Crafts Council Collection represents the very best in British craft over the past 35 years and covers a wide range of contemporary craft practice with more than 1,400 fascinating objects from both established figures and emerging names. The Collection is exposed to the widest possible audience by showing work through Crafts Council projects, including loans, partnership projects, touring exhibitions and showcases.
For further information about the Crafts Council and the Collection 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.
mima Opening Times
Tues, Wed, Fri & Sat 10.00am-5.00pm, Thurs 10.00am-8.00pm (free parking from 4pm),
Sun 12noon-4.00pm
Closed Monday
Open Bank Holidays (Sunday opening hours apply)
Admission FREE
mima
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art
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TS1 2AZ
t: +44 (0) 1642 726 720
f: +44 (0) 1642 726 722
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For further press information and images contact:
Nina Byrne, Marketing Manager: 01642 726 710 / Nina_byrne@middlesbrough.gov.uk
Kirsty Bullock, Marketing Assistant: 01642 726 713 / kirsty_bullock@Middlesbrough.gov.uk
Victoria Huntley, Marketing Assistant: 01642 726 713 / victoria_huntley@middlesbrough.gov.uk
For further information about the Crafts Council and the Crafts Council Collection contact: Jill Read, Press Officer: 020 7806 2549/j_read@craftscouncil.org.uk
