March / Apri 2016 - art ltd 67Top to bottom:
“Untitled (Conversation Piece: Lips & Legs),” 2015
Dustin Yager
Ceramic
Photo: Peter Lee, courtesy of the artist“Ritual Implements for Two,” 2014, Joey Watson
Colored porcelain, 3D printed ABS plastic, cast glass,
melamine, seat foam, electro-luminescent wire and prismatic plastic
30"x 30"x 20"
Photo: EG Schempf, courtesy Plug Projects“Noir Buisson,” 2015, Rain Harris
Black clay, wood, resin, metal, 10^1 ⁄ 2 "x 10^1 ⁄ 2 "x 13^1 ⁄ 2 "
Photo: Ross Redmon, courtesy Sherry Leedy Contemporary ArtCurated collaboratively by NCECA members and museum curators,
the show will feature a variety of experimental multimedia artists who
use clay, alongside video, installation, 3D modeling and social activism.
Nearby, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art will be hosting “A
Whisper of Where It Came From,” a six-person exhibition featuring
luminaries Sterling Ruby and Arlene Shechet, exploring contemporary
multi-media practices that push the medium far beyond traditional as-
sociations. Further south, the eccentric National Museum of Toys and
Miniatures, will be exhibiting works from the largest collection of fine-
scale, aka very tiny, miniatures, including ceramics and ceramic toys.
In addition to the city’s institutions and nonprofits, a range of the city’s
galleries will also hold NCECA-related programming. Garcia Squared,
established by Israel Garcia in 2011 to introduce the work of national
and international Latino artists to the Kansas City scene, will present
“From the Wheel to the Wall,” organized by Robert Lugo, exploring
the unlikely intersection of graffiti and ceramics. Down in the West
Bottoms, an old industrial railyard district, collaborative venue Plug
Projects will be showing Atlanta-based Christina West’s jarring poly-
chromatic figurative works juxtaposed with works by Joey Watson,
a graduate of KCAI who incorporates newer technologies into his
fabrication strategies. About a block east, Haw Contemporary pro-
motes two shows highlighting the legacy of iconic figures Toshiko
Takaezu and Ken Ferguson through the work of their associates and
mentees. The work and legacy of Ferguson in particular, a founding
member of NCECA who served as chairman of the ceramics depart-
ment at KCAI for over 30 years, will be a unifying theme throughout
the NCECA exhibitions, with works on view at Leedy-Voulkos, Belger,
KCAI, Alice C. Sabatini Gallery, Bracker’s Good Earth Clays, and The
Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, in Sedalia, MO.
In addition to these larger, scheduled shows, many of Kansas City’s
younger artists will be hosting their own unsanctioned events, show-
casing underground counterculture artists and the city’s DIY
movement. One such event, “Objet Weed-Craft Pop Up” will feature
the work of the Objet collective, including event organizer Dean
Roper’s ceramic bongs and pipes in the shape of Cheetos, Pokémon,
and other pop symbols. “The NCECA conference itself is not impor-
tant to me at all,” laughs Roper. “I am really interested in stirring
up some ideas about what ceramics can be, and to inform people
of some really amazing artists using clay that operate outside of the
ceramics community.”
In short, NCECA will be a big mess of contradictions. The conference
lectures will attract teachers and theorists debating the future of art
education, the galleries and bus tours will gather hundreds of wealthy
and casual collectors, events like “Across the Table, Across the Land”
will bring in more socially minded activists and organizers and every-
where there will be ceramicists, young and old, traditional and
experimental, who want to share their work with the public.
“This will likely be the biggest art event that has ever happened in
Kansas City,” says Stephanie Leedy. “Ceramics has always had a
foothold in Kansas City, primarily because of the Art Institute and all
the prominent artists, teachers and students that have passed through
it. We have such venues, so many art spaces, so close together.
There isn’t a better place to hold a national meeting of ceramicists.”
—NEIL THRUN