Seven McKnight Artists @ Northern Clay Center
Wednesday 06 August @ 10:58:39 |
 by Mary Ann Vincenta
I went with a friend, an avant-garde musician visiting from Barcelona, to the opening reception of the McKnight recipients’ exhibit at the Northern Clay Center. She enjoyed the tasteful decor of the factory-turned-gallery as well as the exceptionally high quality of the vastly varied work.
There was a young woman at the opening whose shirt matched the wall panels and display pedestals, so naturally we assumed she was the gallery director. She, in fact, was Maren Kloppman, creator of the spellbinding, glowing porcelain vessels that grabbed most of my attention. One of her works looked like a big, white, smooth stone that begged to be touched. In spite of the for-obvious-reasons “do not touch” signs posted everywhere, I asked her if I could touch it. She fairly yelled, “Please do!” It scared me when the delicate, hollow “stone” turned and slid on the glass display surface. It inspired my maternal protectiveness for things easily broken. A friend of hers assured me not to worry. He said, “It really does ask to be petted, doesn’t it.”
In the same enclosure of the gallery, my friend and her 9-year-old son examined the minutely detailed, organic-looking, brightly glazed porcelain works fashioned by Keisuke Mizuno. Simultaneously evident were the enormous skill of the artist and his chosen philosophical theme of death’s intrusion upon life.
For me, the singular emotional experience I always hope for whenever I expose myself to art occurred in my contemplation of his “Forbidden Flowers.” Two slim vases with mouths half-way covered by flowery lids stood side by side, like two beings who are very close to each other but are never able to see into the depth of the other, not because they don’t want to, but because it isn’t possible.
I would call Tom Towater and Patrick Taddy’s weird artifacts “clay in costumes” or “the fact of fiction”—swooning pink, textured medical-like equipment, and copper teapots assembled from industrial parts, mischievously dissembling their ceramic origins.
An installation called “cartographer’s reference” by Sandra Westley spoke of the old bones of history and the places humans have walked on the earth. My friend said Westley’s ephemeral notes inscribed in clay made her think of the way thoughts were once preserved and made permanent on stone tablets.
Stoneware plaques and sculptures by Vineet Kacker referred to sacred Hindu iconography while incorporating a commentary on American culture.
Although I often flee conceptual art, I gravitated to Janet William’s 35 squares, each with its group of predictable pillars on the bottom, and its lovely chance configurations, on the top, of fire-swept, porcelain-coated rolls of Minneapolis telephone book paper.
The whole show was obviously the work of people who are in love with clay and can’t live without it.
Seven McKnight Artists runs through Sept. 7. Hours: T,W,F, Sa 10a.m.–6 p.m.; Su 12–4 p.m.; Closed Monday. Northern Clay Center, 2424 Franklin Ave. E., Mpls. 612-339-8007.
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