'Keramic Conversations' Gerard Mermoz. Aberystwyth Arts Centre

Subtitle, "From Vallauris to Fat Lava". A selection of "studio and factory. Doesn't excite me but I know some of you guys love this stuff. More here Http://keramicconversations.blogspot.co.uk

On until 22 Sept 2013. I can't post photos from the iPad so you will have to wait for those

Sub sub title is "perspectives on post war ceramics from Germany and France"

Yes tenpot has posted this link , at one time a few years ago this forum was dominated by the german fat lava etc. his blog is about 6 yrs out of date

Hi Big Ed,
May I advise you to find out about the exhibition and what it is about by taking time and making the effort to look and read the catalogue, before you dismiss it, on the basis of sheer prejudice. (without taking the trouble to find out about it.... My question is WHY?)
;-(
It is not an exhibition about 'fat lava', or 'Vallauris', or 'Annecy' or 'studio pottery' or of any other trend, but about complex issues about 20th century ceramics, the legacy of the Arts and Craft Movement and the divide it created between 'studio' and 'industrial' ceramics, the repression of color in the UK during the pottery revival instigated by Leach in the 20s, the way museum exhibits pots like postage stamps (in isolation from each other), arbitrary aesthetic hierarchies, and  many other things that require TIME and EFFORT (and some intellect as well); to engage with the issues and make sense of it.
Complacency does not help and only leads to obscurism.
The exhibition breaks new ground and is different from the ways ceramics are exhibited in British, French and other museums, which just showcase this or that trend in isolation from each other.
Take a trip to Aberystwyth, where it will be on till 22nd September 2013, and treat yourself to some experience.

one or two points Gérard when you speak of the 'divide created between industrial and studio ceramics' this in fact was a revival of small workshops that spread throuout europe, colour was not repressed they were simply different fashions colour allways was there and came to dominate in the 50s 60s, have you visited the V&A? no postage stamp display there IMO

Hi,
It is difficult to discuss complex issues with sound bites.
The exhibition has taken almost two years to prepare and was very carefully put together.
The research represent the submerged part of the iceberg!
It is on at the National Archive for British Studio ceramics (no mean feat, for it challenges some of the assumptions enshrined in the permanent collection).
The exhibition is also raising issues about QUALITY across STUDIO and FACTORY-made ceramics. A mine field.
I know the V & A and the B. M. ceramic collections well. I find them both limited in their international perspective.
Neither the range of works in Keramik Conversations nor the relations between them is represented at the V & A (for the period) [try for instance Dalpayrat, Dage, Pointu]. The current display of European Industrial ceramics is simply inadequate (a misnomer).
The accumulation of the 'study collection' is rather British-centered and the classification is even more rudimentary than a stamp collection since pots are piled up by nationality or lumbered together in muti-national groups; many invisible on the top shelves.
It certainly gave an architect or interior designer scope to make a visual statement!
The catalogue I have prepared for Keramik Conversations outlines issues, which are sufficiently complex not to be rushed (for the sake of making a judgement as your colleague did).
The works and the organisational principles of the exhibition deserves to be given time and consideration before they become apparent.
I have discussed in details what I call the repression of color at
http://ceramicsconversations.blogspot.co.uk/
(in the section The Battle for color in Britain, quoting the example of Royal Lancastrian who went to see the continental experiments and were inspired by them; but dismissed by Leach).
Of course I am aware of the spread of small workshops in Europe, of course, and discuss it.
If you and your colleagues visit the exhibition and /or read the two blogs and look at the works [by double clicking], I am sure that you will find food for thought and feel less inclined to object.
The exhibition was put in the public domain for genuine consideration and appreciation... as a gift from a collector.

I live in France and wont be making it to your expo, I realise a lot of research went into it rather than objecting as you put it I just dont agree with some of your conclusions, I have enjoyed looking at the catalogue and read some of the blog. It seems fairly normal that the V&A has a british bias but to me it seems more comprehensive than a lot of national museams , the study collection is unique in allowing the public to see a vast quantity of works rather than a few chosen items, and I find your expo more about "interior designers visual statements" than that collection. Colour has allways been around from victorian through Clarice Cliff and onwards. In the long term I don't think the Leach legacy is an elitist one as you imply, obviously I havent studied ceramics as much as you and my knowledge is less comprehenisive but you have made choices that seem to ignore certain areas which I suppose is inevitable in the scope of any expo

Hi,
You seem to have picked up side issues.
The exhibition is multilayered and strands.
I go to the V&A as often as I go to London. The collection is great, but falls short of meeting the museum's ambitions. Keramik Conversations aims to fill one gap, with reference to classic moments in ceramic history from the continent (see case 6: Dalpayrat et alt and case12; Bauhaus et alt.).
A remark by previous V & A curator encouraged me along my critical path, as I point out on the blog in the section about the battle for color in Britain.
In his preface to Oliver Watson’s book Studio Pottery, V&A curator J.V.G. Mallet remarked that, had the V & A museum better publicized the collection of French ceramics given by Proust’s friend Antoine Bibesco, it ‘might have set the inter-war generation [of British studio potters] on a different track’.

Your objections are not helpful (to me or to anyone else) as they do not seem to address the many strands (and the complexity) of my argument nor the organisational principles of the exhibition [in fac t I do not recognize the exhibition from your characterisation).
Expressing opinions or disagreements on the basis of limited information is easier than making productive contributions to a debate. THe urge to disagree and assert oneself at the expense of the subject is unfortunate and does not help public appreciation of ceramics.

The exhibition is in the public arena for everyone to see and it is free and accessible on the internet. Drifting through it and opening up to the correspondances it explores is the best way of getting something from it.

I'm terribly sorry if I offended you with my ignorance Gérard I will point out I put your add on the forum in the first place,and I didn't object merely wanted to discuss."The exhibition is in the public arena for everyone to see and it is free and accessible on the internet. Drifting through it and opening up to the correspondances it explores is the best way of getting something from it."exactly what I thought I was doing
but if you just pull rank then I'll keep quiet

 

Gérard wrote:Hi,
You seem to have picked up side issues.
The exhibition is multilayered and strands.
I go to the V&A as often as I go to London. The collection is great, but falls short of meeting the museum's ambitions. Keramik Conversations aims to fill one gap, with reference to classic moments in ceramic history from the continent (see case 6: Dalpayrat et alt and case12; Bauhaus et alt.).
A remark by previous V & A curator encouraged me along my critical path, as I point out on the blog in the section about the battle for color in Britain.
In his preface to Oliver Watson’s book Studio Pottery, V&A curator J.V.G. Mallet remarked that, had the V & A museum better publicized the collection of French ceramics given by Proust’s friend Antoine Bibesco, it ‘might have set the inter-war generation [of British studio potters] on a different track’.

Your objections are not helpful (to me or to anyone else) as they do not seem to address the many strands (and the complexity) of my argument nor the organisational principles of the exhibition [in fac t I do not recognize the exhibition from your characterisation).
Expressing opinions or disagreements on the basis of limited information is easier than making productive contributions to a debate. THe urge to disagree and assert oneself at the expense of the subject is unfortunate and does not help public appreciation of ceramics.

The exhibition is in the public arena for everyone to see and it is free and accessible on the internet. Drifting through it and opening up to the correspondances it explores is the best way of getting something from it.

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz:sleep: 
Dull as ditch  

Gérard wrote:Your objections are not helpful (to me or to anyone else).

I think your the only one who has read Tenpot's reply and took it to be an objection.

Gérard wrote:The exhibition is in the public arena for everyone to see and it is free and accessible on the internet.

tenpot wrote:I have enjoyed looking at the catalogue and read some of the blog.

Gérard wrote:Expressing opinions or disagreements on the basis of limited information is easier than making productive contributions to a debate. THe urge to disagree and assert oneself at the expense of the subject is unfortunate and does not help public appreciation of ceramics.

Seems to me he has seen enough information to form his own opinions.

End of the day this is a discussion board and people have and discuss opinions, as long as they are civil it does not matter if their opinions are correct or not. But someone's opinion being correct is usually down to opinion

Just my opinion, which anyone is allowed to disagree with, but I have to say that I am very glad that this exhibition of clumpy, garish tat is taking place in the back of beyond.

When I first came across this cheaply made stuff in the late 1970s I like everyone else ignored it. Likewise in the 1980s when the odd person was collecting it I looked at it again and still regarded it as being of absolutely no significance that might be collected because it was cheap by people who had no taste.

I suppose it wasn't until I saw that some pieces were being collected and fetching more than a tenner that I looked again and thought that the world had gone mad. That was the time that I really began to hate the stuff.

Recently I have thought very little about this stuff, as there was little talk or hype about the type of pottery that this exhibition now suggests is significant.

I would not have commented until I saw some rather pompous views expressed here, as people should collect whatever they want. However, for someone to suggest that the pottery included in this exhibition is worth bothering with rather than going to landfill surely can't be serious?

........... and that is my considered measured view.

I think the abuse on here is sometimes a bit over the top ?

I don't believe that I was being abusive in any way with my comments, as I was giving my opinion on pottery that I believe to be beyond contempt.

Generally, I do not comment on anything that I dislike but as someone was suggesting that this stuff was significant and deserving of an exhibition then I feel it is only right that people should hear another opinion and make their own mind up.

I don't think SP is being "abusive", except to the pots!  

When someone speak down to others in the tone Gerard is using, it usually brings out peoples real opinions that they otherwise have kept to themselves. E.g. SP disliking the pots mentioned in this thread.

Unfortunately I think he brought this upon himself  

Are you absolutely sure about me disliking these pots, Potty?

Yes, worse than RAKU!

I'm just looking forward to the Fat Lava Lustre thread  

Not the "Fat Lava Lustre Inquisition Thread".................. I'm leaving now!

 

I didn't think you were being abusive..Studio !! I think sometimes people on this site can be.. 

If you compared this site to some others we perhaps ought to change its name to "the 20th Century Etiquette Forum" but some name calling from time to time does spice things up a little and I think is OK as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

I bow down to your experience..Sir

I've browsed a few forums that make this place look very peaceful  

brin mcardle wrote:I bow down to your experience..Sir

Now you are making me feel old, Brin and what is scary is that you are not the only person who has used "Sir" in a reply to me since I had my Ovaltine, took my teeth out and went to bed last night.