New York McKenzie Fine Art Born in Britain, ceramic sculptor Ursula Morley Price now lives in southwestern France. She is known for her fluted vases, bowls, and jars, which begin in craft and end in a place where craft cannot be denied as fine art.
SculptureNow 2013
Lenox, Massachusetts The Mount For 16 seasons, sculptor Ann Jon has organized outdoor exhibitions in Western Massachusetts, attracting increasingly able artists as time has gone on. The venues for SculptureNow have also changed, as the show migrated from the Berkshire Botanical Gardens to the streets of Stockbridge, Great Barrington, and Lenox.
“Return to Earth: Ceramic Sculpture of Fontana, Melotti, Miró, Noguchi, and Picasso”
Dallas Nasher Sculpture Center Though clay has been in use for about 25,000 years, it has been slow to find acceptance as a fine art material. Ceramic works, perhaps because of their craft connotations, have always seemed a little too friable, too unserious, and too, well, “craftsy.”
Pittsburgh – “Detroit: Artists in Residence:” Mattress Factory
After visiting Detroit in fall 2012, Barbara Luderowski and Michael Olijnyk, co-curators of “Detroit: Artists in Residence,” recognized a kinship between what artists were doing there and the Mattress Factory’s mission to encourage experimentation and risk-taking.
London- Emma Hart: Camden Arts Centre
Emma Hart’s Dirty Looks is a kinky office nightmare. Inspired by her time working in a call center, her installation presents a garish Kafka-esque environment in which photocopiers spit out to-do lists and glossy eroticized images of the natural world, some of which are fashioned into a phallic, bucket-headed totem.
Seattle – Joseph McDonnell: Abmeyer + Wood
Joseph McDonnell is a widely exhibited and commissioned Modernist sculptor who moved to Seattle in 1998 from New York. “From Amulet to Monument,” his recent survey exhibition, covered work from 1971 to the present, concentrating on smaller-scale pieces, maquettes, pedestal sculptures, and two glass chandeliers.
New York – Lynda Benglis : Cheim & Read
Lynda Benglis’s terrific show of table-top clay sculptures reminded us, yet again, that the New York School’s achievements can be furthered in the hands of a top-notch artist. Benglis, who has studios all over the world, made these works in New Mexico, but she remains a quintessential New Yorker.
Washington D.C.- Sam Scharf: Flashpoint Gallery and Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library
In Sam Scharf’s two-part exhibition “Nothing is the Same,” two deconstructed telescopes, encased in soft, transparent rubber, were mounted in the windows of two separate buildings and trained on each other, inviting the curious to make a visual connection across G Street NW.
York, Pennsylvania – Andi Steele and Carol Prusa: York College of Pennsylvania
Andi Steele’s Emanate, an ephemeral installation of taut monofilament lines, transformed space into shimmering reflections and hovering shadows. Carol Prusa’s “Liminal Worlds,” a group of highly detailed acrylic hemispheres that clung tightly to the walls, also asserted an influence on their surroundings, though their effect was more subtle.
Cincinnati – Ana England and Steven Finke: Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery
“ Imminence,” a joint exhibition of work by Ana England and Steven Finke, dealt with those certainties we spend much of our lives hoping are not imminent. The resulting work contemplated the beauty inherent in the cycle of life and death.
