Outside of Possible: Ceramic Experimental Creation Exhibition
Curator：Chu Fang-yi
Artist: Nelson Lim, Lin Ching-che
The development of contemporary ceramic art in Taiwan started its journey since the Sino-Japanese Modern Ceramic Art Exhibition in 1981. The history and development of contemporary ceramic art in Taiwan is only 30 over years due to the late exposed to the baptism of modern art trends. In the early days, modern ceramic art in Taiwan still focused on its practical and decorative exposure, the research and development of ceramic and firing experiments were the major concerns. Taiwanese ceramist discovered the various possibility of the ceramic art after the Sino-Japanese exchange exhibition and started their journey in exploring ceramic art. During this period, the scenario in ceramic creation and environment have flourished and encouraging many artists who studied abroad to teach in colleges and universities, sharing the contemporary art concepts and knowledge about ceramic art. The possibility of ceramic art began to ferment...
The use of ceramics in today's life is deep and wide. It can be seen in life products, architectural structures, scientific research and development, or even in artistic creation. The connection between ceramic and the environment is dense and full of possibility. But somehow, the unknown possibility of ceramic has been limited by its cultural background and functionality. The use of ceramics is indispensable inevitability at all levels, like the air, make people feel that it is not special but true existence. Therefore, in today's art environment, ceramics are still not regarded as creative materials, neither on history and culture, traditional crafts nor practical functionality. Questions and choices will appear before an artist starts the journey with ceramic art: Is it just a material to produce the creative idea? Or is it necessary to expose with techniques or the artistic expression of materials? And all this, still depends on the artist’s capability and knowledge about ceramic and operational ability of this material.
The most suitable word to describe ceramic is "possible". Based on the nature of ceramics, there are possibilities which must be manipulated through a series of reorganized materials and techniques. All ceramic-generated objects are initially based on the possibility of experimentation, and the process and final results are used to verify the original assumptions and ideas. In the process of making ceramics art, the material elements, technical expressions, qualitative structures, temperature of firing even though the atmosphere are groping from unknown. The controllability of ceramics can only be transformed from the failure throughout the process of repeated executions. Furthermore, when the ceramic medium works in the process of artistic creation thinking, will present many hydrological tree-like trajectories, each of which is a possible beginning of experiment, and the artist is in this path of choice by thinking about the connection between their own creation and material. When the path is connected, it presents the artist's unique and recognizable technique, which many ceramic artists are capable of nowaday. On the other hand, control may cause the disappearance of the next possibility. When each material is controlled to a certain level of maturity, the inertia of creation will also occur, and the intermediate process seems to deteriorate into artistic production rather than true artistic creation. It is the problems that an experienced and sophisticated artist will always faced.
"Outside of Possible" should be the direction in which material art should be considered. The possibility of thinking always contains a state of presupposition, simulation or the artwork can be imagined. But somehow, "Outside of Possible" has no category, boundary, even though an inadvertent accident is accepted. The artists may explore beyond their usual concept and techniques about ceramic art, the ideas might be ridiculous and illogical, but we can treat it as experiment, subversion, and with a little bit of fun. Therefore, material art will have a new fun foreground with its quality change, the reversal of the technique and restructuring.
In "Outside of Possible - Ceramic Experimental Creation Exhibition", you will see the creative techniques presented by two young artists Lin Ching-che and Nelson Lim, which is different from our previous imagination of ceramic art. Lin Ching-che uses the method of repeated stacking of ceramic by long hour to recognize the existence of the body, exploring the unknown after structural reorganization from the material quality changes of the operation of ceramics. Unpredictable changes will appear during the process, the accidental outcome will become the core spindle of creation and also leads the artist to re-interpret the way ceramic exist. Nelson Lim uses two completely different materials, porcelain and stainless steel to explore his artistic creation. These two materials seem to be contradictory based on their nature, but when the two materials are combined through the eutectic method of ceramic firing, the concept of ‘porcelain wrapped over steel’ is constructed to create a second-generation creation, which creates a quantitative aesthetic of material and space.
By such the scenario of cross-disciplinary and cross-material exploration in today’s ceramic art environment, the creative experimental factors bred by these young ceramic artists will gradually mature in the future and create a significant change and influence to Taiwan's ceramic art environment.
Written by
Chu Fang-yi
Lecturer
Department of Material Arts & Design
Tainan National University of the Arts
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