This post was written for the Design China blog, which you can see
here.
As part of this
year’s London Craft Week, the China Design Centre hosted two exhibitions
displaying an array of work by both established, and up-and-coming Chinese practitioners.
The gallery space is hosting one of them; ‘Jingdezhen Ceramics – The Next
Generation’ brought together by The Pottery Workshop. The Pottery Workshop was
established in Hong Kong in 1985, but have since expanded to four other
locations. Jingdezhen, has its biggest facility, and has become a hub for a
community of craftspeople in the renowned ‘Porcelain Capital’. This exhibition
displayed some of the finest and most innovative works from Jingdezhen’s
Pottery Workshop, from illustrative sculpture pieces, to minimal contemporary
art objects.
Several large works are included in
the show. Caroline Cheng, the director of The Pottery Workshop, displays a piece
from her series ‘Prosperity’, an outstretched silhouette of a bell-sleeved robe
made of a swarm of minute, blue ceramic butterflies, with a single white
butterfly. Cheng describes her work as a metaphor for China, as a gathering of
unique personalities and cultures coming together to create; both the detail
and the whole are significant. The ceramic garment hangs to the side of the
room, overseeing contemporaries in the exhibition.
At the opposite side of the room,
the furniture by July Zhou and J Design present witty interpretations of
Chinese contemporary ceramics. Two chairs consist of a dark mahogany frame,
holding the unusual bowl-shaped ceramic seat, decorated with bamboo painted in
the traditional colours of blue and white, but with added flecks of red. A
traditional icon of Chinese calligraphy translated onto ceramics is cleverly transformed
into something unexpected. Displayed aside is a chair and table set in the style
of Ming furniture, only wood is replaced by transparent lucite, bringing to the
forefront historical references in a contemporary setting. What might have been
decorative wooden panels in the back and seat of the chair, and the centre of
the table, is replaced with dark blue ceramic tiles with decorative white
illustrations.
Smaller ceramic objects dotted the
room with a variety of styles, techniques and approaches to the material.
Colourful splatters of ceramic fold into organic, cowrie-shell forms in Bian
Xiao Dong’s ‘Cocoons’, in a delicious combination of pink, lilac, mint and acid
yellow. In a similar vein, Lu Jin’s collection of vessels create a row of
pomegranate shapes, with gently hammered surfaces and golden crowns. Some
objects were more illustrative; Perched on a shelf are Li Zhen Ming’s
pandemonium of miniature parrots, with fluffy white feathers and pink features,
in different nesting positions. The most narrative in the exhibition is the
collaborative work of Ouyang Liang and Guo Zhen Zhen, a crowd of ceramic
characters collectively called the ‘Monkey King’. Several androgynous figures
look as thought they are swaying to a distant tune.
However, among my personal favourite
selection for the show was an assortment of brushes by Yang Dong Mu. Although
an unusual addition to a ceramics show, it highlighted the interdisciplinary
function of the Jingdezhen Pottery Workshop, which supports an array of
craftsmen as well as ceramicists. Framed in the corner of the room, the brushes
and their accessories were also examples of contemporary reimaginings of
traditional Chinese craft, using natural forms in bamboo to guide the shapes of
the brush handles and rests. The exhibition overall, demonstrated the vast
understandings of Chinese craft within one of the China’s dynamic arts
communities, combining new and old, nature and machine, into work that is
refreshing and distinct.
