TWO SPECIAL EXHIBITS AT SOFA NEW YORK 2006

Chad Curtis Platform Landscape (single tree, green), 2006 Ceramic, mixed media 21 x 11 x 18” “One Part Clay: Ceramic Avant-garde & Mixed Media”, Special Exhibit at SOFA NEW YORK 2006

CHICAGO, APRIL 10, 2006.  Two Special Exhibits at SOFA NEW YORK 2006, complementary with admission, survey a paradigm shift away from functional objects in traditional artisan media towards explorations of a material’s unique sculptural qualities, culminating in mixed media artworks that further blur material boundaries.

Robert Arneson (1930-1992) Self-portrait of the Artist Losing his Marbles, 1965 Hand-built earthenware, lustre glaze, marbles, pigments 31 x 17.5 x 9.5” Photo: Eva Heyd Gift of the Johnson Wax Company, from OBJECTS: USA, 1977. Donated to the American Craft Museum by the American Craft Council, 1990. “Jubilee! 50 Years on 53rd Street”, Special Exhibit at SOFA NEW YORK 2006

The Museum of Arts & Design, New York, presents a golden anniversary special exhibit entitled Jubilee! 50 Years on 53rd Street, featuring masterworks from each decade since the Museum opened in 1956, all from its permanent collection.  Featured artists include Lenore Tawney, Peter Voulkos, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Arneson, Dale Chihuly, Cindy Sherman and Frank Gehry, among many others.  Presented in the form of a time-line, the exhibit highlights pieces that express some of the artistic and cultural currents of the past 50 years.  Visitors will see the forward progression of contemporary arts through specific examples of experimentation with materials and process.  Read the SOFA New York Catalog Essay on "Jubilee"

Adelaide Paul OrsoMadre, 2006 Porcelain and mixed media 25 x 8 x 18” Photo: John Carlano "One Part Clay: Ceramic Avant-garde & Mixed Media", Special Exhibit at SOFA NEW YORK 2006

Dean Project, New York, NY presents One Part Clay: Ceramic Avant-garde & Mixed Media.  Curator Mark Dean said the special exhibit features “mixed media sculptures …connected through both the formal and conceptual use of ceramics. The group exhibit will focus on artists creating art influenced by a combination of sources such as 20th century art movements, craft, historical references, and the use in their work of diverse materials.” 

On-view is artwork by seven artists from the United States—John Byrd, Nicole Cherubini, Chad Curtis, Doug Jeck, Michael O’Malley, Reinaldo Sanguino, Adelaide Paul, and a collaborative from Europe—Liet Heringa and Maarten van Kalsbeek of The Netherlands.  In their SOFA NEW YORK 2006 Catalog essay profiling One Part Clay, ceramic scholars and dealers Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio write: “This exhibition excites us because we have been witnessing (and enjoying) the morphing of ceramics from a remarkably hermetic field into one that is beginning to flourish in the creative sunlight of multi-media.”  Read the SOFA New York Catalog Essay on "One Part Clay"

Special Exhibits at SOFA are educational in nature and are designed to supplement the gallery presentations.