Uriel H. Caspi
Some artists embrace all the different interpretations of their work, some are most happy when people ‘get it’. Uriel Caspi firmly belongs to the latter category. His sculptures can best be seen as formal investigations that move between past, present and future along several lines. Some series take up the visual language of Middle-Eastern archaeological artifacts to project them onto a posthuman era when nature and technology become indistinguishable. Others transform everyday items into bold designs that are yet to arrive. The centuries-old building technique Caspi deploys, jarre-à-la-corde, combines two of the earliest human inventions – rope and ceramics – in a process that makes the construction an explicit part of the final piece. Surface, structure, colour all contribute to the sense that these very tangible objects somehow belong to another reality. At EKWC Caspi press-moulded a series of human-size sculptures that will be installed upright to playfully confront the viewers.
Inup Park |2
The works that Korean artist Inup Park made at EKWC are closely related to richness. One piece is basically a block with openings for the artist’s hands and feet, forcing him into an uncomfortable position. Symbols on the surface represent the five Taoist elements – earth, water, metal, wood, fire – that generate and constrain each other. Park made it after a fortune teller predicted he would become rich at 44, suggesting five more years of poverty. Another piece relates to a tarot card reading that said Park would be a bad person if he got rich. It shows several bodies compressed under the weight of the artist, who pictures himself reclining on them. A lavender-grey celadon suggests the colour of cadaverous skin. As test tiles, Park made small figures referencing Korea’s national treasure, and a set of containers for ordinary, cheap instruments of personal hygiene. They look incredibly precious.
Koos Buster Stroucken
An ATM machine, cleaning utensils, cigarette buds, a water cooler; the subject matter of Koos Buster’s (NL) ceramics may seem a bit trivial at times, but there is definitely a logic to them. Buster has a soft spot for things that go unnoticed or are about to disappear. Reproducing them in a durable medium like ceramics gives them an aura of importance and a much longer lease on life. He also likes to create things that make people happy, and somehow, this is the exact result his intentionally ham-handed sculptures have. Meanwhile, it takes quite a lot of skill to make things look this clumsy.
Manita Kieft |2
In recent years Manita Kieft (NL) has gotten more and more concerned with alarming current events, such as floodings, bushfires, earthquakes, and war, inevitably intruding her life through the daily news. During the covid lockdown, Kieft build her own library of photos taken from television screens showing grim images of disasters. She chose ceramics for its long history as (political) message bearers, which can stand the test of time and are still found in excavations today. At the EKWC Kieft focused on the field of tension of the transformation from photo to form, from 2- to 3-dimensionality, and how the images relate to not only the shape but also to the glaze application. Kieft used plaster casting molds, Styrofoam press-in-molds, and 3d printing techniques. The images were transferred using decals.
Sarah Pschorn
For a large solo at the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus in Bremen, Sarah Pschorn (DE) decided to abandon her usual method of elaborating on thrown volumes. This time, the sculptures had to be bigger, more organic, hand-built. At EKWC she created a whole series of works related to life underwater – a childhood fantasy reflected in popular culture from Disney to Lady Gaga. Shell-covered objects and huge bright-glazed tubular sponges reaching to the ceiling constitute the ‘paradise’ theme of the exhibition Records of Gravity, which also addresses ‘balance’, heaviness’, and ‘cloudy’.
