Dirty Work

The Jane Hartsook Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition of ceramic work by interdisciplinary New York City-based artists curated by Edward Salas. Each of the twelve artists uses the medium of ceramics as a vehicle to illuminate and unpack layered personal histories. Looking forward or backward in time, the artists are working to understand the present and create hybrid artifacts that will help future generations understand our complex histories.

Clay is not an easy medium to work with in New York City. It is a material that requires resources that are often scarce like space, kilns, transportation and funds. In a city where histories are constantly being erased and rebuilt clay can be a medium to unearth the past, make sense of the present and converse with the future. Clay’s deep association with the past and its broad history of use by ancient cultures around the world makes it the perfect medium for contemporary artists to mine when engaging their own personal histories. Clay has a memory and the maker’s hand is inextricably part of the work. Some artists in this show look back and connect to ancient ways of making and motifs, remixing ideas for the complexities of our contemporary moment. Other artists use ceramics for its malleability, a characteristic that enables them to express the fleeting present. All of the artists in this show are tapping into a medium that holds many histories, making topical objects for the present and relics for the future. This is the dirty work that artists do.