Organic Matter

Robin Rice on Visual Art: Dirt on Delight: Impulses that Form Clay

by Robin Rice

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Published: May 13, 2009

Even though it's one of those rare, generally token appearances of clay in a "high" or "serious" art gallery, the ICA's "Dirt on Delight" blithely ignores the perennial topic of craft versus art to address more intriguing and up-to-date questions, like, "How far can you go with clay?" (Answer: As far as any medium will take you.)

Iconoclastically, the show strikingly bypasses John Ruskin's sacred white cube of Modernism and is installed in a large raw space. White walls provide a neutral background, but the feeling of the semi-cavernous room with its unfinished ceiling and stained concrete floor is more like that of a class art studio than a gallery.

The fecund sense of work-in-progress is underlined by a display that — shocking, even dismaying to some visitors — does not relate to the lines of the walls. In a typical gallery installation, viewers circulate clockwise around the edges of the room or approach pedestals aligned with the walls and one another. Here, there's no identifiably "right" way to go. Consequently, unless the visitor is rigorously systematic, some work might be missed. That's fine with me, just another reason to see the show twice. I noticed that spontaneous conversations between strangers were more likely in this formless, informal space.

The title "Dirt on Delight," among other things, promises the inside scoop on clay, the most sensual art medium. The subsequent reference to impulses speaks to the feeling of working with a plastic, fluid material, one that those outside the studio — even people who saw Demi Moore pretend to throw in Ghost — have not experienced.

Clay is not naturally precise; it is an artist's skills and tools that make it so. "Dirt" suggests responsive precision, a dialogue that honors, not subjugates, the will of clay. Betty Woodman's Two Part Italian Vase celebrates clay's multiple personalities in large twin vases. They are beautifully thrown and decorated with piped rosettes (originally as goopy as icing) and handles composed of gracefully draped straps of wet clay. The path to Woodman's vases was laid down in the 19th century by Mississippi visionary George Ohr (whose clay was almost as original as his moustache), nicely represented here by three works.

The oft, perhaps overly, celebrated fecal character of clay is a strong presence, from Robert Arneson's 1965 John Figure, a large, grubby, Freudian toilet portrait, to Jeffry Mitchell's broccoli-like vegetative forms, to Arlene Shechet's black sac crudely resembling an internal organ. These works are much more carefully calculated than they appear. Clay with defects like air bubbles; foreign matter or uneven walls will explode in the kiln, perhaps damaging other work, or even crack after firing. The artist who indulges in too much thoughtless poop play ends with nothing. Like Betty Woodman, Viola Frey in recent work allows her glazes to play the expressive, Pollock-esque role (pictured).

But precision as a concern is not neglected. Installation artist Jane Irish's slightly wonky Sèvres-type vases, decorated with bright scenes of Vietnam bombings and U.S. urban landscapes rather than traditional bucolic shepherds and shepherdesses, are a neat compromise between slavish copying and sketchy improvisation. The visual sense of lost focus meshes with Irish's concern with cultural distortions. Similarly political but more obsessive in construction, Ann Agee's approach to clay as a kind of permanent pastry reinforces feminist messages in her all-white figurines descended from Rococo mantelpiece ornaments. 

Clay need not stand utterly alone, as we see in many works — including Nicole Cherubini's objects incorporating jewelry, feathers and many other elements. Among the various surface treatments, Ken Price's multilayered paint is especially lush and satisfying.

For my money (none of which was spent at the ICA, because it is now free), "Dirt on Delight" might be the gallery's most important show in recent years. It is certainly among the best in Philadelphia this season. There may be no admission fee, but you can't afford to miss it.

(r_rice@citypaper.net)

Dirt on Delight: Impulses that Form Clay Through June 21, free, Institute of Contemporary Art, 118 S. 36th St., 215-898-7108, icaphila.org

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