Continuing through October 4, 2014
The man behind the exhibition title is Peter Held, who has brought international acclaim to ASU’s Ceramics Research Center in his 11-year tenure as curator. The idiosyncratic “Things” is an ode to the all-encompassing nature of ceramics as he heads into retirement this summer.
Because he dissects the conceptual foundations of collecting things, Held gives the exhibition a dual personality. He gets to express his personal admiration for the Funk ceramics movement of the latter half of the 20th century, including Robert Arneson’s anarchic “Pot on Flowers” (1967) and Patti Warashina’s allegorical “What’s That Falling From the Sky?” (1980). But then he turns over the rest of the exhibition to friends (artists, writers and others) and their own predilections for not just ceramics, but also carved-wood objects, vintage Arizona trinkets, Tramp art and even vases and candelabras made from World War I shell casings.
The display of “favorite things” from noted ceramist Kurt Weiser, for instance, consists of three glass-fronted shelves crammed with a two-inch-high bust of John Lennon, a tea canister, an oversized shaving cream brush, two smooth black stones, and more. In an accompanying essay, Weiser terms it a personal “Wunderkammer.” It’s a cabinet of curiosities, to be sure.
