Playing With Fire

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Judy Chartrand, “Counteract” (detail), 2006 (Rennie Collection; photo by Alina Ily)

Engaging with contemporary issues such as racism, migration and identity, Playing with Fire: Ceramics of the Extraordinary highlights the breadth of non-functional ceramics practice in British Columbia. 

The exhibition, which includes more than 35 works by 11 internationally recognized ceramic artists, is curated by Carol Mayer and on view at the UBC Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver until March 29. 

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Debra Sloan, “Border Line,” 2018 (collection of the artist; photo by Alina Ilyasova, courtesy of UBC Museum of Anthropology)

Histories run like threads throughout this exhibition. Vancouver’s Debra Sloan encountered narratives of persecution and forced migration via the museum’s collection of 17th- and 18th-century Anabaptist Haban ware from Europe. During a year-long residency, she worked with the collection, incorporating her response into signature figures. Works such as Border Line and Container Tile, both made in 2018, speak compassionately to victims of violence and forced relocation. 

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Judy Chartrand, “Go back to your own Country,” 2016 (Rennie collection; photo by Alina Ilyasova, courtesy of UBC Museum of Anthropology)

Produced in Vancouver in the 1950s, David Lambert’s commercial crockery, decorated with Indigenous imagery, provokes questions about appropriation. By way of contrast, Judy Chartrand, a Manitoba Cree who grew up in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side, confronts history with her Cabinet of Contention, 2001, and Counteract, 2006. 

The former consists of a cabinet filled with simulated soup cans with labels reading “Racism,” “Colonialism” and “Poverty.” The cabinet door states “Oh Canada Your Home is Native Land.” Counteract recreates a lunch counter in the “All White Café,” complete with racist memorabilia featuring Black, Asian and Indigenous peoples. The impact is powerful and disturbing, particularly in a museum setting.

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Gathie Falk, “Single Right Men’s Shoes: Bootcase with 9 Black Boots,” 1973 (Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery; photo by Rachel Topham, Vancouver Art Gallery)

Glenn Lewis’ 1969 Artifact and Gathie Falk’s 1973 Boot Case with Nine Black Boots recollect the early days of Vancouver’s alternative art scene. Both artists were influenced by prevailing norms of radical, experimental and anti-establishment art, and both found their subject matter in everyday objects and events. 

Controversy overtook the subtler meanings of Lewis’ work, which was commissioned by the Canadian government for the 1970 World’s Fair in Osaka, Japan, but later rejected for its suggestive imagery. Wall-mounted rows of date-stamped tiles feature slumped and broken salt shakers framed by text narrating an amusing account of the artist’s daily activities. The work captures a specific ethos, time and place in Vancouver’s history.

Bill Rennie’s diorama-like portrait of his childhood home in Surrey, Where I was Brought Up: 6949 Harris Road, from 1990, evokes history from a child’s point of view. Although the house no longer exists, Rennie’s lovingly detailed recreation fuses memory and longing to create something magical. 

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Jeremy Hatch, “Treehouse,” 2006 (collection of the artist; photo by Alina Ilyasova, courtesy of UBC Museum of Anthropology)

Jeremy Hatch, a Canadian-born sculptor who teaches at Montana State University, creates the technically demanding and remarkable Treehouse, using the whiteness of porcelain to suggest a ghostly presence or iconic childhood memory. Consisting of a life-sized, slip-cast cherry tree and dilapidated structure, Treehouse activates the imagination on a primal level. Casting functions as a photograph, preserving all of the details yet relegating the image to an unrecoverable past.

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Ian Johnston, “The Antechamber” (detail), 2010-2012 (collection of the artist; photo courtesy of the artist)

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Ian Johnston, “The Antechamber,” 2010-2012 (collection of the artist; photo courtesy of the artist)

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Ian Johnston, based in Nelson, B.C., reprises the history of technological inventions with a room-sized installation, The Antechamber. Using a vacuum-forming process of his own invention, he pressed hundreds of silk-screened clay slabs over antiquated objects such as rotary telephones and incandescent light bulbs to produce three-dimensional wall tiles. The tiles appear identical, but small flaws and variations in the pressing give each a hand-made appearance. Playing on ceramics’ obsession with the multiple, Johnston critiques the enormous scale of mass production and its inevitable waste.

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Ying-Yueh Chuang, “Cross Series #3," 2008 (collection of the artist: photo courtesy of the artist)

Taiwanese-born Ying-Yueh Chuang explores social issues and cultural identity. In Flower Series, 2011, she contrasts the whiteness of imperial porcelain with colourful printed fabric to question inequalities between rich and poor. A shimmering array of pastel, hybrid plants in her Cross Series #3, 2008, conjures up paradise. Marrying craftsmanship with an exquisite sensibility towards materials and form, she creates visions of a more equitable world.

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Brendan Tang, “Manga Ormolu Ver.4.0-h,” 2009 (UBC Museum of Anthropology collection; photo courtesy of the artist)

Also addressing cultural issues, Brendan Lee Satish Tang draws on his diasporic heritage to create playful vessels mixing Asian and pop culture motifs with mechanical components of mysterious purpose. Collaborating with fellow artist Alex McLeod, his innovative #lovechild, 2011, literally comes alive as moving digital images are projected onto it. Viewers reflected in a mirror are incorporated into the piece and offered new ways to interact with the work.

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Alwyn O’Brien, “Tree of Life” (detail), 2019 (collection of the artist; photo by Alina Ilyasova, courtesy of UBC Museum of Anthropology)

The vitality of the hand marks Alwyn O’Brien’s vessel-based sculptures, constructed from masses of delicate, hand-pinched coils. In Tree of Life: Ocean of Generosity, tangled coils drenched in luscious pastel glazes coalesce into blossoms and leaves or twist rhythmically into space, calling to mind 17th-century Baroque paintings. O’Brien’s lyrical and beautiful works evade specific interpretations but speak eloquently to the fragility and mystery of existence.

Playing with Fire offers a unique opportunity to see important Canadian works beautifully installed in a context where viewers can make connections and appreciate the diversity of contemporary ceramics. ■

Playing with Fire: Ceramics of the Extraordinary, curated by Carol Mayer, is on view at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC in Vancouver from Nov. 22, 2019 to March 29, 2020.

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