CONCORD, MASS.- Lacoste Gallery is presenting Danish Contemporary, September 17 – October 10, 2016, featuring Ann Linnemann and six new Danish ceramic talents: Charlotte Thorup, Heidi Hentze, Mikael Jackson, Kirsten Høholt, Marianne Nielsen and Theis Lorentzen.
Ann Linnemann, a highly respected Danish ceramic artist and gallerist (Ann Linnemann Gallery, Copenhagen) brings together for the first time in Concord MA, an exhibition exploring Danish contemporary ceramics in the postmodern world. Each artist brings his or her interpretations of ceramic art forms into their art practice by moving away from traditions and history. The artworks examine traditional Danish ceramic practices (high level of craft skills and detailing) while exploring new ideas and directions in forms and medium. While some concentrate on materials and textures, others are highly conceptual.
Every new artist here was personally selected by Linnemann to be featured in this show. Under her mentorship, they have soared in their chosen path and established ceramic art practices that are meaningfully new and innovative.
“I had the pleasure of visiting Ann at her gallery in Denmark two years ago. Together we decided to do this exhibition which she curated bringing these young ceramic artists to the Boston area. Denmark has a long tradition of ceramics. This new generation takes the medium beyond materials and process into idea and sculpture.“- Lucy Lacoste
About the artists:
MARIANNE NIELSEN is interested in the cultural underlying meaning of ceramics. The items modeled in clay are isolated from their original context. Her starting point is often universal phenomena in small and large scale. In recent years focus has been on plants and flowers.
MIKAEL JACKSON explores abstract concepts - vulnerability to strength, order to chaos, industrial to handmade. His work is the result of an investigation of the dynamics within a controlled form. He interprets these concepts in imaginative constructions and architectural ceramic compositions.
HEIDI HENTZE investigates porcelain and glaze in poetically folded pieces, meticulously assembled in paper-thin platelets. Based on inspiration from architecture and origami, she challenges with a superior technical ability the classical ceramic slab techniques, material and gravity.
CHARLOTTE THORUP is occupied with pattern and repetition, inspired by architecture and nature. Module by module lead to a new form of 'uneven spaces', where the many individual parts are assembled into one whole of organic metamorphosis.
KIRSTEN HØHOLT combines drawing and ceramics. Her pieces portray and comment on everyday reflections and language idiosyncrasies. The starting point is often Danish and also British puns, proverbs and sayings, playing with meaning and images deriving from the language.
THEIS LORENTZEN connects opposites - handmade with industrial, authentic with mass-produced, digital to analog, synthetic with the genuine. He fantasizes, satirizes and comments in an unpretentious, absurd and humorous way, that nevertheless contains a serious undertone.
ANN LINNEMANN presently concentrates on picturesque with glaze and ceramic color on hand-thrown vessel forms and ceramic sculpture based on historical themes and conceptual ideas. For this exhibition, her 'Forms of Forest' explore glaze techniques and concepts of image to decoration.
