Strange Clay at the Hayward Gallery: a ‘punchy’ and ‘stimulating’ exhibition
This ‘impressive’ new show explores how artists are using clay to create weird and wonderful work
Mankind has been shaping clay for “more than 12,000 years”, said Emma Crichton-Miller in the FT. We have used it to create everything from bricks and tools to ornaments, and the material bears a heavy “metaphorical load”: it even plays a key role in some “myths of human origin”. And while it was once looked down on by the art establishment, pottery is currently “booming”: in the world of contemporary art, the success of potters such as Grayson Perry is helping to overturn any snobbery once directed its way.
This new exhibition is an “extensive” survey of how artists around the world are exploiting clay’s potential to create weird and wonderful work that could not exist in any other medium. Bringing together contributions from 23 international artists, from the likes of Perry to virtual unknowns, it reveals how the material “can give strangeness expression”, and it can also make “the familiar strange”. The result is an extremely “impressive” show.
Much of the work here is “underscored by humour”, said Nancy Durrant in the London Evening Standard. Jonathan Baldock, for instance, fields a series of “vast totems exploring myth and folklore”, many of which are adorned with “casts of his own ears or hands” and “emoticons scattered about like ritual hieroglyphs”. Klara Kristalova, meanwhile, gives us a “thoroughly weird” installation of 18 stoneware figures featuring “plants with eyes” and “fairies with mushrooms for mouths”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Other works are “more austere”, if no less peculiar: Iranian-born Shahpour Pouyan gives us an “elegant” series of works based on “historic rooftops, rendered at small scale and displayed like so many soup tureens”. My favourite piece was David Zink Yi’s Untitled (Architeuthis), a dead giant squid, “exquisitely rendered in gleaming ceramic, its slimy glazes asking: is this ink or oil? Is that pollution or a natural secretion? If I get close to it, will it grab my ankle?”
A “dreary and pretentious” installation by the star potter Edmund de Waal is weak, though, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times. It consists of nine glass cases filled with “tiny ceramic cylinders” that supposedly communicate “a human presence, or a benign haunting”: it is “palpably ludicrous”. Yet, this misstep aside, the show is bags of fun.
There is real invention here, not least in a piece by Emma Hart that somehow makes ceramic tiles simulate the view through a wet car windscreen. Better still is Lindsey Mendick’s effort, which uses “a huge tonnage of painted clay to recreate an entire house being overrun by vermin” – octopuses emerge from the lavatory, while the kitchen is overrun with slugs “so huge they can wield a sushi knife”. It’s just one highlight of a “punchy event” at this “reliably stimulating” gallery.
Hayward Gallery, London SE1 (020-3879 9555, southbankcentre.co.uk). Until 8 January
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
'Making a police state out of the liberal university'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
8 looming climate tipping points that imperil our planet
The Explainer New reports detail the thresholds we may be close to crossing
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Try 6 free issues of The Week Junior
Spark your child's curiosity with The Week Junior - the award-winning current affairs magazine for 8-14s.
By The Week Published
-
Daniel Wallace's 5 favorite books that should not be forgotten
Feature The author recommends works by Italo Calvino, Evan S. Connell, and more
By The Week US Published
-
6 picturesque homes in Arizona
Feature Featuring a glass elevator in Sedona and a grotto waterfall in Paradise Valley
By The Week Staff Published
-
Silversea cruise review: a Central and North American adventure
The Week Recommends An incredible journey featuring cultural exploration, cooking classes, comfort and more
By Yasemen Kaner-White Published
-
Baffin Island: looking for narwhal in Arctic Canada
The Week Recommends An exploration of this island between mainland Canada and Greenland is ideal for the adventurous at heart
By The Week UK Published
-
Knife: Salman Rushdie's 'mesmeric memoir' of brutal attack
The Week Recommends The author's account of ordeal which cost him his eye is both 'scary and heartwarming'
By The Week Staff Published
-
Sarah Langan recommends 6 women-centric horror books
Feature The horror novelist recommends works by Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and more
By The Week US Published
-
6 spacious homes for car lovers
Feature Featuring a 14-car showroom in Oregon and a Bentley-style apartment in Florida
By The Week Staff Published
-
6 serene homes in Vermont
Features Featuring a four-level Shaker barn in Hartland and a Scandinavian-inspired home in Stowe
By The Week US Published