Keeping an Open Mind to Meissen

Last week I had a day trip up to Sacramento that included the Crocker Museum.  Currently most of the special exhibits are Japan-focused, including two shows of contemporary ceramics. Japanamerica — Points of Contact explores the role and influence Japanese art on the United States through a century of international expos and world’s fairs. There is also an exhibit with the photography of Ansel Adams from the Japanese-American internment camp at Manzanar.  They are beautiful and stunning photos from an ugly, sad and shameful chapter in American History.

There was one exhibit that I knew I did not need to see.  Forbidden Fruit – Chris Antemann at Meissen.  Sure, as an artist I can appreciate the craftsmanship.  But from my point of view, Meissen porcelain is at the high end of the spectrum of old lady knick-knacks.  Starting at the bottom with the offerings of the Lillian Vernon catalog, to Hummel, to the Franklin Mint to museum-worthy Meissen.  It is one big yawn.

As I passed by the sun filled room, I was like, okay, sure, I might as well have a look….

I love them.  Technically the sculptor Chris Antemann has created beautiful work.  At a quick glance yeah, Meissen — at second glance, what, wait a minute….   They are so naughty.  I can’t resist saying it, but she put the bone back in bone china. 

I was tempted to camp out and wait for a few of the ladies-who-do-lunch to come and have a look and be all, well, titillated. 

The show is in Sacramento until June 25, 2017.  You can get a video preview here. 

Bodyscapes

Bodyscapes Series, mixed media on canvas, 6”x6” each

Grids are a common occurrence in my collages and I often create individual square pieces for different series with the intention of showing them in grids.  A few years before the 2011 Project, back in 2003, I was working on a series of what I called Bodyscapes.  They were all square format, males nudes just showing a portion of the body.  Partly the idea came about as a response to my own question of how to depict the male nude.  And, anyone familiar with my landscape work will recognize that no matter what I paint, I have a tendency to make everything look like desert rocks, hence the name Bodyscapes.  I also wanted to add an erotic element to the work.  The erotic content itself is not subtle, but only visible when one views the sides of the canvases and realizes they are wrapped in material such as old newspapers, comics and especially pages from queer, erotic paperbacks from the 1960’s and 1970s (see below).  Some selections from the series are shown above.