CRMCS#1 – An ode to the visual power of clay
CRMCS#1 is an exhibition that came out of a meeting, but also because of an appetite and enthusiasm for it. When gallerist Elke Helbig of Zwart Huis met ceramicist Kris Campo there was an instant appetite and enthusiasm to celebrate and honour the ceramic arts, their expressive power, their sensuality, tactility, sense of spectacle and the visual richness of clay as an artistic vehicle.
Helbig asked Kris Campo to curate eight contemporary artists. Some of them consciously call themselves ‘ceramicists’, basically meaning they have studied ceramics and mainly work with clay as their artistic medium. Others come from the worlds of painting or sculpture, or more recently even from the conceptual arts, and have gradually started to include ceramics into their work alongside other materials. The overriding common denominator, though, is that they all see themselves as ‘visual artists’ and work with ceramics as the medium for their art. CRMCS#1 is made up of around 40 works chosen for the exhibition space based on their colour, shape, and originality and how frivolous they are. Works from individual artists have been combined into one sculptural project. Nowadays it’s rather unconventional to find works from such diverging angles in one and the same exhibition, let alone seeing them actually combined into a single work. This is precisely how CRMCS#1offers a completely independent view of the place of ceramics in our visual landscape.
photos © Vincent Everarts
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