Inner City
September 25, 2009-January 3, 2010
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Arnie Zimmerman, Inner City (detail) |
Inner City is an installation of more than 180 figurative and architectural ceramic elements by Arnie Zimmerman, one of the most significant contemporary artists working in ceramics today. The exhibition encapsulates the human condition: men are engaged in activities ranging from the grandest of feats to the repetitive aspects of the everyday, as they build buildings and carry out mundane chores. Are we destined to mark time and be doomed to endless Sisyphusian tasks or is there progress and achievement? Like the densely populated paintings of Breugel and Ensor, Zimmerman’s work is rooted in the myriad details of ordinary experience and at the same time it seems fantastical. His figures reflect ceramic traditions as much as they comment on contemporary urban life. Zimmerman received a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred. In 2005, he was awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship. Inner City is a collaboration with the architect Tiago Montepegado, who designs the site-specific architectural framework for the ceramic sculpture. Previous versions of Inner City were shown in Europe at Museu da Electricidade in Lisbon (2007) and Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden, the Netherlands (2008). Ana Viegas, Ratton Gallery, Lisbon, organized the initial presentation of Inner City at the Electricity Museum.
Read the press release.
Related programming
Thursday, October 22, 2009, 2 pm
Michael P. Metcalf Auditorium, Chace Center
Artist Lecture: Arnie Zimmerman
The artist discusses his work, including Inner City, currently installed at the Museum. Free with Museum admission; sponsored by the Pottery and Porcelain Club.
Wednesday, November 19, 2009, 6:30 pm
Michael P. Metcalf Auditorium, Chace Center
Perspectives on Contemporary Ceramics
The gallant and coy figures of eighteenth century decorative porcelains find contemporary resonance in Arnie Zimmerman's ceramic laborers who toil and muddle through a gentrified metropolis in the exhibition Inner City. In this panel discussion artist Arnie Zimmerman, Lawrence Bush, Associate Professor and Department Head of Ceramics, and Judith Tannenbaum, Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art consider contemporary ceramic practices in relation to the medium's history, avant-garde discourse, and the prevailing strategies of contemporary art.
