Dysfunctional

Holly Macdonald

Opening 05.07.18 6-8pm
Artist Talks 27.07.18 6-7pm

Does the description ‘dysfunctional’ imply that something isn’t working? Or does it imply that something is working in ways that it shouldn’t? It is a relative term that responds to the way a thing is defined in the first place i.e. is the thing a teacup or a t-shirt or a sculpture? If the thing is undefined or ambiguous, function and dysfunction become interchangeable in positioning ourselves in relation to the thing.

Dysfunctional, the exhibition, presents as a series of trials that use conventional ceramic techniques and materials subversively in order to destroy the idea of the functional vessel. Obsolescence of function is realised by uncoiling the vessel, cutting into and away at its form, pummeling it out flat. The vessel departs the plinth, and is relocated on the wall, suspended from the ceiling, and relegated to the floor. As the clay object is deconstructed the focus shifts from form to medium, eluding definitions such as ‘bowl’, ‘vase’ or ‘cup’. Theatrical small-scale installations use humour and the absurd as exuberant strategies to implicate the vessel in its own reimagining.

In this project of redefinition, one might look to theorist (and ceramicist) Paul Mathieu who observes that, “If handmade objects have become largely useless in a practical sense, they nonetheless remain socially essential, as receptacles for the imagination and memory of humankind, memory of knowledge and experiences” (p. 125, 2007). More recently, Jenni Sorkin has looked past the ceramic object to the temporal, spatial and psychological conditions of its production. Sorkin examines the recent history of the discipline through recourse to key women practitioners whose engagement with the medium was performative, collaborative and pedagogical in nature (2016).

The impulse to redefine seems ironic, considering Dysfunctional reacts against the characteristic limitations of definition. A new set of criteria expands into the vacant space of possibility that the functional vessel previously occupied. A pause between is in order. As Albert Camus said “Avec le vide, les pleins pouvoirs” (“With the void comes unrestricted power!”) (My exclamation.)

References

Gogarty, A, Mireille, P & Chambers, R (eds.) 2007, ‘Object Theory’ by Paul Mathieu, in Utopic Impulses, Ronsdale Press, Vancouver, p. 111-127

Sorkin, J 2016, Live Form, University of Chicago Press, Chicago