A Bit of Clay on the Skin
The Museum of Art and Design is running a show on ceramic jewelry entitled A Bit of Clay on the Skin. Exploring “the manifold appeal of ceramics, especially porcelain, in jewelry,” I expected this to be an impactful exhibit that perhaps gave an overview of the medium. And there were some statement pieces in the mix including Marie Pendariès The Dowry (show below) and the bold handicraft of Peter Hoogeboom whose pieces look like what would happen if porcelain and Africa had children.
But overall, this show seemed like it should be in a smaller museum or gallery, where one could breathe and take in the minutiae of each intricately made piece. Instead, the show was on the second floor atrium crowded into a corner and situated next to a tangentially related exhbit of Patrick Jouin‘s gesteral/comp-sci designed objects.
This cramped corner also hid the fact that there was a ton of work…just below the main glass display cases in drawers!! I absolutely loved the playful feeling one gets of browsing through drawers of jewelry but I would have missed out entirely on this experience if I hadn’t seen my friend pulling out the drawers. In my kid-gloves museum world, I simply thought that this was extra storage for museum pieces and almost chided my friend when I realized that the intention was to explore more jewelery from the collection. And perhaps I’m not the only one who went and (almost) missed this really personal way of relating to the work.
If you have a moment to go to MAD, I’d suggest going for the Global Africa Project which seems much more hefty of an exhibit to spend time on and is spread throughout three floors of the museum.
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