Exhibition Schedule
Eden Revisited: The Ceramic Art of Kurt Weiser
Overview: The ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center is organizing the first major mid-career survey exhibition on the ceramic work of Kurt Weiser. Weiser is a Regents' Professor in the ASU Herberger College of the Arts and maintains a studio in Tempe, Arizona. An unassuming genius, the artist is known for his technical mastery and inventive pottery forms. This hallmark exhibition comprises 40 ceramic sculptures drawn from the ASU Art Museum permanent collection, private and public collections nationwide and spans 30 years of creative excellence. Peter Held, curator of ceramics, curates the exhibition.
Kurt Weiser in his studio |
Kurt Weiser: Born in 1950, Weiser’s signature China-painted porcelain vessels constitutes a groundbreaking development in the vessel tradition. The emotional content of the work focuses on the nature of desire, tenderly in and out of harmony with nature, providing a rich narrative with lush imagery. Many major artists came out of Weiser’s alma mater, the Kansas City Art Institute, under the tutelage of ceramics master Ken Ferguson. Weiser received his BFA. in 1972 and his MFA. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1976. From 1977 to 1988, he was resident director of the famed Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, located in Helena, Montana. He was honored as a Fellow of the American Craft Council in 2003.
Artist’s Statement: For years, the work I did in ceramics was an effort to somehow express the beautiful nature of the material. As interesting as this exploration was, I always had the vague feeling that the best expression was if the material only came as a gift of nature. The problem was, nature and I never got along that well. Somewhere in the midst of this struggle, I realized that the materials are there to allow me to say what I need to say, not to tell me what to say. So I gave up trying to control nature and decided to use what I had learned about the materials to express some ideas about nature itself and my place in it.
Weiser's Eden Revisited Installation at the Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, Washington
Public Collections: Weiser’s work can be found in the public collections of the ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center, Tempe, Arizona; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, North Carolina; Newark Museum of Art, Newark, New Jersey; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Ceramics, Shigaraki, Japan; Helsinki Museum of Applied Arts, Helsinki, Finland; National Museum of History, Republic of China, Taipei, Taiwan, among others.
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For more information, contact:
Peter Held
Curator of Ceramics
ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center
480.727.8173
peter.held@asu.edu
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