Contemporary Clay 2021

Vitamin C: Clay and Ceramic in Contemporary Art by Clare Lilley; Phaidon Editors A global survey of 100 of today's most important clay and ceramic artists, chosen by leading art world professionals. Vitamin C celebrates the revival of clay as a material for contemporary visual artists, featuring a wide range of global talent as selected by the world's leading curators, critics, and art professionals. Clay and ceramics have in recent years been elevated from craft to high art material, with the resulting artworks being coveted by collectors and exhibited in museums around the world. Packed with illustrations, Vitamin C is a vibrant and incredibly timely survey - the first of its kind.

Ceramics by Kate Singleton; Danielle Krysa (Foreword by) From cups shaped like crystals to a tree trunk made of porcelain and stoneware planters painted to look like ladies, popular curator and blogger Kate Singleton collects here whimsical pieces with narrative, graphic, curious, and organic qualities that blur the line between fine art, design, and craft.

Ceramics and the Human Figure by Edith Garcia The human figure has been represented in clay throughout history, and continues to evolve today. This text features the works of a range of international ceramic artists, all practicing within the fields of installation and sculpture.

Clay by Amber Creswell Bell From decorative pieces to the beautiful but functional, to sculptural works pushing the boundaries of the medium, Clay surveys the rich creative output of fifty of the top studio potters from around the world. It is a celebration of a new generation of artisans working in clay, a snapshot not necessarily of what is happening at the elite gallery level but rather a behind-the-scenes look at unique and eclectic offerings, both functional and sculptural, from small studios around the world.

Cast: art and objects, made using humanity's most transformational process by Jen Townsend; Renée Zettle-Sterling

Sloppy Craft by Elaine Cheasley Paterson (Editor); Susan Surette (Editor)

Form and Relation: Contemporary Native Ceramics Bringing together recent acquisitions, commissioned works, and loans directly from artists' studios, this book urges audiences to reconsider and expand their understanding of what constitutes Native American ceramics. Form and Relation introduces new forms that demonstrate the ability of ceramics to hold complexity and wrestle with concepts like community, identity, gender, land, extraction, global climate change, colonialism, language, and responsibility.

Confrontational Ceramics by Judith S. Schwartz Clay may start out soft, but in the right hands, it can deliver a hard blow. From British Toby Jugs to Marcel Duchamp's Fountain to a wall of gruesome tiles that forms a portrait of President George W. Bush, ceramic art has the power to provoke and subvert. Confrontational Ceramics surveys the work of contemporary sculptors, potters, and mixed media artists who have turned the ancient medium of clay into an articulate vehicle for political and social commentary. Provocative pieces from makers such as Grayson Perry, Robert Arneson, Richard Notkin, Howard Kottler, as well as newer talents, address personal, social, and geopolitical injustices from rape to racism.

Live Form by Jenni Sorkin Sorkin focuses on three Americans who promoted ceramics as an advanced artistic medium: Marguerite Wildenhain, a Bauhaus-trained potter and writer; Mary Caroline (M. C.) Richards, who renounced formalism at Black Mountain College to pursue new performative methods; and Susan Peterson, best known for her live throwing demonstrations on public television. Together, these women pioneered a hands-on teaching style and led educational and therapeutic activities for war veterans, students, the elderly, and many others. Far from being an isolated field, ceramics offered a sense of community and social engagement, which, Sorkin argues, crucially set the stage for later participatory forms of art and feminist collectivism.