MATERIAL, AGENCY AND EMBODIMENT: POTTERY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

In the lecture Stair will argue that the multi-modality of ceramics, and pottery in particular, operates as a significant artistic genre within the theoretical framework and praxis of contemporary art. In actively shaping experience through rituals that both embody and conceptualise narratives from the quotidian to the profound, from ‘breaking bread’ to mediating death, Stair situates pottery as providing an opportunity for philosophical re-evaluation of how institutions validate, and markets consume, art. In our increasingly atomised existence (through the advent of the metaverse), the materiality, agency and social locus of pottery remind us what it means to be human.

Julian Stair is one of the UK’s leading ceramic artists, exhibiting internationally since 1982 and with work in over 30 public collections including the V&A, British Museum, American Museum of Art & Design, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Japan, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Kolumba Museum, Cologne, and the Crafts Study Centre.

The Emmanuel Cooper Memorial Lecture is presented by the Crafts Study Centre in partnership with 318 Ceramics to celebrate the life and work of renowned potter Emmanuel Cooper.

For more information about previous speakers of the Emmanuel Cooper Memorial Lecture series CLICK HERE.

The lecture is free to attend but advance booking is essential