Adrienne SpinozziShapes From Out Of Nowhere : Ceramics from the Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection

“Forms from Nowhere: Ceramics from the Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection celebrates an extraordinary gift of 125 modern and contemporary ceramics by Robert A. Ellison Jr. to the Met in honor of the museum’s 150th anniversary. The exhibition will feature a selection of more than 75 works from this unparalleled collection that traces the evolution of abstraction in clay from the second half of the 20th century to the present.

The exhibition highlights the myriad approaches taken by artists who have challenged clay’s long history and dependence on the potter’s wheel – from slight deviations from traditional vessel forms to deconstructions that reject utility and exploit the limitless experimentation that clay allows. Mid-twentieth century works by artists Axel Salto, Ken Price, Toshiko Takaezu, Katherine Choy, Peter Voulkos and Win Ng sit alongside contemporary creations by Aneta Regel, Kathy Butterly, Syd Carpenter and Lynda Benglis, artists who continue to expand the possibilities of the material. The exhibition includes eight striking works by George Ohr, an artist of the late 19th century. These loans from Ellison’s private collection demonstrate Ohr’s radical vision and foreshadow the adoption of abstraction and non-representational forms by artists of the 1950s and 1960s.”