Live Form

Women, Ceramics, and Community

Jenni Sorkin

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Hardback

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English

University of Chicago Press
26 July 2016

Ceramics: artworks; History of the Americas; Gender studies: women

Ceramics had a far-reaching impact in the second half of the twentieth century, as its artists worked through the same ideas regarding abstraction and form as those for other creative mediums. Live Form shines new light on the relation of ceramics to the artistic avant-garde by looking at the central role of women in the field: potters who popularized ceramics as they worked with or taught male counterparts like John Cage, Peter Voulkos, and Ken Price.

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.

By: Jenni Sorkin
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 26mm, Width: 19mm, Spine: 2mm
Weight: 1.049kg
ISBN: 9780226303116
ISBN 10: 022630311X
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 26 July 2016
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jenni Sorkin is assistant professor in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Reviews for Live Form: Women, Ceramics, and Community

Live Form fills a void in the current scholarship on postwar art. Looking closely at the development of pottery, Sorkin is able to redress the dominant narratives that privilege both painting as the dominant medium and men as its primary practitioners. Instead, she offers us the essential roles played by crafts and women in creating the interdisciplinary and performance-based fabric of our current moment. --Helen Molesworth, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles