The Hindu : New Delhi News : Shaping Oriental culture on potter’s wheel

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Thursday, Jan 10, 2008
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Shaping Oriental culture on potter’s wheel

Madhur Tankha

A five-day Indo-Korean ceramic exhibition begins today

‘Interior Life’: Stain ceramic, stoneware by Trupti Patel.

NEW DELHI: A five-day international art exhibition featuring works of leading Indian and Korean ceramic artists opens at Gallerie Nvya here on Thursday.

Titled “Earth Synergy”, the Indo-Korean contemporary ceramic exhibition will see participation of 69 artists from both the countries. Living and working in different parts of India and Korea, their works depict their range and mastery over the medium, while collectively exhibiting the dynamism of contemporary ceramic art.

Cultural exchange

According to co-curator Jin Kyoung Kim, the cultural exchange between Indian traditional ceramics and Korean ceramic art -- namely the Goryeo celadon porcelain -- will create a new aspect of Oriental culture. “Our exhibition focuses on various themes. The first is the expression beyond the historical tradition and culture on the basis of unbound possibility of ceramic art. The second is the Korean and Indian traditional ceramics manufactured at this point in time that helps us to feel the new spirit melting inside the old tradition by the creation of unique and changed forms.”

Speaking about ceramic art in Korea and India, Kristine Michael, co-curator of Earth Synergy, says: “Earlier, Korea experienced conflicts of ideology, from both Japanese and Western countries and had to re-evaluate Korean art theory in terms of aesthetic, uniqueness and its analytical process. India already had nearly a century of art education through regional art and design colleges by the time of Independence. Ceramics had been a core subject in the J.J. School of Art, Mumbai, the Madras School of Art, the Jaipur School of Art and Banaras Hindu University. In the late 1950s ceramic art was acknowledged as an academic subject with degree programmes at both the BA and MA levels.”

From the artists

One of the participants, Choi Jae il, says most of what he creates are products of long hours spent in kneading, repeatedly flattening and pressing. “The resultant vessels contain the hope of these hours. Can the hopes contained in my vessels be transmitted in the form of a wave to someone having my same wavelength, who attentively looks at them, touches them? And can this wave become a kind of seduction, to make someone unknown to me happy?”

Indian artist Angad Vohra says pottery fascinates him because of the completeness of the discipline; one is artist, engineer, physicist, chemist, manager all rolled into one: “Also an alchemist. No other medium combines all of these disciplines and, what is more, one doesn’t need to be very educated to be a potter.”

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