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February Issue
2011
Asheville Art Museum in Asheville,
NC, Features Works by Karen Karnes
The Asheville Art Museum in Asheville, NC,
is presenting A Chosen Path: The Ceramic Art of Karen Karnes,
on view in the Museum's Appleby Foundation Gallery, through June
26, 2011.
The Asheville Art Museum is pleased to be one of five museums
nationwide to host the first major retrospective of ceramic artist
Karen Karnes. For more than 60 years Karnes (1925 ) has
been at the forefront of the studio pottery movement. Over her
long career, she has created some of the most iconic pottery of
the late 20th and early 21st centuries. She has worked in some
of the most significant cultural settings of her generation including
North Carolina's avant-garde Black Mountain College in the 1950s.
Karnes and her then husband, David Weinrib, were invited in 1952
to head the ceramics program at Black Mountain College. While
at Black Mountain College, Karnes sold her pieces through the
Allanstand Shop, now part of the Southern Highland Craft Guild.
After two years, the couple left Black Mountain and moved to Stony
Point, New York. Karnes is noted for her functional pieces as
well as her organic sculptural forms. Since 1983, Karnes and her
partner, Ann Stannard, have lived on a farm in Vermont.
Karnes's artistic output is recognized for its understated, quietly
poetic surfaces and sublime biomorphic forms. From her dramatic
salt-glazed pottery of the 1960s and 70s to her most recent complex
joined sculptural pieces, Karnes consistently has challenged herself
- with the unintentional consequence of irreversibly transforming
the medium. She remains one of the most influential working potters
and is a mentor to several generations working in the field.
Peter Held, curator of ceramics at the Herberger Institute for
Design and the Arts, Arizona State University, shares his enthusiasm
for this important exhibition: "Karnes's career mirrors the
burgeoning craft field in the United States starting after World
War II. In the ensuing years she has produced work that is remarkable
for its depth, personal voice and consistent innovation."
This exhibit was organized by Arizona State University Art Museum
Ceramics Research Center, Tempe, AZ, and curated by Curator of
Ceramics Peter Held. A handsome catalogue with essays by Christopher
Benfey, Garth Clark, Jody Clowes, Peter Held, Janet Koplos, Edward
Lebow and Mark Shapiro is available for purchase in the Museum
Shop.
For further info check our NC Institutional Gallery listings,
call 828/253-3227 or visit (www.ashevilleart.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2011 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2011 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.