Ann Linnemann studio gallery

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PLANES OF CLAY
Gerd Hiort Petersen DK & Samuel Chung USA
Exhibition d. 8 May – 7 June 2014
Opening reception Thursday 8 May at 16-19.00

Between heaven and earth clouds and rocks converge in abstract planes..
Gerd Hiort Petersen and Samuel Chung exhibit ceramic works, where the spacious organic form is touched by geometric planes.
They work in very different ways, but the exhibition also shows the connection between Danish and American-Korean ceramics.

Samuel Chung relates his porcelain jars to Korean culture, but breaks the tradition with Scandinavian inspiration and symbolic geometric form elements in his 'Cloud Vessels'.

Gerd Hiort Petersen shows painterly sculptural pieces that are seemingly penetrated by rock formations inspired by the nature of Bornholm island, as well as models for church commissions.

The exhibition PLANES OF CLAY presents composite complex ideas, thoughts and motives, made in ceramics with a common ground for two very different ceramic artists residing respectively in Arizona and Bornholm.

The pieces contain layers of meaning and symbolism mirroring personal visions, tradition, beliefs and culture.

Their works reveal in their shapes, decorations and sensuality a spatial feeling - and on several levels, religious symbolism and cultural references. Surfaces and areas are broken up adding depth to the piece's narrative.

Gerd Hiort Petersen works with earth and nature with an almost palpable inspiration, but uses symbols, colours and areas with pictorial suggestions that are not immediately understood.

Samuel Chung shows a similar clarity in his large cartoonish clouds where simple lines lie on the surface, contributing to determine the shape and define abstract colour areas.

There are earth, rock and dark colours in Gerd's work while there are air, sky and bright colours with Chung; but they leave the viewer with a feeling that all is not read, - unknown meanings and hidden thoughts are to be found in the pieces.

Gerd Hiort Petersen DK
A splendid composition of works describes Gerd Hiort Petersen's outlook on life and visionary approach to the use of ceramic materials, together with her close connection to the nature of Bornholm.

Gerd Hiort Petersen shows large sculptural jars and vessels, ceramic paintings on wall-mounted plates, as well as models of altarpieces and crosses for her church commissions.

Her painterly decorated pieces can be seen as complex sculptural utilitarian objects, sculptures with references to function and sculptural images each with their own story.

Church art is very important in Gerd Hiort Petersen's body of work.

She is highly recognized for her beautiful church commissions that reflect her personal, reflective sense of space, tradition and liturgy.
The exhibition displays a few models of her altars and crosses.

Gerd Hiort Petersen is one of Denmark's major ceramic artists with a long and productive career.
Many ambiguous tracks have set their mark through a long life with ceramics from the first studio pottery training on the island, continuing education at the Arts&Crafts/Design School in Copenhagen, and a work period of design and art at the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory and numerous travels around the world to Japan, South America, Korea, China, Europe and returning to Bornholm as a homely idyllic base for studio and living.

Since 1973, Gerd Hiort Petersen has had her ceramic studio on the island with her husband and colleague Hans Munck Andersen. They have exhibited, travelled and worked in Denmark and abroad.
Gerd Hiort Petersen was born on Bornholm in 1937. Member of International Academie de la Ceramique, IAC.

Samuel Chung USA
”A consistent point of departure for my work has been the ceramic vessel and playing with the balance between form, function and design.

I am interested in the way that pots have the unique ability to serve a multitude of roles and functions.

They can exhibit decorative beauty, bring attention to more functional/tactile concerns, and also create historical, cultural and experiential associations.
I work within the context of pottery to exploit its universal familiarity and impose my own vision for merging historically and culturally disparate influences.

I am curious about the relationships I see amongst various forms of creative expression from both past and present, and try to bring forth a new language of pottery for the future.

For this exhibition, I have been working around the cloud motif, which originated from seeking out a design motif that had a link to my Korean lineage. This motif has been integrated with some traditional Korean pottery forms to give the work a new context."

Samuel Chung was born in 1970. He has a Master of Fine Art (1994-97) from Arizona State University, where he has taught since 2007.

Samuel Chung has exhibited in the United States, China, Korea, Italy and Denmark.
He is active in the organization NCECA, which annually organizes international symposia for teachers and professional potters and ceramic artists in various states in the United States, and he has received several awards, scholarships, guest artist positions and worked as artist-in-residence in China and Denmark.

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TIME and SPACE - Bodil Manz
Exhibition 3 April - 3 May 2014
(Closed during Easter 12-21 April)

Contexts - assemblage of ceramic pieces in time and space..
Bodil Manz has been called the Graphic Artist of Ceramic Art par excellence, whether she draws in a slender, delicate line as a personal signature, or uses coloured ceramic transfers in an infinite variety of richness.

For this exhibition Bodil Manz has identified new contexts, composed her known types of forms, images and ideas in a exciting assemblage together with new pieces.
The work expresses cultural reference and relates to places and times, reflecting a timeless sense of clarity.
Compositions, translations reveal her form and material curiosity, an analytical variance of ceramic materials and firings, - where each peace can be seen in the light of opposite philosophies. Yet her work binds together - in an indefinable sense of time and space.

Graphic lines dissipate the transparency of cylindrical shapes and create geometric plays of shadow that equal architectural built sculptures, in connection with natural raw organic sand casts where refined shades erupt through unpolished surfaces.
Refinement and elegance meet with a related series of angular shapes, brightly coloured lines and planes. The pieces' narratives condense a lifetime of work and reflect multiple contemporary expressions and inner visions reflecting a personal aesthetic, a sensitive sensual force and a sophisticated character of resoluteness.

Bodil Manz belongs to the international elite of ceramic artists represented in major museums and private collections worldwide.

Her work is characterized by a continual exploration and experimental activity, that among many other projects have resulted in wall installations, sand-cast porcelain pieces and architectural sculptures.
Bodil Manz masters the transformation of a geometric-abstract thoughts of mind from surface decoration to three-dimensional work.
She constantly challenges herself and the viewer of her work.

Bodil Manz is known for her subtle, abstract decorations on paper-thin simple forms. A detailed examination of transparent cylindrical and geometric shapes with fine colourful graphic lines and planes transforms surface decoration into three-dimensional pieces.
The cylinders, developed since 1990, are diverse in size and character, some smooth and others in relief applied decoration in coloured ceramic transfer prints that during the the firing process melt into the porcelain. The transparency of the thin vessels causes the exterior and interior decoration to combine into one composition, a magical image.

The paper-thin and transparent cylinders stand as a highlight, but throughout her career, Bodil Manz has experimented and pursued complementary challenges in expression and technique, working with the full range from her early years of expressionist works, studio and industrial production of objects to ceramic commissions and 'panels' in plaster and sand-cast porcelain.
She is a master of creating fragile vessels of personal strength, identity and poetry, and performs again and again with excellent results from new ideas and unusual aspects of her oeuvre.
Fragility and transparency are characteristics of some of the works, functional elegance and geometric ingenuity or sensual raw material and shapes contrast to others. In recent years, her constant exploration of the possibilities of the material has also resulted in the re-use of previous form elements combined and assembled into new sculptural pieces.

Bodil Manz comes from an Art & Craft's background and has maintained a close relationship to the ceramic texture and reference to 'the vessel', the container, but she has throughout a long and actively experienced life developed the tradition of function further into a unique sculptural and personal level.
The pieces express strength because of their respective character related to their creator, her passion and areas of interest, her curious ingenuity, technical methods and material knowledge.

In 2008 at the Design Museum Denmark (formerly The Danish Museum of Art&Craft), it was time to create an overview of the artist's rich ceramic career. The exhibition highlighted the full range of Bodil Manz' work from her early years of expressionist works to recent year's cylinders with geometric, abstract graphics, 'Transparent Zen'. Bodil Manz has for 40 years developed a mastery where the paper thin and transparent cylinders stand as one of the highlights. The exhibition covered her entire ceramic field from studio and factory production of everyday functional ware to ceramic commissions and magical one-off pieces.
She experiments and is still looking for new challenges in expression and technique from the panels in plaster, sand-cast porcelain and handmade paper for large geometric works.
"Artistic quality is always there when someone is truly passionate investigating something."
The quote is from an interview with Bodil and Richard Manz in 1993.
Publication of the book 'The Ceramist Bodil Manz' - New Nordic Publishing Arnold Busk, ISBN 978-87-17-03957-5. 230 pages, illustrated, Danish and English.

For the exhibition CUTS AND INTERVENTION: Bodil Manz and Bente Skjøttgaard at Copenhagen Ceramics 2012, Bodil Manz decided to examine her own ceramic history. She took apart her moulds used for previous works, recycled and reinterpreted these forms and tools for new pieces which were then assembled with new mouldings, as a kind of track of her workshop through time.

The exhibition FRAGILE in Ann Linnemann Gallery 2012 presented Bodil Manz' sets of cups with graphic compositions that was shining through the porcelain and magically revealed a new expression and tone for each new point of view. This exhibition also showed ceramic pieces by her Danish colleagues Jane Reumert, Malene Müllertz and Heidi Hentze.

Bodil Manz has travelled extensively since her graduation from the Danish School of Applied Arts in 1965, from the Escula the Disefio y Artesanians in Mexico in 1966 and the University of California, Berkeley in 1967, where she worked with the great American expressionist ceramist Peter Voulcos, to Bahrain, China and Korea.
After the meeting with Richard Manz (1933-99) at the Gustavsberg porcelain factory in 1967, they established a studio and collaborated on major commission assignments such as the Farum Swimming Pool (1978-79) and the National Museum of Bahrain (1987-88), and a production of utilitarian objects in porcelain and stoneware. Among the many awards she has received are the Thorvald Bindesbøll Award in 2001, Danmarks Nationalbank's Anniversary Foundation's honorary award in 2010, and in 2007 the Grand Prize, 4th World Ceramic Biennale 2007 Korean International Competition. She has shown numerous exhibitions in Denmark and abroad.
She is a member of the Danish exhibition group 'Ceramic Ways' and the International Academie de la Ceramique, IAC.