Exhibitions, Projects
Joanna Bird at Suzanne Lovell Inc
In November 2013, Joanna Bird visited Chicago for a pop-up exhibition in the studio of renowned interior designer Suzanne Lovell. The show coincided with SOFA Chicago, where Joanna had a stand and Suzanne had designed the VIP room.
Showing a range of contemporary and historic works in a variety of media, Joanna and Suzanne gave a talk about the importance of decorative arts within the home and the three dimensional experience.
Foundation
Marking the line Symposium at Somerset House
26 March 2013
In conjunction with the touring exhibition Marking the line: Ceramics and Architecture, The Joanna Bird Foundation organised a symposium to discuss the interplay between ceramics and architecture and their relevance for collectors, makers and museums today. The evening concluded with a candlelit tour of the exhibition at Sir John Soane’s Museum.
Speakers:
Eric Parry RA, Principal, Eric Parry Architects
Suzanne Lovell, Principal, Suzanne Lovell Inc.
Dr Jerzy Kierkuć-Bieliński, Exhibitions Curator, Sir John Soane’s Museum
Jan Tichelaar, Director, Royal Tichelaar Makkum
Joanna Bird, Curator, Director, The Joanna Bird Foundation
Jeremy Theophilus, Co-director of the British Ceramics Biennial
Eliza Gluckman, Curator, Day+Gluckman
Andrew Burton, Artist, Professor of Fine Art at Newcastle University
Chair: Dr Glenn Adamson, Head of Research, V&A
Themes of the symposium:
Contemporary ceramic installations in historic architectural settings.
Where do ceramics fit into the wider arts sector? How does place and historical reference affect both work and audiences?
How do installations in different historic contexts show work in a new light and how does this affect the artist, viewer and critic?
How can design factories, artists and architects explore artistic collaboration?
What is the future for crossover of architecture, interior design and ceramics?
Support from the Art Fund enabled curators from around the UK to attend the Marking the line symposium.
Visit our website to see more of the work that we do: https://www.joannabirdfoundation.com/
Exhibitions, Projects, Foundation
Marking the line: Ceramics and Architecture
7 March - 8 September 2013
Marking the line: Ceramic and Architecture was a touring exhibition, which commissioned four artists to create ceramic installations responding to the life and works of Sir John Soane. Curated by Joanna Bird and Dr Jerzy Kierkuć-Bieliński, Exhibitions Curator at Sir John Soane’s Museum, the exhibition sought to challenge where and how we view ancient and modern works of art.
Ceramic artists Nicholas Rena, Carina Ciscato, Clare Twomey and Christie Brown were commissioned to create life specific responses to celebrated neoclassical architect Sir John Soane, inspired by his work, life and collections. The concept was, by introducing contemporary ceramic art into an historic architectural setting to explore the relationship between ceramics and architecture.
The exhibition opened at Sir John Soane’s Museum on March 8, 2013 and then travelled onto two further houses designed or partially designed by Soane: Port Eliot in Cornwall and Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing.
Very different dialogues between work and historic setting emerged as the exhibition translated from one venue to the next. In Port Eliot for example, themes of dynasty in Christie Brown’s work resonated not only with the life of Soane but also with that of the St.Germans family at Port Eliot, so much so that Christie produced a further two pieces, busts of the 1st Lord & Lady St Germans, to enhance the exhibition.
‘This is a fascinating exhibition with contemporary artists taking inspiration from one of our most visionary architects. This is a show that should attract anyone with an interest in art, design and architecture and I hope it will introduce many more people to Soane’s work and legacy, including his gem of a Museum in Holborn and his home at Pitzhanger Manor.’ – Boris Johnson, Mayor of London
An educational programme accompanied the exhibition, including a symposium at Somerset House, Masterclasses run by Carina Ciscato and a Village of kilns at Port Eliot.
Marking the line: Ceramics and Architecture was supported by the Arts Council England and organised by The Joanna Bird Foundation
A fully illustrated catalogue is now available to buy at the price of £10 (+1.60 p&p). To order please email your details to info@joannabirdfoundation.com
Visit our website to see more of the work that we do: https://www.joannabirdfoundation.com/
Exhibitions
Michael Cardew, Pioneer Potter Exhibition
26 September - 3 October 2012
Joanna Bird presented a seminal group of works by Michael Cardew at the Fine Art Society, London to coincide with the launch of Tanya Harrod’s major biography The Last Sane Man: Michael Cardew: Modern Pots, Colonialism, and Counterculture published by Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
The exhibition included examples of Michael’s work throughout his career. These include bowls and lamps from Winchcombe, Abuja soy and talc pots and Wenford stem cups.
Michael Cardew was one of Bernard Leach’s first pupils. In 1926, he set up a traditional English pottery in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. His aim was to produce functional affordable pieces. He worked from grass roots, mixing his own clay body and all the pigments and glazes.
In 1939, he returned to Cornwall to set up a pottery at Wenford Bridge and in 1942, he established a pottery in Ghana. He trained West African potters and brought his western ideas and technology to the more traditional primitive pottery of West Africa.
Commissions
James Rigler Table
James Rigler was commissioned by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire to create a ceramic table, the commission was open to his interpretation within certain size limitations.
Rigler drew on his sculptural practice and previous experience with mixed media to create a table made up of five separate pieces. The final piece was created in ceramic, marble, wood, steel, gold leaf and rope.
Commissions
a sounding line by Edmund de Waal at Chatsworth
It has been a particular pleasure for Joanna to work with the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire on the installation they commissioned from British studio ceramicist Edmund de Waal.
The final work – now on display at Chatsworth – is the culmination of nearly two years’ discussion and decision-making. Entitled ‘a sounding line’, it reflects the connection Edmund felt with the historic porcelain in the State Rooms in the floor above his installation, which is located in the Chapel Passage.
Chatsworth is full of porcelain. Porcelain rests in vitrines and on desks, on mantelpieces and corbels, within fireplaces, on dining tables and stretching up to the ceiling in the porcelain room. There are formal garnitures and groupings, dinner services and wayward accretions, beautiful singletons and impressive masses: porcelain is as much a part of the texture of the place as the pictures and the furniture.
A sounding line came out of conversations with the Duke and Duchess, and the agency of Joanna Bird, to bring an installation of my porcelain into Chatsworth. Installation is ‘art-world speak’ for a sculptural grouping of work: it seemed crucial to find a way of resonating with the historic collections in a strong but sympathetic way.
The Chapel Corridor with its pairing of fireplaces and high corbels- and its softly modulated light- was the setting chosen. I’ve always wanted to make a piece that you walked along, where variations in forms and colours and tones revealed themselves as you moved and this was what I have tried to do. The feeling that I had was one of music echoing through the house- sounding and resounding. So the two mantelpieces and the high corbels have groups of twenty-four vessels that are loose ‘musical’ reflections of each other. The vessels are glazed in a spectrum of different glazes based on the celadon glazes of the Far East. Within the chimneypieces are two groups of very large white and cream-glazed lidded jars with touches of gilding, echoes of the formal 18th century groupings of jars far away in the State Rooms. For I hope that a sounding line acts as a very personal and very particular reflection on Chatsworth’s porcelain.
Edmund de Waal
The installation is made of 52 porcelain vessels in 5 celadon glazes and 14 thrown porcelain vessels in 5 white glazes
