Exhibitions
Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby
1st floor, Renwick Gallery
(Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street N.W.)
October 4, 2013 – January 12, 2014
Wayne Higby, Temple's Gate Pass, 1988, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of KPMG Peat Marwick © 1988, Wayne Higby
Wayne Higby (b. 1943) is widely considered one of the most innovative second generation artists to come out of the post World War II American ceramic studio movement. His vision of the American landscape appears in work ranging from vessel forms and sculpture to architectural installations that have brought him national and international recognition. Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby is the first major retrospective exhibition to provide an in-depth critical analysis of the artist’s body of work created during a forty year period. The exhibition will explore the forms, techniques, and firing processes used throughout Higby's career, focusing specifically on his groundbreaking work in raku earthenware as well as his later production in porcelain.
The exhibition will feature more than sixty ceramic objects and drawings from the Arizona State University Art Museum’s collection, the artist’s holdings, and other private and public collections. Since the early 1970s, Higby has explored the fusion of form and surface decoration through panoramic western vistas. These scenic forms are imaginative reinterpretations of the austere Colorado landscape of his childhood. The landscape imagery covers the interior as well as the exterior of the object, creating the illusion of depth. After visiting China in 1991, Higby began using porcelain with celadon glazes and creating thick “rocks” that alluded to the natural environment. During the last decade, Higby has undertaken several ambitious large-scale mural projects. These will be part of the exhibition through photo documentation along with maquettes of these commissions.
Higby is currently a professor and the Robert C. Turner Chair of Ceramic Art at the New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University. Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby is organized by Peter Held, curator of ceramics at the Arizona State University Art Museum Ceramics Research Center in Tempe, Arizona. The Renwick Gallery is the second stop on a national tour.
Credit
Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby is organized by the Arizona State University Art Museum Ceramics Research Center, Tempe, Arizona, and curated by Curator of Ceramics Peter Held. Major funding is provided by the Windgate Charitable Foundation with additional support by Marlin Miller, Alfred University, and the Friends of Contemporary Ceramics.
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