Ceraplate4

"Sex pot", ceramic, Ø 24 cm. 1996 © Hugo Kaagman 1996

GART CLARK GALLERY, NEW YORK 2 0 0 2

Blue + White = Radical

This exhibition of ceramics by thirty contemporary artists examines an abiding six-hundred-year-old fascination with blue-and-white pottery, arguably the most successful and enduring domestic product of all time. Blue-and-white has provided us with some of the greatest art treasures of the Ming period and some of the most tasteless, valueless kitsch within our own time. It remains the most popular form of pottery decoration even today after uninterrupted production for over six centuries. Increasingly it has become the target of artists in all media who have begun to exploit the iconic cultural status of blue-and-white pots and their cozy familiarity.

The blue in blue-and-white comes mostly from a powerful colorant, cobalt oxide. Less than one per cent in a glaze can produce a strong blue. It is one of the most stable pigments, consistent in low and high firings and is unaffected by firing atmospheres (whether reduction or oxidation). The Iznik and Chinese potters have used it from the 7th century onwards (although there are some rare earlier examples). Most early cobalt decoration was simple: spots, splashes or roughly delineated lines. The potters of Persia were a little more sophisticated in their decoration covering plates and pots in exquisite calligraphic writing, but it was not until the Mongolian Yuan period in China that the full pictorial eloquence of the blue-and-white style found its voice.

The Chinese potters were now applying the decoration on white, translucent porcelain with fine brushes under a clear glaze. Previous blue decoration was against opaque earthenware or stoneware or applied on top of a tin-glaze. Porcelain allowed for much cleaner, sharper and more complex painting and porcelain, sometimes transmitting light when thin-walled, showed up the blue in all of its tonal grandeur. The Chinese evolved a style of painting that was fanciful, elegant and vibrant, with lush paintings of peonies mixed in with dragons and phoenixes, scrollwork and geometric patterns. The visual sophistry of these wares was, and remains, dazzlingly graphic.

It took little time for the popularity of blue-and-white to spread. Within fifty years an export trade developed to the Near East and by the 14th century the Iznik potters were producing blue-and-white imitations in tin-glaze. The first blue-and-white porcelains came overland to Europe via the Silk Route at about the same time. They were extremely costly and collected only by royalty. Then, in the early 17th century the Dutch captured two Portuguese carracks (cargo ships) and sold their cargoes on auction. The shipment contained a large number of blue-and-white porcelains, setting off a craze for these wares throughout Europe. As the East/West trade intensified, these wares eventually became affordable to the upper-middle class and by the end of the 18th century even to the middle class.

The popular interest in blue-and-white porcelain led to Holland's legendary 17th century Delftwares. Europe did not discover the secret of porcelain production until 1708 and so the Delft potters used white tin-glazed earthenware to mimic the appearance of Chinese porcelains. Delft's painters applied the blue decoration on the unfired tin-glazed surface, a difficult and unforgiving process not unlike trying to paint on blotting paper. However, the Dutch decorators had remarkable skill and created distinctive vessels, their tour de force being multi-part "garnitures" for fireplace mantels. Delft took its name from a small Dutch town that was the center of its production and soon these elegant vessels, with their brusque vivid painting, became in vogue throughout Europe. Inexpensive blue-and-white pottery became widely accessible from the mid 18th century onwards with the invention of printed transfer printing of ceramic decoration by Irishman John Brooks. This allowed highly decorative blue-and-white wares to be produced in quantity at a fraction of the cost of hand painting. But the populist gem in the crown of blue and white is unquestionably the Willow pattern.

Thomas Minton is credited with its design around 1780 seeking to satisfy a growing taste for Chinoiserie in Britain. The plates show a scenic design with a stylized willow tree, a Chinese temple, a bridge with figures on it, a boat, a distant island and two birds. It tells the tale of star-crossed lovers who attempt to escape by boat only to be drowned and transformed into two birds. An immediate commercial success, the Willow pattern was soon copied and reproduced by almost every pottery in Staffordshire and before long, even in China. It is the most popular ceramic pattern ever made, is still produced in enormous quantities, even on paper plates and is arguably the most successful commercial design in the history of mankind.It is this very ubiquity that intrigues and challenges the contemporary artist taking this traditional format and attempting to shock, challenge, provoke or charm. Contemporary political statements abound in blue-white ceramics today.

Dutch artist Hugo Kaagman has worked on blue-and-white themed works in all media under the title "Kaagware." This title is a playful corruption of the original, 17th-century Dutch term for blue and white porcelains, "Kraak ware." Almost all his imagery is produced through stenciling. Kaagman has produced everything from paintings on canvas to vast environments on laminated paper that resemble huge blue-and-white tiles. One particularly large installation is in the terminal building at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam. He has even decorated the airplanes themselves. In 1996 he produced Delftblue Daybreak, individual "Delft" designs that British Airways had painted onto the tails of some of their Boeing jetliners. To complete the experience, Kaagman also provided matching Delft-decorated lunch boxes for serving meals on those planes. His ceramics include a wide range of plates, vessels and tile panels with stenciled imagery reflecting his diverse influences from Dali and Escher to Reggae and Punk. He has continued his "plates" into the urban environment by stenciling huge versions of them on the sides of buildings.

Blue + White = Radical comprises work by over thirty artists. The objects described above are just a small glimpse of an eclectic assembly. The diversity is dazzling and shows just how deep the roots of blue-and-white wares and their characteristic styles of decoration have penetrated our cultural memory. It is an intimidating tradition to take on. No lesser authority than Oscar Wilde noted the ware's cultural significance and great beauty when he issued in 1880 what was then thought to be a scandalous epithet: "I am having difficulty living up to the quality of my blue and white china."