Functional and fantastic: 5000 years of artworks with meaning

CRAFT
Ceramics: An Atlas of Forms
Glenn Barkley
Thames & Hudson, $80

Glenn Barkley disarmingly describes his own ceramic art as operating “between the museum and the tip”. His new history of ceramics follows the same expansive aesthetic, testing trash and treasure tastes. As befits a former curator at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art (2008–14) and the University of Wollongong Art Collection (1996–2007), Barkley’s Ceramics: An Atlas of Forms is steeped in museology while also embracing contemporary conceptual work.

Through 100 objects Barkley tells the global history of ceramics from 3000BC to the present. As his self-assessment suggests, his book is accessible and pithy. He describes a 3000-year-old Egyptian Bes pot having a “goofy countenance”. Barkley likens a 2100BC Mesopotamian cup to a “disposable coffee cup”. An equally humble 300BC Vietnamese bowl, whose raw, undecorated, irregular form Barkley says demonstrates “clay as performance … full of rude energy”.

Meanwhile, he reveals his passions in often voluptuous descriptions.

Revelling in the elegance of 800-year-old Jun ware that continues to inspire contemporary artists, Barkley scrutinises the unknown Chinese maker’s technical achievements in balance and colour with verve: “Everything about this jar seems perfect – the rotund, ripe shape of the belly almost bursting; the relationship between the turned base and the slightly wider lip; the way the glaze is captured at a point of almost sliding off the pot; the mulberry-coloured stain, made by splashing copper-rich glaze over the form, which seems to ooze from the skin of the pot, offering just a shadow of decoration; the speckles of iron that seem to glisten as they break over the rim and burst sporadically across its milky blue-grey surface … and all those round shapes – the base, the rim, the handles, the entire pot. All give a sense of being whole, of total completeness.”

Significantly for local readers, every piece is drawn from Australian and New Zealand collections. Such proximity means readers don’t have to travel far to view any “bursting” and “oozing” in the flesh. It also offers a direct way of appreciating and questioning key themes of the book: how collections are formed, the issues around colonial and museological imperatives, and the ethical conundrum museums face today.

The Elgin marbles may be museology’s most high-profile contested artefacts, but during the 19th and early 20th centuries pocketing foreign antiquities was the rage. “Illicit excavations” of the Nishapur region in north-eastern Iran, for example, was encouraged by Europe’s “rapacious appetite for antiquities”, Barkley writes. The US soon followed. New York’s Metropolitan Museum began extensively excavating this important 10th-century Silk Road trading post in 1935.

Digs were often funded by subscribers, with the unearthed finds distributed globally to individuals and exhibitions. The book’s earliest entry is about 5000 years old, excavated from an Egyptian burial site by an English archaeologist in the late 19th century. The pre-dynastic Egyptian jar resides in the National Gallery of Victoria’s collection. Barkley acknowledges the dilemma in such collecting practices. We are in the midst of an international reckoning on “looting” cultural treasures, yet the caper provided “foundation objects” to many Australian museums.

Barkley also explains pragmatic reasons why some ancient objects survive and others don’t. Items such as the Iranian beak-spouted jug from 1000BC exist intact probably because it was used in funereal services; or, there are plentiful examples because objects such as amphora were so functionally useful and ubiquitous.

Borrowing archaeologist Noris Ioannou’s term “ceramic ecology”, Barkley contextualises objects in terms of the broader culture of work, life, religion, skills, economy and geography. Beyond collecting and paternalism Barkley includes disturbing details on child labour and slavery.

Rather than an introductory historical overview Barkley discusses stylistic influences through objects (including brief explanations of techniques as you read). He deftly explains the forces at play in industry, trade and its resultant influence. In the early days, the popularity of an imported style or technique would open up trade routes, eventually begetting a regional industry equivalent.

Perhaps most striking is how contemporary so many ancient designs appear. “Drawn to forms that betray the hand and imprint of the maker,” Barkley’s eclectic selection ranges from busts to bowls, wildlife to people, the ornate to unadorned, naive to sophisticated, deconstructed to refined, minimalist to expressive.

More contemporary creative concerns expand the parameters of ceramics, led by Second-wave Feminism that introduced the wit of works such as Lorraine Jenyns’ Family Portrait and the agitprop of Margaret Dodd’s Holden with Hair Curlers. Drawing on more minimalist influences, ceramic sculptures such as Gwyn Hanssen Pigott’s Travellers could be a Giorgio Morandi still-life burst to life. Pioneering ceramicists such as Betty Woodman incorporated broken ceramics into paintings, blurring the boundaries and becoming part of broader art practice.

In one sense the history of ceramics is a story of discovery and survival. As that history nears the present these stories become no less interesting. Among the tales is the Loch Ard Peacock washed up among the few survivors of the 1878 shipping disaster off the Victoria coast.

During World War II the work produced in Changi prison directly contributed to human survival. Work details at the “Changi University” produced functional objects such as Private James Blondahl’s humble mug. If the process generated “therapeutic outcomes” it also led, in Peter Rushforth’s case, to a lifelong interest and career both as a creator and teacher of ceramics (perhaps ironically proselytising the teaching of Japanese sensei Shoji Hamada).

As Barkley’s Atlas testifies, manipulating and firing clay is one of the earliest examples of human creativity that, over millennia, has undergone constant rediscovery and renewal – and continues to inspire inventiveness.

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