MATT SMITH (BRITISH)
After Reynolds, 2020
Reworked Textile with Wool
Amy Hughes interviewed by Preston Fitzgerald
ALBERT MONTSERRAT ADDED TO THE PERMANENT COLLECTION OF THE BARCELONA DESIGN MUSEUM
“Green Urani Jar” by Albert Montserrat, has been added to the permanent collection of the Barcelona Design Museum.
In a meeting with Montserrat, Pilar Vélez, Barcelona’s Design Museum director, and Isabel Fernández, curator of the museum, decided “Green Urani Jar” will be part of the collection.
Montserrat’s works rose the interest of the public after wining the Ceramics Biennial of Barcelona “Angelina Alós” 2018. This ceramic work was decided to be added to the collection due to“ the highly technical excellence in the processes used on the making of the work as well as the extraordinary skills of the glaze technology and ceramic knowledge.” Jury of the Ceramics Biennial Barcelona “Angelina Alós” 2018
GLAZE | Albert Montserrat Viewing Room
Cynthia Corbett in conversation with Dutch photographer Isabelle van Zeijl
MAKING SPACE | CHRISTOPHER RIGGIO
M A K I N G S P A C E
AN EXHIBITION HOSTED BY EDMUND DE WAAL
"Chris Riggio has a particular attentiveness to the world. He is
an urban mudlarker, a finder of abandoned treasures on the streets of the city. He finds eighteenth-century prints, porcelain teapots, silver cutlery, a Chinese Zhong. The ragpicker, said Walter Benjamin, always has one eye on the gutter, able to see poetic possibilities in the discarded. And this is a start, a mode of enquiry about the world. Chris takes things apart with his eye and then with his hands, technics and poetics meshing together."
MATT SMITH: 2020 INSTALIVE WITH THE ARTIST
Wednesday, 7th October
6pm BST / 1pm EST / 10am PST
At @cynthiacorbettgallery
W are pleased to announce that in celebration of London Craft Week and Frieze Week this coming Wednesday, 7th October, at 6pm BST I will host an InstaLive socially distanced tour of Matt Smith: 2020 exhibition, led by contemporary ceramics artist and curator Matt Smithhimself! I am very much looking forward to meeting with Matt and talking to him about his practice, his first major retrospective and his sources of inspiration in these interesting times. You will be able to see us talk and discuss the many artworks in the exhibition joining the conversation in the gallery Instagram here: @cynthiacorbettgallery.
This art week is very special for the gallery, as one year ago was the 10th Anniversary of our not-for-profit initiative Young Masters Art Prize. It is even more special as in 2014 Matt Smith won the inaugural Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize.
Today's stunning public exhibition hosted at 99 Bishopsgate, London, until 9th November 2020, was made possible by Brookfield Properties and the Crafts Council. You will have a rare chance to view a collection of works from Matt Smith's archive.This marks the first time different series by the artist, represented by Cynthia Corbett Gallery, have been brought together in one exhibition.
Matt Smith is well known for his site-specific work in museums, galleries and historic houses. After retraining in ceramics, his work as an artist has often taken the form of hybrid artist/curator, exploring how cultural organisations operate using techniques of institutional critique and artist intervention. Of particular interest to him is how museums can be reframed from alternative perspectives.
Earlier this year Matt Smith won the inaugural Brookfield Properties Crafts Council Collection Award 2020.
OLIVER JONES | SKIN DEEP | A VIRTUAL TOUR | MEADOW ARTS
DATES: 14 SEPTEMBER 2020 - 18 APRIL 2021
Entry tickets must be booked in advance via the National Trust website. Tickets are released each Friday for the following week. Please also check for current safety and social distancing guidelines at www.nationaltrust.org.uk/berrington-hall
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Meadow Arts is working in partnership with National Trust for a new exhibition, with contemporary artist Oliver Jones, that draws the past and present together to spark new conversations.
Berrington Hall is a remarkably handsome place. Designed for enjoyment and elegance, its pleasing aesthetics are reflected in both the landscape of Capability Brown, for whom Berrington’s pleasure grounds were a crowning glory and in the interior decoration of Henry Holland, who was the uncontested fashionable designer of his time.
In this second decade of the 21st century, the same ideas of perfection and beauty are disseminated on a scale unimaginable at the time of Brown and Holland, through the internet, advertising and, of course, social media. One of the main functions of these new media seems to be the re-presentation of these ideals: the perfect life, under the perfect surface (perfect face, body and skin).
Sometimes shocking, often melancholy or humorous, Oliver Jones’ images take their place in the beautiful interior of Berrington Hall. Like a sudden invasion of hyper-reality, they jar and stand out, but they also seem strangely at home. Graphically, these images respond to a new tech-driven iconology; they are cropped and framed to fit the screens on phones or tablets. Jones’ images are not portraits, rather they illustrate a need for attention; an almost macabre quest for beauty and perfection, whether through plastic surgery, skin treatments or body modification.
Skin Deep invites new interpretations of the Hall, looking for example at what belies the decoration and collections, cultural ideas of beauty, or portraiture etc. The exhibition also hopes to encourage new audiences to visit Berrington. The works present an opportunity to discuss issues like body consciousness, self-image, self-obsession, or societal ideas of self-hatred. This new cult of beauty and perfection, especially as expressed and experienced by ‘natives’ of the digital era, is often described as dangerous and alienating.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/berrington-hall
JO TAYLOR | CERAMIC REVIEW
Congratulations to the amazing Jo Taylor whose spectacular work is featured on the cover of Ceramic Review September/October 2020.
We are delighted to have one of her fantastic works available through our first online ceramics exhibition, entitled Clay Today: A Showcase Of Ceramics In Isolation, curated by the Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize Judge and Curator Preston Fitzgerald.
Pride & Joy Red I, 2017
Grogged Porcelain
10 × 7 3/10 × 6 3/10 in
25.5 × 18.5 × 16 cm
Unique
SNOECKS 2021 | ISABELLE VAN ZEIJL
"A special Snoecks for special times, you should not expect less from Snoecks 2021. We opted for hope and courage for our cover, with penetrating portraits of Isabelle van Zeijl. A contemporary artist which exhibit an idiosyncratic and critical view of beauty ideals and its representation in art history."
- Geert Stadieus, Editor in Chief Snoecks
C-print mounted on dibond, perspex face in tray frame
Framed:
113 x 103.1 cm
44 1/2 x 40 1/2 in
Unframed:
110 x 100.1 cm
43 1/4 x 39 3/8 in
Edition of 7 plus 3 artist's proofs (#1/7)
"Surround yourself with beauty, and your life will be beautiful.
One day I decided to turn my eye towards all that was beautiful around me.
Beauty became my nutrition, my purifier and a way to survive troubled times.
Bringing you beauty, light and inspiration became my mission."
- Isabelle van Zeijl
In a contemporary art world that condemns beauty as camouflage for conceptual shallowness, championing high aesthetics is nothing short of rebellion. Dutch photographer Isabelle Van Zeijl takes female beauty ideals from the past, and sabotages them in the context of today. As a women she experiences prejudices against women; misogyny in numerous ways including sex discrimination, belittling/violence against women and sexual objectification. Van Zeijl aestheticises these prejudices in her work to visually discuss this troubling dichotomy, presenting a new way of seeing female beauty. An oppressive idealisation of beauty is tackled in her work through unique female character and emotion.
Van Zeijl is invested in her images. By using subjects that intrigue and evoke emotion, she reinvents herself over and over and has created a body of work to illustrate these autobiographical narratives. Her work takes from all she experiences in life - she is both model, creator, object and subject. Going beyond the realm of individual expression, so common in the genre of self-portraiture, she strives to be both universal and timeless, with a subtle political hint.
Van Zeijl has shown work continuously and internationally over the past fifteen years, represented by galleries located in The UK, USA, The Netherlands, Belgium, and exhibiting at emerging and established international art fairs in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, London, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Italy. She was nominated for the Prix De La Photographie Paris, and The Fine Art Photography Awards. She was also one of the winners of The 2017 Young Masters Emerging Women Art Prize, London. Her work is held in private & public collections in the USA, UK, Belgium, Germany, France and The Netherlands.
Isabelle van Zeijl is represented internationally by the Cynthia Corbett Gallery.
Snoecks is a 550-plus-page magazine is published once a year in October and focuses on new international developments in the arts, photography and literature.[1] The magazine has featured artists such as Anton Corbijn, Larry Sultan, Matthew Barney, Terry Richardson, Ron Mueck, Alberto Garcia-Alix, Peter Lindbergh, Albert Watson, Desiree Dolron, Bettina Rheims, Diana Scheunemann, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Andres Serrano.
The first Snoecks appeared in the 1920s, but its modern form, with an emphasis on photography, has its base in the seventies. Since 2004 its editor-in-chief has been Geert Stadeus.