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Curator: Tali Kayam

The name of the exhibition – Hand Built – refers to a set of ceramic techniques that do not involve the use of instruments, including slab construction, coil construction, pinching, and press molding. The exhibition presents the works of artists of various generations who use these techniques, in a quasi-genealogical arrangement. The legacy of unmediated contact with the clay has been passed down from teacher to student, from generation to generation – from veteran potter Hedwig Grossman, to contemporary artists who share professional knowledge and insights with each other in an online community. These generations are presented in a non-hierarchical manner and with no orderly linear structure. What links them together is an ancient aesthetic, inherent in the DNA of the clay itself, as it were, which was not appreciated in the past but continues to characterize works that are created today and is now being re-evaluated.

On display are works from the museum’s collection as well as new works that were created especially for the exhibition, which share a common visual and material attributes that arise from the creative processes. The selection of exhibits – including functional ware, animal sculptures and hybrid works, ranging from the functional to the artistic – was guided by a perception of the vessel as an abstraction of a figurative object. This enables the possibility of rethinking the place of ceramic ware in the canon of art. The installation renders present the various aspects of constructing by hand, and provides an observation point onto the following links in the chain of art.