Reading 1

In Paul Greenhalgh’s Discourse and Decoration: The Struggle for Historical Space, Greenhalgh recognizes that ceramics as a media has not been dealt with in a major way in art history, although there have been crossovers between it and other media. He notes that nature of clay, whether it takes shape in a vessel or sculptural form, means that it will last forever, which is of huge importance, but he asks “How does it recognize itself?” and “how exactly are we, the contemporary audience, supposed to respond to it?”

            Greenhalgh suggests that in order to make claims about ceramic work in any measure, we need a good history on the subject. Without this, we have no real grounds from which to make claims, therefore we risk misinterpretation. The second of two main arguments that Greenhalgh makes, which is perhaps the most important, is that in the art world, theories that were created without the thought of ceramics are constantly being used toward it. He realizes that none of these classifications which art historians have come up with (i.e the avant-garde) have anything to do with ceramics. This means that one cannot simply say something does not fit into a certain style or movement, if that style or movement was created without a specific media in mind.

            This is an important argument, and perhaps even more important that it comes from such a respected and widely read figure in the art world. It is not as if it is a ceramic artist attempting to in some ways “make a case” for ceramic art, rather it is someone looking in from a relatively outside perspective, asking important questions without any bias.