Ceramics center launches Karen Karnes retrospective

The ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center (CRC) in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts presents the first major retrospective of ceramic artist Karen Karnes, Sept. 17, 2010 through Jan. 8, 2011. The exhibition activities schedule includes an opening reception, gallery talk and documentary screening.

For more than 60 years, Karen Karnes (b. 1925) has been at the forefront of the studio pottery movement. During that time, she has created some of the most iconic pottery of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. She has worked at some of the most significant cultural settings of her generation including North Carolina’s avant-garde Black Mountain College in the 1950s.

Karnes’ artistic output is recognized for its understated, quietly poetic surfaces and sublime biomorphic forms. From her dramatic salt-glazed pottery of the 1960s and 70s, to her most recent complex joined sculptural pieces, Karnes consistently has challenged herself – with the unintentional consequence of irreversibly transforming the medium. She remains one of the medium’s most influential working potters and is a mentor to several generations of studio potters.

Peter Held, curator of ceramics at the CRC, shares his enthusiasm for this important exhibition.

 “Karnes’ career mirrors the burgeoning craft field in the United States starting after World War II," Held said. "In the ensuing years she has produced work that is remarkable for its depth, personal voice and consistent innovation.”

The organization and presentation of "A Chosen Path: The Ceramic Art of Karen Karnes" was generously funded by an Artist Exhibition grant from the Windgate Charitable Foundation, with additional support from the Ceres Trust, Friends of Contemporary Ceramics, the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design and the University of North Carolina Press, which undertook the production and distribution of the handsome exhibition catalogue. The exhibition will travel to four museums nationwide following the ASU presentation.

All Karnes’ exhibition and related activities are free for everyone.

• Exhibition: Sept. 17, 2010 – Jan. 8, 2011, A Chosen Path: The Ceramic Art of Karen Karnes

• Friday Conversations @ 11, 11 a.m., Oct. 8,  Artist Karen Karnes and curator Peter Held give a gallery talk at the CRC.

• Opening reception: 7–9 p.m., Oct. 8, The artist will be in attendance.

• Oct. 9, 1 p.m., The documentary film, "Don’t Know, We’ll See: The Works of Karen Karnes," is screened at Neeb Hall on the ASU Tempe campus

The ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center (CRC) is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, and is closed, Sunday, Monday and holidays. The CRC is located on 10th Street and Mill Avenue in Tempe, Ariz. Free parking is available in ASU Art Museum-marked spaces. 

The ASU Art Museum, named “the single most impressive venue for contemporary art in Arizona” by Art in America, is part of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. The museum is located on the southeast corner of Mill Avenue and 10th Street in Tempe and admission is free. Hours are 11 a.m.-8 p.m. on Tuesdays (during the academic year), 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday and closed on Sundays and Mondays. To learn more about the museum, call 480.965.2787 or visit asuartmuseum.asu.edu.

Peter Held, peter.held@asu.edu
480.727.8173
ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center
Curator of Ceramics