Memento Mori by Northern Clay Center

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MARCH 4 – APRIL 16, 2022

NORTHERN CLAY CENTER

MEMENTO MORI

Installation view

NORTHERN CLAY CENTER

MEMENTO MORI — REMEMBER THAT YOU MUST DIE Heather Nameth Bren

The Latin phrase, “Memento Mori,” translates into English, “Remember that you must die.” In Western culture, thinking about our inevitable demise, talking about suffering, dying, and death can be unpleasant and unwelcome. In the past, it was commonplace for family members to congregate around loved ones as they passed. Now, more commonly, dying family members are sent to hospitals to be cared for by medical professionals — often isolated in death from loved ones — especially since the emergence of the global pandemic, COVID-19. Although advancements in modern medicine have decreased suffering and increased life spans, they have also inadvertently created a cultural detachment from the certainty of life itself: death. This detachment originates in modern medicine’s focuses on cures, comforts, pain relievers, and death avoidance. Beyond the unpleasantries surrounding death, fixation on death like suicidal ideation has been identified by modern psychology as symptomatic of anxiety and depression. Paradoxically, consciously and consistently thinking about death has been considered to be an essential practice to cultivate a happy life. The ironic and distinguishing feature between these two ways of thinking about death is whether thinking about death is passive or active. An unhealthy fixation on death is passive; it grows into an obsession that happens to one, while intentionally thinking about death for well-being is an active practice documented since the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. Contemplating one’s mortality may, on the surface, seem morbid. However, contemplating death over one’s lifetime can relieve debilitating death dread and provide solace and moral lessons to the living. Acknowledging the inevitability of death of all living things can develop a sense of connection, belonging, and empathy for others. The fear of death can encourage healthier life choices and inspire reconciliation to broken relationships, while considering one’s ultimate absence can motivate a reprioritization of values

MEMENTO MORI

and legacy reflection. Thinking about dying is relevant to one’s quality of living. The four artists in the exhibition, Memento Mori, Marisa Finos, Jeanne Quinn, Arun Sharma, and Dirk Staschke, approach the topic of death from a multitude of nuanced perspectives. The artists and their artworks are briefly introduced here and will be discussed in more detail later in this essay. Finos creates raw clay installations — making performative handbuilt vessels large enough to host the human body — that address themes of entombment, mortality, and funerary practices. In contrast, Sharma creates figurative sculptures that physically and metaphorically embody decomposition to explore the role of death in the life cycle. Quinn creates immersive ceramic installations that invite the viewer as an active participant to question notions of loss, absence, and presence. Staschke creates mixed-media ceramic sculptures that challenge the relevance and futility of seventeenth-century Dutch Vanitas paintings in their allegorical campaign to encourage a virtuous life from a post-modernist perspective. The History of Memento Mori

The ancient Greek stoics practiced a philosophy that valued virtue, or moral excellence, as goodness. These early thinkers believed that virtue is attainable when one has harmonized four habits of mind and character — justice, temperance, fortitude, and prudence — with both reason and the order of nature. Ancient thinkers from this culture believed that humanity could align with nature only when one understood themselves as part of the impermanence of living things. This contemplation on mortality — Memento Mori — is the ancient practice of meditating on the inevitability of death to generate meaning, urgency, priority, and perspective. In time, the emergence of Christianity would adopt these four essential tenets of virtue introduced in Greek philosophy and add three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. Through the Middle Ages, Christian theology expanded the exploration

of these seven virtues as well as their moral opposites, known as vices, into what is known as the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Artists in the Middle Ages began incorporating themes of virtues and vices in medieval funerary art. Eventually, artists were inspired to create more visually explicit and morbid artworks, reflecting a cultural obsession with death and decay. However, by the Renaissance, artists began painting on both sides of the canvas to hide more gruesome imagery on the reverse side of artworks. As a result, the imagery softened, creating more visually beautiful compositions that still utilized symbolic imagery to implore viewers to consider their mortality and repent. By the seventeenth century, Dutch still-life Vanitas paintings were extremely popular because of their biblical origins and the cultural pervasiveness of Christian theology at the time. Lush allegorical paintings were carefully composed with sometimes complex collections of symbolic objects that contrasted life, beauty, and vitality with death, time, and decay. Skulls, flowers, rotten fruit, hourglasses, extinguished candles, bubbles, books, musical instruments, jewelry, and sheet music were common symbols used to communicate a virtuous message that warned about the moral trappings of vanity and the certainty of death. Beyond constructing a poignant directive, artists also demonstrated their mastery of representational painting and pursuit of moralistic beauty. Gilded frames drew attention to the moral excellence of the messaging that originated from the emptiness, futility, and worthlessness of worldly pursuits over moral superiority.

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ENTOMBMENT Beyond the suppression of the physicality of social interactions and social functions that range from hand-shake greetings to funerals to gathering in masses to attend national conventions, the COVID-19 pandemic has tragically claimed the lives of approximately 5.94 million individuals globally at the time of this exhibition. Even though these astronomical death toll numbers can sometimes produce an insouciant response because the magnitude of loss defies comprehension, Finos creates artworks that call attention to the mythohistorical realm of burial practices and conceptions of the afterlife and the relevance of primitive practices in contemporary Western culture. Drawing inspiration from containers for the dead, like the 1st - 3rd century Middle Eastern earthenware “slipper coffins,” Finos creates life-size, handbuilt vessel sculptures that address the transition between life and death and the relationship between the living and the deceased. Unlike “slipper coffins” that were glaze fired, making them permanent, Finos’ raw clay forms are meant to be temporary performance sites. Her sculptures are not used to literally entomb a deceased individual, but instead, the raw clay sculptures serve as sites to contemplate burial rituals and the afterlife with Finos herself as the intercessor.

Another source of inspiration for the performative aspect of Finos’ temporary clay sculptures is from the traditional roles of women as “ushers of individuals into both life and death” in the building and performance of her work. Similar to how much of the laborious preparation for interment takes place out of the public eye, so too does the construction of Finos’ ovoid-shaped, large-scale, tomb-like, and womb-like forms. After constructing the form over a period of several days, Finos assumes the role of the entombed. Once inside the structure, the artist’s presence conjures connections between earth and body, the living and the deceased, and permanence and impermanence. Mirroring the communal aspects of rituals of interment, Finos invites public gathering for the culmination of her performative structures. In the artwork produced for this exhibition, A(void), the title suggests the tension between creating a static empty space and embodying a dynamically active space that is anxiously avoided. Unlike previous work, where Finos created sculptures based on the dimensions of her own body to create a cocoon-like tomb, A(void) also incorporates the recommended six-foot social distancing guidelines to control the spread of COVID-19. The public performance focuses on the physical interactions — or limited physical interactions — between the artist and the audience.

Marisa Finos A(void) 2022 Clay 41 x 69 x 56

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ABSENCE AND PRESENCE In the artwork, A Thousand Tiny Deaths, 2009, Quinn created an active installation using black porcelain, Baroque-style vases, held by tension with breathfilled balloons and suspended from the ceiling by strings. Hanging the artworks with intentional precariousness caused individual vases to crash to the ground when the breath within a balloon could no longer hold the weight of the ceramic vase. The vases broke into many pieces, conjuring both anticipation and surprise to the viewer who witnessed the physical breaking of the ceramic form with its disruptive and unpredictable crash. After touring various museums and galleries, A Thousand Tiny Deaths has been retired from physical exhibition due to its self-destructive nature. However, the inclusion of this artwork in the show as photographic documentation explores the lifecycle of an artwork when it no longer physically exists in its live performance state. The experience of “knowing” this artwork comes into question because of the absence of the performative artwork. Instead, the audience is offered a resemblance of A Thousand Tiny Deaths via images and descriptions as substitutes, reminders, or evidence of an artwork that no longer exists in physical form. Yet, for those who have never witnessed the artwork physically, the human mind can fabricate an empathetic encounter, creating presence and meaning, despite physical absence.

in the exhibition, Dust And A Shadow, occupies the length of a wall and, at first impression, looks similar to an aerial map of a neighborhood within a city. The linear installation is composed of uniquely individual forms that are contained and isolated, yet relational in their proximity and shadowy interactions. Each unique form reaches beyond its contained footprint yet remains distinctly isolated. However, Quinn also plays with perception, using forced-perspective vinyl in the overlapping of various modes/systems of generating lines within the installation. The forms evoke a kind of logicallydistorted chaos challenging the viewer to both isolate each set of lines to order the chaos and merge the lines into a more extensive network. Set on a red wall, the careful installation of white forms, flat vinyl cutout lines of cast shadows of the artworks themselves, and actual cast shadow lines suggest a living entity of blood, bones, and networks. Structural lines, vinyl lines, shadow lines, viewers’ shadow lines within the exhibition space obfuscate the composition and dominate the shadow lines of the installation. Ultimately, Dust And A Shadow reveals the paradox of the absence of physical contact, while also revealing the significance of presence with the emergence of new connections. The artwork demonstrates the tenacity of how the death of one system can breathe life to new paths for relational interactions.

In more current inquiry, Quinn has embarked on installations composed of multiple unglazed ceramic forms reminiscent of sun-bleached bone that she forms with her hands. Quinn’s installation

Jeanne Quinn Dust And A Shadow II 2022 Porcelain, underglaze, vinyl, paint 54 x 130 x 11

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LIFE AFTER DEATH Akin to Finos, Sharma creates life-sized figurative sculptures that physically and metaphorically address the life cycle. Like Finos, Sharma also employs the impermanence of raw clay as a significant metaphor in the “creation” of his intentionally-decomposed figures. In Sharma’s process, he creates greenware figures that are allowed to rot and decay with water that he sometimes documents with time lapse videos, photo stills, and raw and fired artifacts of his process. As a result, his artworks embody the concept of wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic that celebrates the transient and imperfect nature of life. Sharma’s inquiry and creative practice go beyond a Western-culture understanding of wabi-sabi and demonstrate a deeper integration of Eastern spiritual teachings that incorporate wabi-sabi into the three marks of existence: impermanence,

suffering, and emptiness, or absence of selfnature. Impermanence acknowledges that nothing lasts; suffering acknowledges that nothing is perfect; and emptiness/absence acknowledges that nothing is finished. Sharma generates his figurative artworks to underscore the impermanence of his efforts of imperfect creation. His additive process to create representational figures is naturally undermined in the subtractive process that overexposure to water and erosion cause. In this sense, Sharma’s works capture a glimpse that nothing is finished, and that life — even in death — begets new life. Sharma focuses on the regenerative necessity of death for the living. In Sharma’s words, “I find myself being reminded that life is for the living because death (gift or not) is inevitably going to have the last word.”

Arun Sharma My Heart Swells 2019 Stoneware 4x5x7

MEMENTO MORI

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VANITAS Staschke creates mixed-media ceramic sculptures largely informed by Vanitas paintings. While the traditional front of the sculptures retains a resemblance to Vanitas still lifes, the reverse sides of these artworks are surprising and playful compositions that demand physical engagement. Appropriating the vernacular of the Dutch-style paintings and assigning three-dimensional forms to an art form that can only create an illusion of space, Staschke provides a post-modernist twist that deconstructs, reveals, reframes, and expands flat images into spatial volumes.

The visual devices that Staschke employs re-presents Vanitas as a form more complex and surprising than conceived of within a specific and singular lens of belief. His sculptural ceramic forms pair the celebration of mastering materials like manipulating clay and glaze (like his seventeenth-century predecessors mastered rendering representationalism with paint) with the post-modernist aesthetics of anti-craftanything-goes, as evidenced in his sculptural expansions of the reverse sides of paintings that capture his fingerprints.

Dirk Staschke Architecture of an Ending 2019 Ceramic, wood, epoxy 29 x 21 x 24

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MEMENTO MORI

S UMMA RY

REMEMBERING THAT YOU WILL DIE FOR ESTABLISHING LEGACY, ATTAINING VIRTUE, AVOIDING VICES, AND/OR FOR WELL-BEING EXERCISES SEEMS TO BE A MECHANICAL EXPLORATION OF WHAT IT MEANS TO CONTEMPLATE DEATH. EACH ARTIST IN THE EXHIBITION, MEMENTO MORI, PERFORMS DEEP INQUIRIES AND REFLECTIONS ON THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE OF DEATH, DYING, AND LOSS AND THEIR RELEVANCE TO OUR CONTEMPORARY WORLD. BEYOND CONCEPTIONS OF DEATH, DYING, AND LOSS, EACH ARTIST PROVIDES RENEWAL, HOPE, AND GLIMPSES OF BEAUTY TO PROVIDE SOLACE IN DARK AND UNFAMILIAR TIMES.

BI BL I O G R A P H Y

http://www.arunsharmaart.com/portfolio/uncategorized/untitled-coffin-ants/ https://marisafinos.com/bio https://www.artsy.net/show/mark-moore-fine-art-jeanne-quinn-real-and-imagined/info https://www.artsy.net/artwork/dirk-staschke-soliloquy-number-3-5

NORTHERN CLAY CENTER

NORTHERN CLAY CENTER Northern Clay Center’s mission is to advance the ceramic arts for artists, learners, and the community, through education, exhibitions, and artist services. Its goals are to create and promote high-quality, relevant, and participatory ceramic arts educational experiences; cultivate and challenge ceramic arts audiences through extraordinary exhibitions and programming; support ceramic artists in the expansion of their artistic and professional skills; embrace makers from diverse cultures and traditions in order to create a more inclusive clay community; and excel as a non-profit arts organization.

Staff

Tippy Maurant, Deputy Director/Director of Galleries & Exhibitions Kyle Rudy-Kohlhepp, Executive Director Jordan Bongaarts, Exhibition Associate

© 2022 Northern Clay Center. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, write to: Northern Clay Center 2424 Franklin Avenue East Minneapolis, MN 55406 www.northernclaycenter.org Manufactured in the United States

Board of Directors

Honorary Directors

Paul Vahle, Chairman of the Board Amanda Kay Anderson Bryan Anderson Mary K. Baumann Craig Bishop Heather Nameth Bren Evelyn Weil Browne Nettie Colón Sydney Crowder Haweya Farah Patrick Kennedy Mark Lellman Kate Maury Brad Meier Philip Mische Debbie Schumer Rick Scott Cristin McKnight Sethi

Kay Erickson

First edition, 2022

Legacy Directors

International Standard Book Number 978-1-932706-61-5

Andy Boss Warren MacKenzie Joan Mondale

Unless otherwise noted, all dimensions: height precedes width precedes depth.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Curator: Heather Nameth Bren Photographer: Peter Lee Editor: Franny Hyde Design by Joseph D.R. OLeary (vetodesign.com)

Additional funding for Memento Mori comes from Prospect Creek Foundation, Target, and Windgate Foundation.

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