On Containment:

I have made this exposition before and made reference to it repeatedly as well, but since it is at the core of my argument throughout this book, I will do it again here.

Pottery and ceramics vessels, particularly as they relate to food, are articulated around the concept of containment. In the case of pottery forms, this implies the relationship between an interior space and an exterior shape, between a volumetric form and a flatter surface which in term imply and define the two central concepts in ceramics and pottery: function and decoration.

Containment has to do with the relationship between an object and its environment. Containers are bridges between two spaces, between what is an inside space (the interior void or volume and/or the content) and an outside space (the rest of the world). Containers are constituted of an actual, physical space (given by the thickness of their wall) between two empty spaces, one inside, one outside. Containers, like most objects, are about difference as continuity, not difference as rupture, which is the operative aspect of images, of representations, which separate us from reality and real experiences. Containers are the ultimate form of abstraction and, as we have seen in “The Decorative Esthetics” chapter, they often carry abstract signs and symbols within their walls. They never “represent” anything, except themselves. A container is a space where opposites are unified, where differences are reconciled, where polarity becomes duality. Containers bring together the extremes in reconciliation. They cancel the dialectical impulses of language, so present in discourses, histories, theories and fictions, as well as in images of all types, which always imply a narrative content. All binaries, polarities, opposites and dichotomies (that is to say all forms of hierarchies) are reconciled within the container. Containers combine in symbiosis the interior and the exterior, the top and the bottom, the front and the back, the surface and the form, representation and presentation, image and object, function and display, the hand and the eye, nature and culture, art and craft and design, even media, when their surface is informed by printing or photography, and any and all other binaries we can conceptualize. Only containers act in such a fashion within culture and this complexity is an inherent aspect of their intrinsic power. Beyond their obvious and important functional, practical aspects, pots made around our need for food are also cultural and conceptual objects, something their familiarity and commonality makes us too often forget.

Other artists to consider:

Kim Dickey and her feeding bottles for fathers, as well as her intricate serving sets that reinvent the elaborate ritual of social eating.

Martin Tang, who fuses a porcelain turd covered in gold in the middle of porcelain plates.

Xu Yihui, from China, who made porcelain fast food with their “styrofoam” container, presented on a bed of porcelain flowers.

Both Barnaby Barford, with a fragmented map of the world and Marek Cecula with Vinci’s “Last Supper”, and also with images of oriental carpets, have used computer printed ceramic decal transfers to cover a large number of ordinary dinner plates with potent, continuous images from object to object. Cecula’s  industrial plate in a metal cage, so that the food doesn’t touch the surface, is also noteworthy for its psychological implications.

Nicholas Lovegrove and Damian Repucci, from New York, Hans Booy and Paulus Fugers, from Berlin, Daniel Kruger also from Germany and Kevin Petrie from the U.K., all paint very personal portraits on dinner plates. As we will see later in the “Sex” chapter, other artists are following in the footsteps of Judy Chicago’s “Dinner Party” by incorporating erotic images on dinnerware: Hans van Bentem, James Victore, Pierre Charpin, Cynthia Rowley, Liu Jian Hua, Matthias Ostermann, Keiko Fukazawa, Hugo Kaagman, Daniel Neish, Burt Payne, Attila Richard Lukacs, Danny Kotyshin, Ken Price, Bhupen Khakhar, Cindy Kolodziejski and many others. Some artists who, like Judy Chicago, do not identify as ceramics artists, nonetheless have explored the metaphorical for pottery forms and contexts in their work: Mona Hatoum with her double cups, joined together at the lip, and Glenn Lewis, from Vancouver, Canada, with his “Air Fresheners” from the 1960’s, which were way ahead of their time…

In the design world, I single out the winning entry for the 2005 IDEA Industrial Design Excellence Award. Canadian designer Mario Gagnon won gold with a multi-layered set of dishes and utensils that rearrange the visual presentation of a meal. Hella Jongerius from Holland designs plates and bowls with animal figurines attached to the interior, for Nymphenburg porcelain, challenging our relationship to animals as potential food.

Laura Zindel makes plates and platters delicately painted with swarming bugs and critters. Their entomological charm may not be to everyone’s taste.

Jette Scheib and Neels Kattentidt, designed a mirror with half a dinner plate stuck to its surface so that it appears complete in reflection, as if floating in space. Also, Canadian designer Willie Tsang gold fingerprints tea cup and saucer, which revisits an old Qing Dynasty story, when the Chinese emperor, out incognito in public with an attendant who could not acknowledge the presence of the emperor by bowing before serving his tea, as protocol demanded, found as a solution to simply hit the table with his middle finger, followed by the index and the annular, to signify his head and hands touching the ground in respect. This simple yet highly symbolic gesture is transferred here as gold fingerprints on each saucer.

Jane Timberlake “Wild Mannered Dinnerware” dishes are inscribed with rude expressions. Other artists using text on dishes are too numerous to name here. I will single out Ben, from France, who has inscribed his name and other texts on various surfaces, including pots and dishes, everywhere.

Michelle Huang has designed for Droog, a series of double bowls with a space for food and another to discard the left-overs.

Vipoo Srivilasa makes very special dishes for very special meals he also prepares himself for invited guests and friends. When not in use, they can be stacked as complex arrangements for display. The serving of the food is often part of an installation/performance intrinsic to the exhibition of the works.

Rachel Moses plates look at Jewish customs around rituals and religious prescriptions around food. Hebrew script in the shape of an embracing couple will spell “milky” and “meaty” in reference to kosher laws and in other plates the text will define the image of a pig in electric blue or in shocking pink. Other Israeli designers, Dov Ganchrow and Zivia present a hand cleansing vessel, a bottle form with two spouts. In Jewish cleansing rituals, a cup with two handles is used. To avoid recontamination after pouring water on one hand, the clean hand will grab the other untouched handle to pour water on the other hand. Zivia’s version reconfigures the utensil as a double necked bottle.

Ami Drach uses ready made plates on which she transfers silk-screened conductive prints. When connected to a source of power through an abs connector housing underneath the plate, the  pattern of the print, made with platinum conducting heat and electricity, will warm the food and keep the content hot for the duration of the meal.

Julie Green series titled “The Last Supper” started in 1999 and ongoing depicts in blue and white painting on a plate the last meal of a death row inmate.

Ron Barron, often using recycled, discarded dishes found in junk stores, made “United We Stand” in 2005 as post 9/11 monument, a time capsule for our time, in this case using only black and white plates. In a similar approach to stacking and commemoration, Emiko Oki has designed a dinner service that can be stacked to compose an elaborate trophy.

Alice Mara’s plates are covered with a digitally printed decals depicting various domestic spaces: the interior of a sink, the front of a washing machine, etc. Her bowls are decorated with photographic images of people hanging from the edge, all around the rim.

In Greece, ceramics artist Yiannis made a plate containing a meal, all in ceramics, in 1972. In Cuba, Antonia Reira has made a ceramic plate containing beans and rice, all ceramics as well, to comment on the limited diet of the ordinary people of the country.

The Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Biennial in 2008 reconstructed a nostalgic kitchen environment from the 1960’s, decorated with colorful dinnerware from that time.

Sudsiri Pui-Ock’s video “The Dinner’ 2005, shows a feast for eight invisible guests with hand painted  blue and white dishes with whimsical scenes of her overseas stays.

In August 2009, a Russian tourist at the Louvre in Paris, trough a teacup at the Mona Lisa. She had brought it in her handbag from the museum’s restaurant and hurled it at the famous painting. It smashed against the bullet proof glass which was slightly scratched. Why use a porcelain cup for such an act? What symbolism is implied? Likewise, in daytime talk shows, why are there always ceramic pots and vases as part of the background décor? What symbolism is at work here? Domestic references? The comfort of ostentatious display? The reassuring presence of familiar objects?

In a more political, ecological and sustainable vein, the seminal work of Ron Rivera and Potters for Peace needs special mention. The water filter he designed, made locally with local materials out of fired clay, has preserved the health of numerous communities worldwide. In the field of sustainable design,  the Cradle to Cradle compostable dishes eliminate the concept of waste. After use, the dishes can be returned to the earth as nutrient, to feed the soil biological metabolism. In Montreal, designer Denise Bisson pushes the concept further with her edible dishes, made with edible materials molded into containers. She has devised forty different recipes for all possible tastes, from crunchy to chewy or even gelatinous textures. Plates can be chosen to match the taste of the food served in them and they can then be eaten as part of the meal. Find out more in her book “Edible: the Food as Material” from Editions du Passage. Also noteworthy, the ceramic “Rocket” stove, also made locally with local material which uses recycled fiber combustible. It is highly efficient to generate high heat energy with as little fuel as possible. The HotPot system uses a aluminum foil lined box to gather the energy of the sun to heat a meal, or boil water within a black or dark pot, which can be ceramics easily. The back pot is filled with the material to heat, boil or cook, placed in the open box with its reflective surface and the sun does the rest. No cost, no energy source. Totally ecological and renewable but you do need a sunny day. The Bloom Box is a recent invention, a wireless device made with razor-thin ceramic disks treated with proprietary inks, green on one side, black on the other. It can create energy with zero emissions. Oxygen is fed into one side of the cell while fuel is supplied to the other side to provide the chemical reaction required for power. It claims to eventually supplant transmission lines, wind farms and solar panels.

And at last, all the bowls made by potters worldwide to be donated for “Empty Bowls” fundraising events to generate funds for community needs while fostering community through social events around the making of the bowls and eating from them within a group sharing similar social values and to raise awareness around issues like Aids, homelessness or domestic violence.