The 4th Jakarta Contemporary Ceramics Biennial: Ways of Clay: Perspectives Toward the Future

Through the “Ways of Clay: Perspectives Toward the Future”, JCCB aims to interpret history as a perspective that can be used in understanding future ceramic art practices.

Close your eyes. The sound of glazed stoneware is tinkling and echoing through the aesthetic, white-painted room, giving reflective tranquility and gentle solitude. The becalming sound comes from the acrylic shapes attached to iron wires which gently tap on a range of yellow tableware These cups and saucers and plates appear to be balanced on the heads clay figures.

That was a glimpse of Arya Pandjalu’s artwork that he created in Jenggala, Bali. ‘Electric Earth’, was presented as part of the 4th Jakarta Contemporary Ceramics Biennale’s “Ways of Clay: Perspectives Toward the Future”. Best known for his hybridized depictions of bird-headed men, Arya Pandjalu often looks into the existence, growth, and organic adaptability of the common, rural folk in increasingly urbanised surroundings. Combining personal story telling with that of the peoples’, Pandjalu puts the human subject forward in its conjunction among other living creatures in nature, vis-a-vis with his own mechanized activities. Pandjalu’s depictions become a reflective interstice, which imagines the world as thoroughly interweaved, hybridized between man’s activities with his simple natural surroundings, while also implying a subtle contrast through his way of emulating organic colors in nature.

Held in the Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta, from December 7th 2016 – January 22nd 2017, The 4th Jakarta Contemporary Ceramics Biennale(JCCB) featured artworks from 41 artists from more than 20 countries, making it the largest biennale ceramics event in Southeast Asia. Carrying the theme “Ways of Clay: Perspectives Toward the Future”, as stated by the curator NurdianIchsan, it tried to understand the connection between the artist’s ideas and the various methods of artistic expressions, where the artist’s individual perspective toward material and media defines or influences his or her creative process and appreciation.

The 4thJCCB doesn’t look at history merely in a scholarly context of ceramic art history. Rather, this biennale hopes to look at the history of clay and ceramic media usage within the wider art practice. This was shown in Teri Frame’s video performances, ‘Simians’, ‘Early Humans’, and ‘Hybrids’. Although the American artist was trained as a ceramist, video performance and digital imaging have become part of her body of work. In these video performances, she examined how notions of beauty and proportion related to aging, disease, disability, and race.

Clay and ceramics played a role as the liaison, for artists with themselves, as well as with reality and society. Clay connects artists with something that is existential, while ceramics connect art with daily life and the public more broadly. The connection is something that is interconnected with our collective forms of awareness: the experiential awareness of clay and ceramics. “Sophistically, these two aspects are the ones that affect us when appreciating the work of ceramics,” as Nurdian Ichsan wrote in his curatorial statement.

Whether it is a little concerning seeing the construction of Eddi Prabandono’s work, ‘Greedy’ consists of a chair with stacks of dining plates and yellowish paddy on it, amazement when tasting the clay bread of Masha Ru and Dina Roussou’s ‘EAT*A*ABLE episode 9: Cooking Clay’ in collaboration with Alghorie and produced by Jakarta based-artisan baker, Amy Pangestu (@mamiko.breadlab) or amusement on feeling the warmth of Kyoko Uchida’sclay silhouette, which uses the old method of coiling, from ‘In My Room 1-9’.

Comparing these artworks, unlike East Asian countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China; it is said that Indonesia does not have a cutting-edge ceramics tradition. In other words, the cultural capital, technology, and public appreciation in Indonesia towards ceramic art is considerably low. But we can witness it slowly growing and nowadays,when art is dominated by digital media, ceramic art practice has, on the one hand, become part of this digital phenomenon by utilizing the various technological possibilities as part of its artistic expression. But then, it has also become the antithesis of the digital world; it is becoming even more recognized as an experiential material. Ceramic art practice has become an experience in materiality, which offers a way back to reality.

Photo by Ralmond F. Karundeng