Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen and Christina Schou Christensen: Software & Glorified Ingratitude

Welcome to the opening Thursday 29 August 5 – 8 pm

On Saturday 31 August at 2 pm you are invited to an Artist Talk with Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen and Christina Schou Christensen

Press Release

Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen and Christina Schou Christensen:
Software & Glorified Ingratitude

29 August – 21 September 2013

What happens when you fold, stretch and over-fire clay: when the efflorescence of teeming forms unfolds? Young Danish ceramic artists Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen and Christina Schou Christensen invite the viewer to partake in a playful, mind-opening journey exploring the possibilities of clay.

Presenting the unspoiled honesty of the materials, Christina Schou Christensen and Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen show reluctance to let their objects be defined as crafts in the conventional sense and are manifestly not limited by restrictions, guidelines and ordinary, traditional regulations.

Following two busy years since her graduation in 2011, where she has been manifesting herself strongly on the international and Danish scene with works where the fluidity of thick glazes shapes the objects in a spectacular manner, Christina Schou Christensen now returns to a technique involving flat pieces of clay that she meticulously molds and shapes into cone-shaped, round objects.

At first glance, the works seem somewhat uniform, but upon closer inspection each craft’s autonomy is apparent. Presented as a single, fragile group the abstract and fabulating works have an unmistakable femininity embedded, executed with a gentleness of expression. Almost like pieces of candy, each swirling object exudes a tactile, velvet-like softness that speaks to the viewer’s sweet tooth. Untamed, immediate, liberating, and tangible at the same time, this unpretentious immediacy is a key component of the individual objects as well as their overall look.

Viewed together, Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen’s works form a distorted narrative that includes figurative structures, teeth, a tennis ball, small turrets and foaming abstract sculptures largely reminiscent of an overflow of dishwashing soap. The immediate story is twisted beyond recognition. The objects take shape depending on her mood during the creative process, while her thorough knowledge of the material creates a space to play, twist and stretch expected approaches. This creates an almost anarchic openness to what comes out of the kiln and a deliberate ignorance about how the final outcome will be.

The process is thus constantly shifting back and forth from a tightly controlled work to a display of chaos and restlessness. Pontoppidan Pedersen appreciates the despicable: by elevating it on a pedestal, she cultivates the beauty in ugliness and allows room for error, embracing the mistakes – a dogma from which quite unique, opaque wonders unfold.

Both artists have each created new works, which deviate from tradition and break the rules, while also exalting the flaws and unpredictability as a form of art themselves. The final outcome is strikingly different from other contemporary ceramic artists on the Danish ceramics- and art scene.

The exhibition focuses on experimentation, playing with material, format and proportions, with a sensuality and tactility explored in both artists' objects. This cutting edge use of materials proves that Schou Christensen and Pontoppidan Pedersen are some of the most remarkable new sculptors in the field. The exhibition embodies the new aesthetics of contemporary ceramics, deviating from tradition and challenging the viewer to relate to the field in a markedly innovative way.

Christina Schou Christensen already shows an impressive exhibition career, e.g.: Solo Award exhibition at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition 2013, Copenhagen; MindCrafts, Salone di Mobile, Milan 2013; Collect, Saatchi Gallery, London 2012 ( w. Galerie Sofie Lachaerts); Biennial of Crafts and Design 2012, Koldinghus, DK. In 2013 she was awarded the Annie and Otto Johs. Detlefs Travel scholarship for talented young ceramists.

Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen attracted much attention with her degree show from KADK Bornholm in 2012. She was selected for EDGE, a juried show on campus in Copenhagen of outstanding student projects. She has since been showing e.g. at: Good Bones, Copenhagen City Hall 2013; Terres – Copenhagen Ceramics Invites, Galerie Maria Lund, Paris 2013. Her works are in the collection of Erik Veistrup.

On Saturday 31 August at 2 pm Copenhagen Ceramics invites to an artist talk with the artists at the gallery.

Text: Henriette Noermark & CC

21.11 – 14.12
Claydies and Ole Jensen