~DEREK WEISBERG: Porcelain Promises
the card for: DEREK WEISBERG – ‘Porcelain Promises’
Storefront Gallery / Greenwich House Pottery – 16 Jones St, btw Bleeker & West 4th – GREENWICH VILLAGE, NYC
the show ran: March 1 – March 29, 2012
yes, there were a few really striking shows this past winter, though most were off the beaten track.
case in point: the DEREK WEISBERG “figurative sculpture” exhibit at the Greenwich House Pottery’s Storefront Gallery.
it still haunts me, and nothing much has come close, except perhaps the recent MELISSA BROWN show at KANSAS. and that was painting. this is clay. this is 3-D. but ‘ghosts’, and seers, history and visions – do come to mind. and even more, in particular – the show had the tactile & philosophical !! – feel of the day. the inky, murky, deep angst, even anger everybody is expressing, and of whose preponderance in the blogsphere – even CATHY HORYN, the first-person fashion writer for the NEW YORK TIMES, addressed recently.
DEREK WEISBERG, at the show.
“I create works of art that are emotional and psychological self-portraits. Through my work I make sense of my life, my experiences, and the times in which we live. I do not make photorealist portraits, instead I endeavor to achieve an interiority. I create sculptures that are accessible and allow the viewer to have an experience that cannot be articulated – simultaneously igniting contemplation, reflection and a lasting relationship with the work. The works reflect humanist ideology; searching for truth and universal morality based on the commonality of the human condition.” – Derek Weisberg.
DEREK WEISBERG received his BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts in 2005. In 2008, he was named a “Searching Artist” selected as one of ten nationally emerging craftspersons. He has work in the collections of the Oakland Museum of California and the Glasshoff Sculpture Ranch and has shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States.
His most recent solo exhibitions ‘Auroral Dreaming’ and ‘You Were Almost Extinct Again’, were held in California in 2011.
WEISBERG has been artist assistant to STEPHEN DE STAEBLER, URSULA VON RYDINGSVARD, and MANUEL NERI. He has co-owned a gallery in Oakland – and is now a studio technician at Greenwich House Pottery, where he maintains a studio.
DEREK WEISBERG. in fact – the Greenhouse Pottery’s ‘romantic’, and very ‘historic’ architectural storefront – was a very poetic setting – that set the work off nicely, not to mention providing a wonderful prism of natural light – to play off the nuanced surfaces.
DEREK WEISBERG, ‘Who Flew Too Close to the Sun II’, 2011, porcelain. life size.
($1,600.)
DEREK WEISBERG, ‘One Day You Just Appeared, It Was So Beautiful’, 2012.
DEREK WEISBERG, ‘Who Flew Too Close to the Sun I’, 2012.
DEREK WEISBERG, ‘Porcelain Promises XI The Constant Push for Something Just Past the Point of Attainability’, 2011.
($1,800.)
DEREK WEISBERG, ‘Porcelain Promises VII, (I Was Stone Now I’m Dust)’, 2011.
yes, scrimshaw, DUKE RILEY, and even the inscribed lap tops of MICHAEL DINGES – come to mind . . . as ongoing dialog.
see: ‘Dead Lap Tops and other artifacts of the recent present’, TEKSERVE, FALL 2011
DEREK WEISBERG, detail, ‘Porcelain Promises XIII (Between the Message and the Motive)’, 2011.
DEREK WEISBERG, ‘Porcelain Promises XIII (Between the Message and the Motive)’, 2011.
DEREK WEISBERG, ‘Untitled mask I’, 2012
($400.)
DEREK WEISBERG, a close-up of one of his ‘accessorizing’ low-tech hand-made silver foil ‘flowers’ – a gently startling contrast, and a lyric narrative note – but all-in-all a very nice mix – especially as regards highlighting the play of light – on the foil, and then back to the main work: the smooth white alabaster-like surface of the porcelain heads, often embellished with black, sometimes word-engraved – detail.
DEREK WEISBERG, detail, ‘Untitled mask I’, 2012.
want – to see more, he runs a great website: DEREKWEISBERG.com
GREENWICH HOUSE is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH, NYC. MARCH 1, 2012