For the last 10 years Danish-born artist Anders Ruhwald has been creating ceramic objects shaped in forms long associated with household objects (i.e. lamp, vase, mirror) but not intended to be used as such. Ruhwald attempts to liberate these forms from their subordinating role as utilitarian obj... Read more
For the last 10 years Danish-born artist Anders Ruhwald has been creating ceramic objects shaped in forms long associated with household objects (i.e. lamp, vase, mirror) but not intended to be used as such. Ruhwald attempts to liberate these forms from their subordinating role as utilitarian objects and allow them to quietly but mischievously interact with the viewer. His investigations shed a new light on the nominative role certain objects play in the navigation of our daily lives. To this end, Ruhwald sets up individual sculptures— typically glazed earthenware in a single color—as stage props or even characters waiting for an audience.
In his new show entitled Temperance!, Ruhwald’s objects are suggestive, restrained and yet playful. The central piece in the show, “The shades about to fall (division),” consists of 23 rectangular ceramic forms hung from the ceiling in a straight line spanning the length of the gallery. The work becomes a space divider that is constantly changing as the individual pieces move around themselves. The work limits the audience’s movement in the gallery while leading them through the space as the individual pieces gradually change hue from one piece to the next. As a counterpoint, two human-scale yellow vases are placed at end of a large low podium intersecting the gallery. Cone-shaped with a flattened top, the vases have protruding handles that are too small to hold, lending an air of incongruity to this oddly proportioned yet ostensibly everyday scenery. At the other end of the gallery, a hollow object on tripod legs seems to mimic a TV. On the wall hung from orange knobs, two chairs play with Shaker dogmatism. Since they are only outline forms, they serve no practical purpose except to flatly echo the ideology of a vanished era.
