Adam Silverman ” Eight Tide Jars”
Cooper Union (7 E 7th Street)
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Artist Adam Silverman exhibits a new series of works in Eight Tide Jars at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. On view September 5 through September 26 in the 7th Floor Lobby of The Cooper Union’s Foundation Building, the site-specific installation highlights Silverman’s unique and personal work, which is influenced by his architectural training and his interest in process, materials, form, and structure.
“Architecture is part of my DNA, and I have always been influenced and inspired by the work of Le Corbusier, Tadao Ando, and other late modernists who focused on the materialty and experientiality of architecture,” says Silverman.
Known for his work that varies from more traditional functional pots to unique, abstract sculptures to ambitious installations, the works in Eight Tide Jars feature several experimental processes used to bring Silverman’s vessels to life. Rather than starting with a ball of clay, as is the norm, each of the eight wheel-thrown pieces begins with a 25 pound brick of clay placed directly on the wheel head. The top – and the majority – of the clay is then pounded into a ball and thrown from there, leaving a clear, integral square foot for the finished piece to stand on. Each piece spends at least a week on the wheel as it is slowly worked from a brick to a ball to a cylinder to an egg to a punched-and-pounded shadow of its original shape. The pieces are then fired, usually several times, to at least 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit in kilns that are extreme in atmosphere and temperature. Natural materials and oxides such as wood ash, seaweed, corn husks, fired and ground sea shells, beach dune clay, ocean salt, pine needles, iron oxide, manganese oxide, and cobalt oxide are either mixed in the glaze or A picture containing table, indoor
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“Tide Jar,” as is used in the exhibition title, is a name Silverman sometimes uses to describe this body of work. “Jar,” as a typology, refers specifically and especially to the Korean Moon Jar. Originally unique to Korea, moon jars were made in the late- to mid-17th to mid-18th century and were used for storing rice, soy sauce, alcohol, and sometimes displaying flowers. “Moon” refers to the exterior color and shape of the vessel. “Jar” refers to the interior and original function of storage. Together the two words describe a humble, functional object that has become a revered formal and historical icon.
“Tide,” as used by Silverman, refers to the rise and fall of the sea as caused by the effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon. More specifically, it is the resulting forces of the tides as experienced in the waves and currents; these are irregular forces, motion, and energies that vary from gentle to rolling to violent. One can imagine those foces at work inside these jars during their creation, and the resulting actions and shapes being frozen in time by the kiln’s fire.
“As Silverman traversed across disciplines from architecture to fashion and pottery, what is remarkable is not so much what he carried from one métier to another, but how he has been able to discover something irreducible about the means and methods of each medium and, in turn, how he has been able to translate certain protocols of making to confront the new matter with which he was faced,” says Nader Tehrani, Dean of Cooper’s The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, which is presenting the exhibition. “As such, Silverman doesn’t come to new forms with baggage, but with the patience that is deserved of the alchemic processes emerging from each art form’s peculiarities. He allows himself the time to discover the work in the act of becoming, and the space for jouissance, recognizing the intellectual space from which a process is born.”
Tide Jar, Stoneware, 2019
Media
Schedule
from September 05, 2019 to September 26, 2019
Opening Reception on 2019-09-05 from 19:00