F or millions of years, clay has been closely associated with humanity, carrying the memory of history since the birth of civilization. It not only shapes everyday objects, but also serves as a key for humans to explore the beauty of nature and spirituality. How can clay and fire, objects and humans, collaborate to create simple miracles? From 28 July to 25 August, 2023, "Shanghai Sotheby's Space" proudly presents the selling exhibition "Clay Nirvana" by Chinese pottery artist Gao Zhenyu. The exhibition includes nearly 70 pottery works created by the artist from 1997 to the present, including his representative "Clay Nirvana" series. Through the texture on the surface of various vessels such as bottles, goblets, plates, and bowls, the artist explores the vitality of clay itself and releases the most authentic beauty of its nature. In the artist's creative context, which blends ancient and modern, as well as Chinese and Western influences, this form of creation, originating from ancient times, is endowed with new philosophical ideas. The natural vitality nurtured by clay and fire continues to extend to broader time and space.
Photo credit: Yin Li, Film Director, Vice Chairman of CFDA
Clay is the primary medium of expression in pottery. There is nothing wrong with thinking about it that way, but as someone who comes from a long line of potters and currently makes a living in the medium, I feel that clay is not just a material that we shape into vessels; it is a living thing that deserves our respect.
When I start to create, I do not use a purely artistic method or follow a fixed, rigid process from idea conception to execution. I have always worked with the clay, expecting to negotiate with it. I grow with the clay, looking forward to the joy that I find in it, even if there is also an occasional burst of fear.
The process of forming a piece is a series of creative obstacles, but the clay continuously sparks new possibilities and offers fresh inspiration.
I have a deep love for tradition, and I grew up immersed in the culture of zisha or ‘purple sand’ objects, a creative practice that comes from tradition. My work is considered contemporary pottery, the result of my continued interrogation of and reflection on this art form.
Zisha techniques have been inherited almost directly from the Qing and Ming tradition, which conforms to natural principles and embodies in its modelling a uniquely Chinese sense of harmony or the Doctrine of the Mean. This tradition comes from the Song and Tang dynasties, which in turn originated in the Han dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period, and the Warring States Period. I created a series of zisha pieces that look back on the Han, Tang, Yuan, Ming, and Qing eras. I have always wondered: What is ‘traditional’ tradition? What is the tradition of ‘traditional’ tradition?
In recent years, I have also created a stamped series and a woven series. With these experiments, I found a freer kind of modelling, in which the clay slouched with gravity’s pull. These forms arose more easily than if I had imposed my desires upon them, but they also became more difficult to describe. When I was stamping the clay, the base form would expand and fill with tension.
Pottery springs from the pure relationship between a person and the clay; the desire to form vessels exists in the interactions and conversations between a person and the clay.
At the same time, I found that I was using fewer tools in my work, reduced from dozens to a simple few. One day, I just used a pebble taken from the river. Clay is soft, tenacious, fragile, and sharp. Clay collapses, cracks, slopes, and bears marks. As I work, I see its countless faces. We have always tried to make the clay seem like something other than clay, and as civilization has progressed, we have been able to manipulate the clay more easily. I am drawn to making clay more like clay and returning the clay to its original state.
Those countless faces are the primal language of clay, which convey my emotions in a purer, more direct, and more powerful way that everyone can feel.
When we return to the source of pottery making, the purest meeting of person and clay, we shape a form and release the inherent energy of the clay itself. Growing in conversation with the clay is the essence of ‘clay nirvana’.
Gao Zhenyu
A Potter Depicting the Stream
28 July - 25 August 2023
11:00 AM–5:00 PM
Shanghai Sotheby's Space
17/F, No. 69 Hengtong Road East,
Jing’an, Shanghai
