Y Wabi N

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  Arlene Shechet, A Night Out, 2011, and Y Wabi Sabi N, 2007

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  Arlene Shechet: Me llamo Arlene Shechet, y soy escultora.

  Narrador: Hay dos obras de Shechet en esta exposición hechas en cerámica. Se llaman A Night Out y Y Wabi N.

  Arlene Shechet: Lo maravilloso de la cerámica vidriada es que cualquier cosa que coloque en la superficie y haga fundir con fuego se vuelve completamente parte de la estructura de la obra. Es algo especial que tiene este material: fundir algo para que la forma y la superficie sean literalmente una misma cosa.

  Una de las cosas que tiene la arcilla es que necesita estar hueca para poder cocerla. Su oquedad me resulta extremadamente atractiva, porque se siente como un vacío alrededor de un aliento, o un vacío que contiene el aliento. A veces, al hacer las primeras piezas, hasta las veía como si fuesen inhalaciones o exhalaciones. Fue en la época en que mi padre tenía insuficiencia cardíaca congestiva. Pasaba días con él, y luego volvía y trabajaba en estas piezas, y tomaba una consciencia dolorosa o sublime, o dolorosa y sublime, de mi capacidad para respirar, y eso era lo que sucedía con los materiales cuando los inflaba o desinflaba como si les diera aliento.

  Narrador: A Night Out es una figura azul ubicada encima de dos bloques, uno de los cuales está desalineado respecto del otro.

  Arlene Shechet: Siempre pienso, sea la obra que sea, ¿dónde se apoya? ¿Cómo vive en el mundo? La precariedad del ensamble que genero para que esa pieza se pose está muy relacionada con mi propia experiencia de la precariedad de la vida y la muerte, y nuestra posición básica en el mundo del desconocimiento, y de intentar sentir estabilidad en una vida inherentemente inestable.

  Arlene Shechet, A Night Out, 2011, and Y Wabi Sabi N, 2007

  In Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019 (Spanish)

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  Ceramics Case study

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  Narrator: There are some art materials—like oil paint, or bronze—that people don’t usually use unless they go to art school. The works in this room are all made from a material that’s not like that at all—clay. A lot of us first used it in preschool, or even earlier. And we use ceramic mugs and plates everyday, too. Clay is so familiar, most of us probably don’t give it a lot of thought—but this room invites you to go ahead and think more about everything it can do. You’ll see elegant pots, smirking faces, colorful abstract forms, funky vessels, and one really tall man. Imagine using your hands to make these forms.

  Ceramics Case study

  In Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019 (Kids)

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  Arlene Shechet, A Night Out, 2011, and Y Wabi N, 2007

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  Arlene Shechet: My name is Arlene Shechet, and I'm a sculptor. 

  Narrator: Shechet has two works in this display of works made in ceramics. They’re called A Night Out and Y Wabi N. 

  Arlene Shechet: The beauty of ceramics was that whatever I put on the surface and I fired became completely part of the structure of the piece. That's so unique to that material, to fire something in, so that the form and the surface are literally one thing. 

  One of the things that clay presented to me was that it needed to be hollow in order to be fired. Its hollowness was extremely attractive to me because it felt like it was a void around a breath, or a void that contained the breath. Sometimes when I was making those early pieces, I was even thinking about them being inhales or exhales. It was at a time when my father had congestive heart failure. I would spend days with him, and then come and work on these pieces, where I was painfully and sublimely aware of my ability to breathe, and what was happening with the materials as I thought of them being puffed up or deflated through breath.    

  Narrator:  A Night Out is a blue form, placed on top of two block forms, one of which sits off-center on top of the other. 

  Arlene Shechet: I had always been thinking about, whatever I make, what does it sit on? How does it live in the world? The precariousness of the assemblage that I put together for that piece to sit atop is very related to me experiencing the precariousness of life and death, and our basic position in the world of not knowing, and trying to feel stability in an inherently unstable life.

  Arlene Shechet, A Night Out, 2011, and Y Wabi N, 2007

  In Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019