Shards: Garth Clark on Ceramic Art [first edition]

Breaking the ceramic arts up into incisive, historic, award-winning essays, Shards is an anthology of writings by Garth Clark, one of the most noted proponents of the medium. The writings in this volume span 25 years of Clark's important career as a critic, historian and dealer in ceramics. The compilation is divided into two parts and features over 150 duotones of seminal ceramic works. Part one deals with artists and contains catalogue and exhibition essays that focus on individual artists--contemporary and historic, domestic and foreign. Part two is dedicated to issues, including American ceramic history and general history; criticism, theory, scholarship, and semantics; function and design; and finally, the marketplace. This volume also contains, among many of Clark's seminal works, six previously unpublished articles, several on artists and others confronting some of the field's more controversial topical issues. Sure to raise hackles among ceramists, not least of all among ceramics' many teachers, is the chapter “Ceramic Education and the Culture of Amateurism.” Artists and students alike will be compelled and delighted by some of Clark's best and most recent musings on maverick artists like British potter Grayson Perry, widely collected and celebrated by the likes of Charles Saatchi and Damien Hirst. Shards is the most comprehensive grouping of Clark's writings to date.