The ASU Art Museum and Ceramics Research Center in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts present Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby, a landmark exhibition featuring the work of contemporary ceramist Wayne Higby, who is widely considered one of the most innovative second generation artists to emerge from the post–World War II American ceramic studio movement.
The exhibition, on view April 27 – July 20 at the ASU Art Museum, was organized by Peter Held, curator of ceramics at the Ceramics Research Center. The 60–piece exhibition is the first major retrospective to provide an in-depth critical analysis of Higby’s work from the 1960s to the present, offering a full view of his stylistic development. The exhibition will highlight Higby’s earlier raku-fired ceramics and later groundbreaking large-scale architectural wall installations, as well as his study drawings.
Higby lives and works in Alfred, N.Y., and holds a professorship and the Robert C. Turner Chair of Ceramic Art at Alfred University. He is the recipient of the American Craft Movement Visionary Award from the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, as well as the Master of the Medium award and the Distinguished Educator award from the James Renwick Alliance. Higby is also Honorary Professor of Art at Shanghai University and an Honorary Citizen of the “Porcelain City” of Jingdezhen, China. Higby is the founding director of the Alfred–Central Academy of Fine Arts’ Ceramic Design for Industry program in Beijing.
Held is the editor for the 216–page color monograph entitled Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby, published and distributed by Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart, Germany, which will be available at the museum store. Illuminating essays by scholars and writers Tanya Harrod, Ezra Shales, Henry Sayre and Helen W. Drutt English, among others, provide insightful analysis of Higby’s work.
In conjunction with the exhibition’s opening, Higby will deliver a lecture on April 27 from 1–2 p.m. in COOR 174 on the ASU Tempe campus, with a reception to follow in the Americas Gallery of the ASU Art Museum from 2:30–4:30 p.m.
After it leaves the ASU Art Museum, the exhibition will embark on a two–year national tour, travelling to the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., the Reading Public Museum in Reading, Pa., the Philadelphia Art Alliance in Philadelphia, the Racine Art Museum in Racine, Wis., and the Memorial Art Museum in Rochester, N.Y.
Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby is funded by an Artist’s Exhibition Series grant from the Windgate Charitable Foundation, with additional funds provided by Marlin and Regina Miller, The Robert C. Turner Chair endowment fund, Alfred University, Friends of Contemporary Ceramics and the ASU School of Art Ceramics Program.
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