Saddle Up, Dorodango

JANE HARTSOOK GALLERY
Saddle up, Dorodango
Sam Stewart-Halevy & Anika Schwarzwald

October 7 – November 4, 2016
Artists Reception: Friday, October 7, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Anika Schwarzwald and Samuel Stewart-Halevy are architects who have long been fascinated by the materials and procedures of ceramic work. In Saddle up, Dorodango, they have tracked the sediments of the earth’s crust into the specialized and highly technical realm of industrial ceramics. Here they have discovered previously unimaginable forms and functions and an expanded array of possibilities for a material that has always been plastic in nature. They hope to understand what remains universal about clay matter once it passes into unfamiliar states and through the global supply chains of contemporary ceramic production. Anika is a designer of cultural, educational and public building projects at Studio Gang in New York. Samuel is pursuing a doctoral degree in the history and theory of architecture at Columbia University.

Intalox saddles in the scorching vapor
Norton ™ and Norton Super ™
Distillation through a standard taper
An offering to Saint Gobain

Ride on, coke knight, to Fontainebleau
To the carbide lathes of Corning
White slabs and rods machinable
Annealed for global warming

[Chorus]
No llores, mi querida
Dios nos vigila
Do not cry upon the Dorodango

Pensar redonda, no bruñida
Soon the Hot Sale will be gone
Soon you will reply to Taizhou Ango

Past the terracotta army of Emperor Qin
Earthquakes ring out from the kaolin mine
The grinding mill turns once again
Sending dust on down the line

Was it you that took my hand, my dear?
Could I see you through the film?
And was alumina sintered here
Among those dark satanic kilns?

[Chorus]

Climb aboard the Hyundai Pluto
New Panamax tonnage and bottomless debt
A Liberian Flag of Convenience
Flies from Culebra Cut to New Elizabeth

Behold her ten high box containers
Piled up like old Testaccio
The gantry cranes lift them from their mangers
Releasing all her commodity flows

The sea a slurry of universal clay
Where shards of broken vessels ride
No matter; form can’t be pried away
From the churning hylomorphic tides

[Chorus]
Above the Palisade escarpment
The Fort Lee World Spa and Sauna
Offers ancestral hot soil treatment
But there are no refunds for nirvana

Lie down among the balls of loess
Rest your head on the Cizhou pillow
Interred within your earthen host
Dream of backsplashes on Zillow

[Chorus]

Gallery Contact: Aimee Odum, aodum@greenwichhouse.org
(212) 242-4106 ext., 25
16 Jones Street, New York, NY 10014
Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Saturday 12:00 – 6:00 p.m. or by appointment

This program is supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Allan Buitekant Fund for Ceramic Art & Inquiry, the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, the Hompe Foundation, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.