If Central Florida’s endless summer finds you sweating in Winter Park, dip into the cool, subdued light of the Alice and William Jenkins Gallery at Crealdé School of Art. In just a few minutes’ respite from the hot November sun, you might have found a momentary utopia. Right now the gallery hosts ceramic artists Eric André and Raheleh Filsoofi, both exhibiting recent work that begins with ceramics as a common medium. André is currently visiting professor of studio art at Hope College in Michigan, and has taught workshops at Crealdé. Filsoofi is assistant professor of ceramics at Vanderbilt University and this is her first exhibit at Crealdé.
The earthy luminosity of curving terra cotta forms shines forth in both artists’ large installations. André’s “Untitled (Behind the Veil — What If?)” sets the pots on the floor under a wooden structure resembling a skateboard ramp, the surface lined with glittering sheet copper. Look closer and this upward curve is laced with chains encircling each pot’s neck.
In “The Inh(a/i)bited Space,” Filsoofi placed her terra cotta vases, about 29 of them, inverted on a large table as an installation. Each one’s wired with a speaker controlled from below, the wires and circuit boards deliberately disturbing the vessel skyline. In contrast to André’s placement on the floor, these hover above, emanating traffic sounds and xenophobic ranting on a tape loop.
If your utopia isn’t just a little shattered by the chained vessels, the shouting vessels do the trick. Anyone new to America and trying to navigate through what one artist describes as “an endless cycle of fear, anxiety, anger and frustration” will feel right at home. And you might have thought it was just you feeling anxious and on guard. No utopia here.
Art that can give the viewer a different perspective is extremely rare these days. This exhibit, sparingly curated and minimalist in its materials, relies on powerful symbolism that sinks in the longer the viewer stays.
A somewhat gentler, but still startling experience, lies in wait at Eric André’s installation in Crealdé’s gallery at Hannibal Square. A large airport-type scanner shaped like Africa, titled “Untitled (Void)” beckons you to enter. When you stand inside it, André has timed the interior LED system to build up just a little anxiety, like you feel when being scanned at the airport. I enter and the light turns green — I’m good to go. Nine-year-old Hanna, behind me, isn’t so lucky. “Why’d it turn red on me?” she asks her father. Art imitates life.
Upstairs, André hung ceramic boxing gloves from the ceiling, another reference to the challenges immigrants can have with wayfinding in America’s current belligerent phase. André’s “Untitled (Erasing)” is also here, a ceramic globe held by disembodied hands busy erasing some borders. We’re probably not quite ready for that step yet, but we could start visualizing it now.
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This article appears in Nov 6-12, 2024.