Yingko looks at the future of ceramic arts

In many of the shops along Yingko's main street, there is no shortage of shops offering virtually everything in the way of ceramics and pottery vessels -- it ranges from toilet bowls (Yingko is a major producer for HCG) to gilt vessels destined for the presidential office made by Taihwa Pottery (台華), a major producer of high-quality porcelains. There is an uneasy relationship between potters as artists and the craftsmen brethren. Chiu made the distinction saying that the people who created Yingko's prosperity had known "how to use their hands," but "hadn't used their heads," meaning that they had not sought to be really creative, and had been content to work within a technical tradition.

The tension that exists between conventional utilitarian pottery and the items exhibited in the Contemporary Ceramics Invitational was best brought out by Chen, who displayed two tea pots of his own making (not included in the exhibition). Square bodied with rope handles, they have an arts-and-crafts feel about them -- but Chen suggests that they are really expressive of much more.

"As an artist I am still free to make these things. They are perfectly usable and even have a leaf strainer inside. But they are also expressive of my own artistic language." Here he points to the rope handles. "There is no rule that says a teapot's handle must be stiff, so I used a very soft material."

Chen's exhibition work, called Swimming, is a dialogue between fired terracotta and wood. The interaction of these different elements -- even incompatible, in that wood is burned to fire the clay -- is what this work is about. Its presence gives the viewer a conceptual challenge, and is miles away from what one might be led to expect from the permanent collection of the Yingko Ceramic Museum.

Superficially, the work of Chiu Chien-ching (邱建清) fits in more closely with the idea of pottery works with a strong local flavor. Erode, part of his "Jialuoshui" series, celebrates the effects of erosion along Taiwan's east coast. This direct geographical reference isn't actually the point, says Wu, noting a number of works from the US as having more effectively broken with traditional constrains and established themselves independently as a sculptural medium. "You can see that they have a much more effective way of manipulating three dimensional space," he said, walking around the spacious exhibition area.

For Taiwan's artists, an event such as the Contemporary Ceramics Invitational is that it provides contemporary potters with renewed pride and self-confidence. While they reach out toward the international community and seek to learn from it, Chen insists "local cultures also have much to offer the international community. We do not want to perceive ourselves as being on the fringe of things."

The museum itself, with two floors illustrating the history of Taiwan's pottery industry, with specific reference to Yingko, sets the scene perfectly for an exhibition that shows the new vistas opening for practitioners of pottery and ceramic work.

Starting March 8, a three-day symposium will open in which artists will talk about the situation in their respective countries, and Japan's artistic influence over Taiwanese pottery will be discussed.

The Yingko Ceramics Museum is located at 200 Wenhua Rd., Yingko, Taipei County (台北縣鶯歌鎮文化路200號), tel: (02) 8677-4104. The museum is open from 9:30am to 5pm Tuesday to Friday, closing at 8pm on Saturday and 6pm on Sunday. The Contemporary Ceramics Invitational will run until June 6. More information can be obtained at the museum's Web site at: http://www.ceramics.tpc.gov.tw.