Peter Schlesinger
Untitled, 2020
Glazed stoneware
80 x 35.6 x 35.6 cm
Copyright The Artist
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Untitled, 2020 is a tall and slender vessel-shaped ceramic with a pattern of blue spots and checkers. The sculpture evokes the basic forms of modernism and abstraction while also recalling...
Untitled, 2020 is a tall and slender vessel-shaped ceramic with a pattern of blue spots and checkers. The sculpture evokes the basic forms of modernism and abstraction while also recalling the geometric period of Ancient Greek sculpture. The vessel, a form which has persisted throughout history, brings forth a constellation of associations. Through a process of imitation, recurrence, and departure, Schlesinger incorporates historical references while integrating them into a modern context— an uroboric symmetry of knowledge in form. This is exemplified by the sculpture’s painterly glaze, which appears slightly displaced and dripping, evidence of the spontaneity of his brushwork. These types of intentional imperfections invite attention to specific parts of the surface, creating a diffuse interplay of color, symbol, and motif— suggestive of a certain naïveté and its embrace of naturalism.
Schlesinger has exhibited his sculptures widely in New York and London since the late 80s. Peter’s earliest sculptures engendered the qualities of ancient ceramic traditions: the fastidious excesses of figural animals, typically created in the style of Neolithic Chinese pottery, to the primeval urns reminiscent of pagan fertility vessels. Schlesinger uses hand-building and slab-building, both methods invented before throwing on a pottery wheel. These techniques bear specific implications: no two sculptures could ever be made identical, as the process inhibits uniformity. From sculpting clay basins of massive proportions to adorning them with painted foliage inspired by his garden, the evidence of a palpated gesture is unmistakably embedded within the artworks.
Schlesinger’s sculptures and paintings are in the collections of the Parrish Art Museum, USA, The Farnsworth Museum, USA and Manchester Gallery of Art, UK. In 1993, Schlesinger was awarded the prestigious Tiffany Foundation Award. In 2015 Acne Studios published a monograph of Schlesinger’s ceramic work, presented in chronological order beginning in the 1980s, with photographs by Eric Boman.
Schlesinger has exhibited his sculptures widely in New York and London since the late 80s. Peter’s earliest sculptures engendered the qualities of ancient ceramic traditions: the fastidious excesses of figural animals, typically created in the style of Neolithic Chinese pottery, to the primeval urns reminiscent of pagan fertility vessels. Schlesinger uses hand-building and slab-building, both methods invented before throwing on a pottery wheel. These techniques bear specific implications: no two sculptures could ever be made identical, as the process inhibits uniformity. From sculpting clay basins of massive proportions to adorning them with painted foliage inspired by his garden, the evidence of a palpated gesture is unmistakably embedded within the artworks.
Schlesinger’s sculptures and paintings are in the collections of the Parrish Art Museum, USA, The Farnsworth Museum, USA and Manchester Gallery of Art, UK. In 1993, Schlesinger was awarded the prestigious Tiffany Foundation Award. In 2015 Acne Studios published a monograph of Schlesinger’s ceramic work, presented in chronological order beginning in the 1980s, with photographs by Eric Boman.
