Viewing Room - Polly Apfelbaum

Artworks

We are delighted to present an online viewing room dedicated to Polly Apfelbaum’s new series of brightly coloured moon-shaped ceramics. In this series, Apfelbaum reveals her interest in the myths and folklore surrounding the moon and particularly the influence of the full moon. Each moon is named after a location in Pennsylvania where the artist was born and which is famous for its unusual town names. The waxing and waning of the moon throughout the month marks the passage of time and feels especially poignant under lockdown conditions. The moon is often associated with the feminine and Apfelbaum found inspiration in the song, The Man in the Moon is a Lady from the Broadway musical Mame. It reveals that the so-called ‘man in the moon’ is actually ‘a lady in lipstick and curls’ who ‘winks at the stars from her bed of green cheese’.
Artworks

The New York-based artist is internationally renowned for her large-scale colourful installations of textiles, sculpture, prints and drawings and deploys a wide variety of media in order to explore the boundaries between art and handicraft. She chooses materials that are usually found in the domestic realm rather than that of the museum, in this instance glazed ceramic. In this way, she assumes a political and feminist position, challenging pomposity and suggesting an egalitarianism in society across the board. Colour is the key element in her work, both visually and structurally.
Artworks

During the lockdown, Apfelbaum has been working from her barn studio in the Hudson River Valley, where she has a kiln and has been creating a new body of work in clay. Apfelbaum has long been intrigued by the ancient craft of ceramics for the time factor that is involved but also the changes wrought during the firing process.
Artworks

‘Working with ceramics is something relatively new for me. I’m not a trained ceramicist. I’m fine with using tons of glaze, using the glaze as glue if the bisqueware cracks. I’m still learning as I’m going. I work fast, so the pieces are like drawings, but they’re also little paintings. Glazing is painting and that’s the thing that I really like; I think of the rugs and the ceramics as paintings. But ceramics can also be an amateur medium, you do it in school … Over time, I’ve picked up a miscellaneous collection of ceramics and found objects – things made by children, other artists or anonymous potters. I love them.’ Polly Apfelbaum interviewed by Andrew Hunt, SWIM 03, October 2019.

Images from top: Polly Apfelbaum, Noodle Doosie, PA; Blue Ball, PA; Echo, PA; Erie, PA (2020)
Polly Apfelbaum
If you would like further information about these works or other works in this series, please email sales@frithstreetgallery.com