ON VIEW JULY 9–JUNE 4, 2017, EXHIBITION COMPLETES CYCLE IN CONJUNCTION WITH “PEACOCK ROOM REMIX: DARREN WATERSON’S FILTHY LUCRE”
American sculptor Walter McConnell explores the West’s near-fanatical fascination with blue-and-white Chinese porcelain from the 1870s through today in the installation “Chinamania.” On view at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery from July 9 through June 4, 2017, it will complement “Peacock Room REMIX: Darren Waterson’s Filthy Lucre,” currently on view.
“Chinamania,”—the third installment of exhibitions running concurrently with Waterson’s “Peacock Room REMIX”—includes more than 50 blue-and-white porcelains from China’s Kangxi period (1661–1722)—similar to those originally displayed in James McNeill Whistler’s Peacock Room. McConnell designed the dramatically lit display of blue-and-whites and a pendant piece created from 3-D scans of the porcelain originals. The exhibition also features two monumental ceramic stupas, each composed of more than 800 individual porcelain figures from McConnell’s series “A Theory of Everything.”
“Filthy Lucre,” Waterston’s room-sized installation inspired by Whistler’s Peacock Room—designed to showcase its original owner’s vast porcelain collection—holds scores of vessels inspired by the collection of museum founder Charles Lang Freer. Arranged on the buckling shelves of the disheveled interior, the oozing, misshapen ceramics convey a sense of unsustainable luxury and excess that is also a key theme of McConnell’s work.
During the 17th century, many aristocratic palaces and country houses throughout Europe boasted a porcelain chamber, a room specifically built for large displays of ceramics. Later, in the Victorian era, the craze trickled down to the middle class, for whom blue-and-white ceramics became a sign of status and taste. These cultural commentators of the time both embraced and poked fun at the porcelain craze. Illustrator George du Maurier parodied the fad in a series of cartoons for Punch Magazine that documented what he mockingly called “Chinamania.”
McConnell became interested in Chinese porcelain and its place in Western culture in 2002 when he visited Jingdezhen, China, a major site of ceramics production and export since the 14th century. For “Chinamania,” McConnell examines the aesthetic and cultural meanings of replication, consumerism and transnational encounters both commercial and artistic.
“By juxtaposing historical export wares with his own monuments of ceramic excess, McConnell reminds us that a culture of aspirational shopping and ever-cheaper knock-offs has a long history,” said Lee Glazer, associate curator of American art. “His work also reminds us that meticulous craftsmanship and singular artistic vision can overcome the banality of mass production and conspicuous consumption.”
About the Artist
McConnell is a professor of ceramic art at Alfred University’s School of Art and Design. He is well known for his installations of moist clay and towering assemblages of cast porcelain. He received his Bachelors of Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut in 1974 and his Masters of Fine Arts in ceramic art from Alfred University in New York State in 1986. He has received grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation. The Denver Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, MASS MoCA in North Adams, the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art in Missouri, the University of Colorado Art Museum in Boulder and SOFA [Sculpture Objects and Functional Art], New York, have shown his installations of moist clay and towering assemblages of cast porcelain. He has exhibited internationally in Sweden, the Netherlands, Taiwan, China and Korea. Essays and reviews on McConnell’s work have appeared in Sculpture Magazine, World Sculpture News, New Art Examiner, Ceramics: Art and Perception, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Ceramics Monthly.
About the National Museum of Asian Art
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art is committed to preserving, exhibiting, researching and interpreting art in ways that deepen our collective understanding of Asia, the United States and the world. Home to more than 46,000 objects, the museum stewards one of North America’s largest and most comprehensive collections of Asian art, with works dating from antiquity to the present from China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Islamic world. Its rich holdings bring the arts of Asia into direct dialogue with an important collection of 19th- and early 20th-century art from the United States, providing an essential platform for creative collaboration and cultural exchange between the U.S., Asia and the Middle East.
Beginning with a 1906 gift that paved the way for the museum’s opening in 1923, the National Museum of Asian Art is a leading resource for visitors, students and scholars in the United States and internationally. Its galleries, laboratories, archives and library are located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and are part of the world’s largest museum complex, which typically reports more than 27 million visits each year. The museum is free and open to the public 364 days a year (closed Dec. 25), making its exhibitions, programs, learning opportunities and digital initiatives accessible to global audiences.
For more information, visit the museum’s website and follow updates on Instagram at @natasianart, Twitter at @NatAsianArt and Facebook at @NatAsianArt.
