Artist´s Talk
Thursday, March 22, 2012
6:30 p.m.

Presented by Marek Cecula, artist, founder of Modus Design, and former head and coordinator of the ceramics department at Parsons School of Design, New York (1983–2004)

Ceramics is no longer a field monopolized by potters and ceramists; a new generation of artists and designers is broadening the ceramics vocabulary.  Technological advances have made it possible to coat clay with synthetic substances, cut it with precision, form it into complex 3-D models, and decorate it with computerized digital decals. Today, clay has become an adaptable and versatile medium for a wide range of applications, and an important player in contemporary artistic practice.

Polish-born artist Marek Cecula creates ceramic sculptures that challenge established conventions of making and materiality. “I am seduced by the role ceramic plays in our lives and the aesthetic values it carries. I am a watcher, an anthropologist, who is constantly discovering how we form relationships with these objects and their functions.” Cecula´s artistic practice has also evolved into Modus Design, a firm that produces domestic wares in both limited and massproduced quantities, focusing on the “landscape of the table, and reinventing the conventional in contemporary ceramics.”

In this talk, Cecula explores the exciting new developments in the field of contemporary ceramics, and shares his own experiences with this unique material.

Admission is free and open to the public. A reception to meet the speaker follows the program. This lecture is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Shifting Paradigms in Contemporary Ceramics: The Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio Collection, on view at the MFAH through June 3, 2012.

Image: Marek Cecula, The Porcelain Carpet (detail), 2002

3-22-2012,     MFAH, Brown Auditorium Theater