Everything Must Go
(curated by Henry JH Crissman)
Public Pool, Hamtramck, MI
Press Release:
EVERYTHING MUST GO: CERAMICS LIQUIDATION is an absurdist survey, bringing together Detroit area ceramicists and inviting them to collectively let down their guard and to commune over things that we might typically shy away from putting into the world; to offer up the oddballs, the unexpected happenings and peculiar things that expose our fallibility and vulnerabilities, the idiosyncrasies that social media’s algorithms discourage, the things that don’t easily meet capitalistic expectations about how art should become commodity, but somehow have some character that’s kept them from the trash, and so they linger in boxes, on the backs of shelves and in the dirty corners of our studios and homes.
Advertised by street facing banners, bold colors and large all capital letters in true Hamtramck storefront fashion, the gallery is arranged like magical thrift store of ceramic oddities, with misfits, mistakes, disasters, doodles, and left-behinds displayed on shelves from a nearby closing family owned hardware store. The peculiar objects connect and make accessible the incredible range of folks making ceramics in our city and encourage questions regarding the forces shape the things we make, the ways we think about and value them, and how we put them into the world.
The title of the show is an accurate description of the deals to be had and the hope that these things might indeed be purchased so they may go off and resonate their complexities in the world, but EVERYTHING MUST GO: CERAMICS LIQUIDATION could be read doubly as a plea that the status quo be let go, that we question and challenge the dominant value systems and expectations in favor something that's more individually, socially and ecologically sustainable.
Participating Artists: Alec Smith, Aleyah Austin, Anastasia Edry, Anna Burke, Avery Campbell, Benjamin Teague, Bobby Leo Veresan, Chris Riddell, CHUCK, Deb King, Ebi Baralaye, Elise DeChard, Elizabeth Youngblood, Erin Ruttowski, Gerasis Jexiorski, Heaven Montero, Heidi Barlow, Henry JH Crissman, Kailani Wolfe, Kate Bramlage, Kimberly LaVonne, Klair Urban, Laith Karmo, Lorenia Cruz Santiago, Majerle Marshall, Mark Vander Heide, MK, Mo Weeks, Ricky Blanding, Sara Nishikawa, Sean Vanden Brink, Sheri Houghland, Shuba Shekar, Sophia Larsen, Starlie Cheevens, Steven Kin, Susannah Goodman, Tom Phardel, Travis Taylor, Valerie Wilke, Vincent Harrison, Virginia Torrence
