Preservation: Objects Registering the Past and the Present
Philadelphia's Physick House, a federal style mansion built in 1786, as well as in the galleries at The Clay Studio. Exhibiting artists include Jane Irish, Jacintha Clark, Terri Frame, Roberto Lugo, Adam Ledford, Kevin Van Zanten, Jane Irish, Haviland/Coloagiovianni, and Syd Carpenter.
One if the compelling ironies of historical preservation is that caring for the physical objects in very particular ways also means continuing to the illusions those objects were designed to create. Seeing things for what they are means seeing what they were pretending to be. See for example, the marble fireplaces surrounded by wallpaper made to look like drapery or the faux-marble wallpaper of the breakfast room designed to embody the characteristics of Egyptian stone. When we give tours of the property, we often ask visitors to make connections between out current standard of domestic material, forms, and amenity, and those of the time period represented by the Physick House mansion. Sometimes we are in a position of helping to pretend that the house is what it used to be, and sometimes we are inevitably projecting our own ideas about how a house like this might have functioned as a social signifier. Historical properties thus not only preserve particular places but serve as records for wider patterns of taste, and inevitably, as indexes of how we have understood those patterns. The question, “What was this place,” becomes “what do we imagine that a place like this would have aspired be.”
By the same turn, how do we create new objects that echo the stories of the past? Contemporary artists exhibiting in Preservation are engaged in a conversation with the present and the past, making art that harnesses the power of both as states of being.
One if the compelling ironies of historical preservation is that caring for the physical objects in very particular ways also means continuing to the illusions those objects were designed to create. Seeing things for what they are means seeing what they were pretending to be. See for example, the marble fireplaces surrounded by wallpaper made to look like drapery or the faux-marble wallpaper of the breakfast room designed to embody the characteristics of Egyptian stone. When we give tours of the property, we often ask visitors to make connections between out current standard of domestic material, forms, and amenity, and those of the time period represented by the Physick House mansion. Sometimes we are in a position of helping to pretend that the house is what it used to be, and sometimes we are inevitably projecting our own ideas about how a house like this might have functioned as a social signifier. Historical properties thus not only preserve particular places but serve as records for wider patterns of taste, and inevitably, as indexes of how we have understood those patterns. The question, “What was this place,” becomes “what do we imagine that a place like this would have aspired be.”
By the same turn, how do we create new objects that echo the stories of the past? Contemporary artists exhibiting in Preservation are engaged in a conversation with the present and the past, making art that harnesses the power of both as states of being.
Porcelain objects, wooden table, clay slip mural replicating the wallpaper in the Physick House, 2017
Statement:
With porcelain as her primary medium, Jacintha Clark makes installations that explore environments and focus on memory of time and place. Working in architectural conservation for the past six years has given her the opportunity to make connections with the hidden layers and skeletons of structures, which allow historical elements to influence her art. Her work is about forging connections with both material and subject, uncovering the hidden stories buried beneath the surface of the built environment. The physical property of vitreous porcelain, at once delicate and brittle, emulates states of decay in nature, yet are built and mended by hand. She emphasizes fingerprints and allows the clay to reveal the human hand in the work as it warps, cracks, and changes. Her installations create moments where the work accesses dimensions of both physical and psychological landscapes, finding the beauty and the unrest in temporal junctures.
This body of work is in direct conversation with the Physick house Mansion built in 1786 and owned by “the father of surgery” Dr Philip Syng Physick. The decorative elements found in the house tell a story of what is original to the house at the time it was built as well as what has been added and reconstructed by others through time. The original and the reconstructed elements are placed side-by-side blurring into a larger dialogue of taste, preference and status. By translating these historical references into contemporary porcelain objects, a new layer of questions can be asked. What parts of our architectural past can we hold onto for the future? What psychological and symbolic qualities of that environment relates to ours today?
Statement:
With porcelain as her primary medium, Jacintha Clark makes installations that explore environments and focus on memory of time and place. Working in architectural conservation for the past six years has given her the opportunity to make connections with the hidden layers and skeletons of structures, which allow historical elements to influence her art. Her work is about forging connections with both material and subject, uncovering the hidden stories buried beneath the surface of the built environment. The physical property of vitreous porcelain, at once delicate and brittle, emulates states of decay in nature, yet are built and mended by hand. She emphasizes fingerprints and allows the clay to reveal the human hand in the work as it warps, cracks, and changes. Her installations create moments where the work accesses dimensions of both physical and psychological landscapes, finding the beauty and the unrest in temporal junctures.
This body of work is in direct conversation with the Physick house Mansion built in 1786 and owned by “the father of surgery” Dr Philip Syng Physick. The decorative elements found in the house tell a story of what is original to the house at the time it was built as well as what has been added and reconstructed by others through time. The original and the reconstructed elements are placed side-by-side blurring into a larger dialogue of taste, preference and status. By translating these historical references into contemporary porcelain objects, a new layer of questions can be asked. What parts of our architectural past can we hold onto for the future? What psychological and symbolic qualities of that environment relates to ours today?