“Graham Marks: For Joy and Grieving” at HB381 | New York City
Throughout the 1980s and early ‘90s, the artist Graham Marks routinely made monumental ceramics whose rough-hewn surfaces recalled geodes or seed pods, but on a breathtaking scale comparable to a human body. After taking a three-decade hiatus to pursue acupuncture, he returns with nearly four dozen painterly candelabras that resemble dancing doodles frozen in mid-air. Many are riotous with rainbow glazes pooled atop one another—a visual cornucopia of color, line, and form that he likens to the spontaneous rhythms of jazz. Marks, the former head of ceramics at Cranbrook Academy of Art, credits his reengagement with the medium to the pandemic’s immense toll on human health. “We’re living in a time where joy is a necessity and grieving a part of our lives as well,” he says. “I intend for the candelabras to be a kind of ‘functional sculpture’ in that sense.”
On view March 7 through April 19