A short note on the term
Post-Modernism

The term "Post-Modernism” was
coined in London in 1976 by the
American architect Charles Jencks. In
his book, "What is Post-Modernism?”
published in 1986, he connects the
underlying school of thought to this
movement in the arts and introduces

the idea of an aesthetic "dichotomous
code” - equality between the elite and
the popular, the old and the new. In
his book "Postmodern Ceramics” the
American author Mark Del Vecchio
sets out to prove that ceramics has kept
abreast with the changing times - and
in postmodern times originality for the
sake of originality is finally appreciated.
"There is no need for uprooting (tradi-
tion); it is important to discover that

which has flourished in hidden places,
which is authentic and has grown in
the wild, that which is strangely beauti-
ful and exceptionally irregular. The
International Community of Ceramists
offers us the opportunity to express
ourselves in our own language which
mirrors many individualities” says
Gustav Weiss in his programmatic arti-
cle in the magazine Neue Keramik
which heralded the exhibition in 2002.

Spelling Mistakes

San Francisco - The artist who mis-
spelled the names of famous people in
world history on a large ceramic mosaic
outside Livermore's new library can
spell one word with ease: N-O. That's
Maria Alquilar's new position on fixing
the typos. She had planned to fly to
California and put the missing "n" back
in Einstein and remove the extra “a” in
Michelangelo, among other fixes. But
after receiving a barrage of what she
called "vile hate mail,” Alquilar said
Livermore is off her travel itinerary and
there'll be no changes by her artistic
hand. She previously told officials in
Livermore, about 40 miles east of San

Francisco, that she would fix the 11
misspellings. She asked for $6,000 plus
travel expenses to correct the work they
paid her $40,000 to create. The city
council, faced with the embarrassing
prospect of leaving the typo-strewn
work in front of its spanking new
library, voted 3-2 to approve the expen-
diture. Now it appears the fix is a no-go.

Alquilar explained that it took her a lot
of time and money to create the work, a
brightly colored 16-foot-wide circle
made up of individual tiles depicting the
names and images of famous people in
world history.

She noted that plenty of people from
the city were on hand during the instal-

lation who could and should have seen
the errant spellings. "Even though I was
on my hands and knees laying the
installation out, I didn't see it,” she said.
"The mistakes wouldn't even register
with a true artisan.”

"The people that are into humanities,
and are into Blake's concept of enlight-
enment, they are not looking at the
words,” she said. When asked whether
she chose the words and names for the
work or whether the city provided her
with a list, Alquilar took an artistic
stance in response.

"The art chose the words,” she said.

Submitted by Carole Matecha

Discovery Art [travel

THAILAND

FEATURING Denys James

LAOS
ITALY
TURKEY

UPCOMING CERAMICS EXCURSIONS

January 15, 2005 - February 2, 2005
May 13 - 30, 2005

September 15 - October 6, 2005
December 15, 2005 - January 3, 2006

For details, please visit www.denysjames.com/excursions

For more*information on Discovery Art Travel or Denys James, please contact us at: Phone/Fax: (250) 537-4906
182 Welbury Drive, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada V8K 2L8

November! December 2004

Potters Guild of British Columbia Newsletter

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