Reviews and Articles/ Mark Gordon
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A Profile of Sculptor Mark
Gordon: January 2009 (link to pdf)
by Kathy Daughety, Director of Public Relations, Barton College, Wilson,
North Carolina
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While it was hardly possible for a
single individual to attend all of the nearly two dozen exhibits offered in the
spring landslide of clay inspired by the National Council on Education in the
Ceramic Arts Annual Conference held here in March, those who absorbed a
generous sampling were rewarded with a new discernment of this most ancient art
form in all of its contemporary imagination. Man’s aesthetic progress is
chronicled in clay. From functional vessels, religious artifacts and the
earliest means of written communication to today’s artistic interpretations,
the sensuous dimensions of clay have maintained an undeniable primitive
magnetism, invoking an obscure cultural memory that quietly emerges in all of
its forms. Many of the artists shown during the past few months revealed their
sensitivity to this ponderous history, rendering their medium as the earthy
stuff it is, respecting its origins and properties as the main ingredient of
their creativity...
Not content with surfaces, Mark
Gordon, at the Arts Consortium, produced pieces complete in artistic
mass. His Ohio Wedge of movable, hollow ceramic triangles derived their
individual and collective beauty from variegated color, design and placement,
contrasting with purposeful negative space. Gordon’s world travels,
observing and learning from clayworkers of all social strata, have resulted in
a unique philosophy of clay. The interiors are as continuous of his
intentions as the slips and glazes which primarily entice the eye.
Sawdust mixed into the clay makes them lighter in weight than they appear,
adding a honeycomb of organic texture to unglazed edges. Ohio Wedge and a
powerful collection of ceramic spheres balanced on telephone poles are made to
be rearranged. The components’ limitless flexibility, both in reality and
in the artist’s concept, reflects a rare confidence in the validity of their
message.
--”Artists Who Work in Clay” by
Daniel Brown,
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Upon entering the Museum’s main
gallery from the courtyard, one is immediately confronted by an undulating
circle of volcanic rock approximately 18 feet in circumference, that almost
completely fills the floor space, forcing the viewer to the edges of the
room. The piece, “Ovoid/Stratum” by ceramic artist Mark Gordon,
culminates at its center in a mound of dark- and light-gray ceramic eggs--365,
to be exact, one for each day of the year. My first thoughts upon seeing
this striking installation were of the British artist Richard Long, known
throughout the art world for his lengthy walks in remote areas, during which he
assembles stones, pieces of wood, or whatever natural materials are handy, into
circles, triangles, or straight lines, then photographs them and continues on
his way. Further reflection, however, along with help from the artist’s
statement, made clear the elegaic tone of “Ovoid/Stratum,” which I believe is
more about our inner world rather than the natural one that surrounds us.
--Michael Schwager, ArtMuse,
newsletter of the California Museum of Art at the
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Perhaps the most salient feature of
Mark Gordon’s installation Ovoid/Stratum is its openness to
completion by the viewer. The piece not only encourages an engaged
curiosity on the part of the viewer, but requires us to probe our own psyches
in order to arrive at the experience of meaning--which could be quite different
for each of us.
Gordon...began as a potter, and his
sensitivity to the emotive and symbolic properties of clay can be seen in his
installations and earthworks which have evolved over the last fifteen
years. Informed by his extensive travels to other cultures and a concern
for environmental issues, his work sometimes takes a political stance (as in
his circles of clay tusks relating to elephant poaching). In this piece,
however, he uses two materials in two simple forms, handmade clay eggs and
volcanic rock, to evoke references to primordial earth processes as metaphors
for human concerns.
Entering the gallery we first see a
tall pile of numerous ovoid clay forms (365, according to the artist), each
about the diameter of a softball. Surrounding these forms and preventing
us from getting close to them is an expanse of sharp, volcanic rock. We
can walk around the rock at the perimeters of the room but cannot touch the
ovoids. The rock is volcanic pumice of a consistent gray color. It
looks (and is) sharp to the touch, reminiscent of the volcanic ruins I once
visited in
But in Gordon’s piece the expected
dead crater has been replaced by the large pile of ovoids, which now read
unmistakably as eggs. Yet these eggs are too large to be those of any
known creature. The quantity of eggs and size of the pile is unexpected
as well. Appearing like a mirage in the center of a bleak volcanic
desert, it’s a tangible symbol of life. The eggs have a soft mottled
appearance: white and gray with blushes of charcoal and black (a result of
their firing method in saggers). Their surfaces are soft and permeable,
textured as if they had withstood the ravages of time or survived vast
meteorological change.
Questions arise: Why eggs? Why in
the middle of volcanic rock? What does the pile signify? Why so
many? Other forms could signify life--a plant, an animal, a human
shape. But eggs signify potential, life not yet emerged, life unseen,
unspecified; a form of life as yet unknown. Will these eggs produce a
myriad of individuals or will only a few survive? One thinks of the giant
turtles on the Galapagos, patiently digging holes to lay their numberless eggs,
instinctively knowing the attrition rate. Life produces in excess in
order to insure its continuance.
At the perimeter of the rocks,
where we are forced to stand, the light is dim. But the eggs are bathed
in light and we long to touch the eggs, to pick them up and hold them; but the
rocks preclude this. We can read the rocks as dead, sharp, hostile.
We can read the eggs as soft, precious, sacred. Eggs signify life--the persistence
of life in spite of formidable obstacles. Furthermore, these eggs have
been made by a person, the artist, from clay, from the earth, our mother.
Volcanic rocks are a product of the earth, too, but they are spent, the
burned-out remnants of earth’s fiery conception. Yet eggs are also the
product of conception. Male and female. Yin and yang. We go back and
forth between the perplexity of opposites that return us to the same
place. It’s a simple piece: two materials; two basic shapes; many possible
readings. Each viewer must find her way among the signs of the materials
and symbols.
--“Another Viewer’s Reading of Ovoid/Stratum
by Cheryl White, ArtMuse, newsletter of the California Museum of Art at
the Luther Burbank Center, Santa Rosa, CA, summer 1997
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[Vessels]
The ceramic works of Mark Gordon
have overtones of Greek amphoras, yet their proportions and elegance of line
are distinctly Oriental. His debt to tradition reflects the high value he
places on balance, harmony, and integrity. Burnishing the surface of each
masterfully turned piece, he gives it a luster transcending that of glaze
because it belongs to the clay body itself. Beyond their patina the surfaces
show rich and varied coloration, the result of having been fired in a
hand-built, wood-fueled kiln packed with straw, seaweed, or other
material. The pots look like planets seen from space, each one a Mars or
Jupiter with its face scorched and veiled. Pale grays, umbers, and
purples subtly recall a haze or a passing cloud.
The artist’s personality, as
always, is inextricably linked to his work. Mr. Gordon’s methodical
nature, as well as his respect for
--Exhibition brochure by Stephen
Kaplan, Altos de Chavon, La
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Mark Gordon’s recent ceramic
exhibition includes hanging and freestanding pieces and maquettes, some clearly
displaying their ceramic roots, others presenting themselves mainly as
sculpture. But the major work is Trophy/Necklace (1991),
and installation designed especially for this space. Allowing for a
narrow passage on either side for foot traffic, it spans the width of the
gallery. Installations inside the “white cube” often become
sculpture-cum-construction projects, as did this one. Initially intended
to hang directly from the ceiling, it was ultimately suspended between
telephone poles bolted to the floor. With 36 tusklike modules hanging in
pairs from a steel chain, Trophy/Necklace might well be called an
ode to the elephant--and by extension to all endangered species. In the
past Gordon has shown tusks piled high and bonfired, or hanging from
poles. But his latest work deals with the chilling theme even more
emphatically than do the earlier outdoor pieces.
Inside the dark enclosure, Trophy/Necklace
dominates the space around it and dwarfs viewers with its hulking
presence. One must crouch to pass under or between the modules, and the
slightest contact initiates menacing vibrations throughout the chain. Since the
crusty surface tempts tactile exploration, two tusks explicitly inviting
viewers to touch (in lieu of handling the hanging ones) have been placed at the
entrance. Both form and surface are inextricably tied to Gordon’s involvement
in clay. When he exchanged the wheel for wedging, his end product became
the cone. Bent a little, the cones suggested horns laden with symbolic
meaning. When these horns came to resemble tusks, they evoked the plight
of the elephant whose numbers have dwindled by half over the last decade. Using
the language of clay, Gordon combines abstract spatial concepts with political
and archaeological themes. He investigates the formal language of
elongated cones while expressing current environmental concerns, all with a
trace of myth and ritual. His “Trophy/Necklace” makes a powerful
statement that matches its formal qualities.
--”Mark Gordon,
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While Mark Gordon’s new ceramic
sculptures recapitulate the urgency of his recent oeuvre, they restructure it
on a more problematic basis. At the same time a quieter strain emerges in
more traditionally shaped vessels. Clay has been the continuo of Gordon’s
explorations of modern sculptural styles, beginning with a series of
Smithson-inspired outdoor installations and continuing with large gallery
pieces inspired by Mark di Suvero, Carl Andre and Eva Hesse. The trend is
from a space-dominating, heroic minimalism to an inwardly-directed, fetishistic
expressionism. Constants are the weighted object, binding and linkage.
Indeed, chins and ropes repeatedly and obsessively bind and define the new
forms, as if without such bindings their contained energy might suffer entropy
and disappear. For example, in Chain-Sphere, writhing chain
forms with crude flanges coil over one another pressing inward upon an unseen
core, protecting and containing it. Other objects recall Gordon’s earlier
wall-mounted sculptures using the triangle or wedge as module. Here the
wedge is fetishized, melded with an arch to which it clings like a tent, rude
dwelling or cuneiform character. The strength of these works resides in
their disquietude as their central element--the core, sign or
dwelling--struggles for survival...
This is not the case, however, in
the sagger and pit-fired pots. These cast an effective balance between
powerful form and meaning. The reference is not to modern art or
commerce, but to the firing process that has burned a landscape of mystery,
power and pain into a resilient epidermis (the wall of the pot). Posturing is
absent. Returning to the elemental, Gordon recapitulates elemental
spirit.
--”Mark Gordon:
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The
exhibit “Mark Gordon: Recent Works,” on display through July 2 at Concordia
College’s Kreft Center for the Arts, reflects and unusually keen struggling
with one’s self through sculptural form.
Gordon...has crafted a display that’s indeed as “recent” as
the title of his show states. The exhibit serves as a point of departure
from his previous work. In the past, Gordon’s work revolved around
environmental and serial/minimalist sculpture. Yet in this display, he’s
slightly de-emphasized spatial aspects (at least as much as one can in a
3-dimensional medium) in favor of exploring tactile qualities. All the works
bear a 1992 or 1993 date, and the transition between last year’s works and this
year’s is worthy of mention.
Industrial Evolution I and II,
Corrugated, Implement I and II, and Mace, all
1992 products, have a muscular, aggressive strength that threatens to overwhelm
their raison d’etre. By contrast, many of the 1993 sculptures have
a more meditative quality that draws as much attention to their finish as to
their form. For example, Chain Cross, a 1993 glazed stoneware
wall sculpture, incorporates one of Gordon’s favorite motifs--bound and unbound
chain--as its chief surface structure. But, rather than exploit its potentially
troubling connotations, Gordon instead explores his working surface’s craggy
exterior.. Gordon’s uniformly linked dark emerald plaints effectively straddle
their irregularly structured base. Set in parallel serial form, the
chains recall Gordon’s previous work, even as they point his way toward a less
confrontational and more ambiguous statement. Which is all the more important,
as three works, all ceramic vessels, that do not lend themselves directly to
Gordon’s themes indicate a tremendous sensitivity behind this art. Vessel
The spirit being willing, there’s
obviously quite a bit of wrestling left to be done in Gordon’s art.
--”Sculptor changes focus in new
works” by John Carlos Cantu, The Ann Arbor News,
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Tusk Works
As always, there are many sculptors
new to the outdoor sculpture circuit. Several, including Robert Ressler,
Mark Gordon and Lilian Ball, have made strong statements... The sculptures
selected by Ms. Egbert are not bashful. Around one lawn are four big works, by
Robert Ressler, Jesse Moore, Lee Tribe, and Mark Gordon. All are in some way
about movement...Mr. Gordon’s Monday
--”Bold Sculpture and Some
Surprises for
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An outstanding success is Mark
Gordon’s Monday
Still, viewers don’t have to know
the message to be intimidated by the structure, which stands on a stretch of
open ground encircled by trees. Coming upon the victim of an informal
hanging in the days of the West and
--“A Sculpture Show with Strong
Messages” by Vivien Raynor, The New York Times,
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Flaming Nest was made
primarily of ceramic material--spheres about 22” in diameter and tusk-like
horns about 3’ long. These elements were bisqued and then arranged on
site for a ceremonial firing that lasted about four hours. A ring of
stones was set in place by the participants attending the firing. The
site was excellent for Gordon’s purposes. Rather secluded from the
institutional buildings, bounded by woods, atop a small knoll, it was an ideal
clearing for a sacred ritual.
Enter, just a few days later, a couple
of young primitives who love the sound of rocks hitting ceramic objects.
Although Gordon was at first shocked and disappointed by the extensive damage
to the piece, he now feels the concepts of impermanence and change that
informed the original work were merely enhanced by the intentional
breakage. Indeed, the stones set in the circle were fragments from a
piece done on that site the previous year, and Gordon planned to use fragments
and shards from this piece to build a new work for an exhibit in November, so
the Phoenix was reborn from its own ashes.
I did not see Flaming Nest
before the damage, yet I found the severely damaged piece to be very powerful
both in its semiotic statement and in its evocation of ritual and myth. As
Gordon pointed out, the import of the work was extended by the vandalism, and
it then made a stronger point about our own time and place. Gordon was
not displeased with that result.
--”Sculpture at
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As might be expected, given the
Hillwood Gallery’s long-standing interest in contemporary sculpture, that
medium is particularly well-installed and does better than the others...Mark
Gordon’s monumental Pyre dominates the entire space.
A tower of interlocking railroad ties surmounted by a heap of tusklike forms, Pyre
gives testimony against the continuing slaughter of the African
elephant by poachers who kill them for their tusks.”
--“Group Shows’ Varied Fare” by
Margaret Moorman,
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Noteworthy freestanding sculptures
included...Mark Gordon’s Wedge, a vessel-shaped steel matrix
containing 20 large, roughly textured, bonfired clay spheres whose asymmetrical
placement provided an essay on balance and gravity...”
“Sculpture at