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Schumacher, Mary Louise. “Jill Bonovitz
at John Michael Kohler Arts Center.” American
Ceramics, 2004, 58, ill.
Perched on a shelf in a hallway outside of the main
exhibition spaces, Jill Bonovitz’s delicate
porcelain vessels are oddly reminiscent of the clever
drolleries found in the bas-de-pages of Medieval prayer
books. In a grisaille CQ-like gray, each one has its
very own playful personality and posture. They sit
precariously on tiny feet, with sensual bodies that
swell and cinch and subtly push out in one direction
or another, like a child sticking out a tummy or a
dancer swinging out a hop. Lined up side-by-side,
they seem to dance and converse as people would.
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center, a champion on
the diminishing line between “craft art”
and High art,” presented the “Jill Bonovitz:
A Simple Twist” exhibition as worthy of aesthetic
contemplation. Not unlike the marginalia previously
mentioned, though the sprightly little vessels are
perhaps more suited to frame and contextualize work
more worthy of meditation. This makes the placement
of the petite pitchers in the passageway to more substantial
exhibits quite appropriate.
Still, Bonotvitz has made no grand cultural critique
here, she does firmly buttress a line of argument
within the discourse about material arts. The pitchers,
or cups, depending on your point of view, would not
likely pass the up-to-the-light test, as much of Bonovitz’s
previous work would.
They are not fine, in that literal sense. But their
shapes, while puckish and expressive, are also pure
and simple, like the forms of Joan Miro or Alexander
Calder.
Bonovitz also leaves subtle Post Minimalist notes
of her own hand, in the way the handles are rolled,
twisted and applied to the sculptural vessels, for
example. The artist has mastered her materials and
also the vernacular of high art, successfully blurring
notions of beauty and utility, as was the aim of the
exhibit.
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