This fall, the esteemed career of Jim Melchert (1932-2023) will be the focus of a long-overdue survey exhibition and first-ever monograph of one of America’s great artists. Melchert challenged ceramic traditions of expression, form, and function and helped elevate the medium’s acceptance into mainstream contemporary sculpture. He is often described as ‘the great philosopher of the post-war craft movement.’ The exhibition, curated by Griff Williams, presents over 60 artworks spanning six decades of Melchert’s esteemed and influential career. Beginning with his involvement with the California Funk movement, groundbreaking 1970s performances and work in conceptual art, the exhibition also showcases many of the thrilling broken tile works that preoccupied the artist at the end of his long career.
Embedded in his late tile artwork, we see a philosophical concept that when something is broken, it can be repaired to become stronger and more beautiful. We see in Melchert’s tile work a metaphor for life. What lies behind these broken shards in Melchert’s mesmerizing works is something remarkable: Optimism. Nothing is beyond repair. These remarkable works are born from the belief that we have the power to bring positive change from our misfortune and contribute to the depth of our shared story.
Melchert was a seminal figure in a community of California artists who elevated the field of ceramics to a contemporary artform in the 1960s. Along with his friends Pete Voulkos, Robert Arneson, Ruth Asawa, Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Mildred Howard, Roy De Forest, and Bruce Nauman, he became a landmark figure in American art.
He was well known for his experimentation and his encouragement of that in others. While championing the new with particular emphasis on conceptualism and clay, he also set standards of integrity and grace among artists. He cast a remarkably long shadow of grace and influence. Jim has left behind an inspiring legacy of kindness, curiosity, compassion and a lifetime of uplifting the agency of others.
About the Artist
Born in New Bremen, Ohio, he received degrees from Princeton and University of California, Berkeley, where he studied ceramics with Peter Volkous. He taught at UC Berkeley from 1964 to 1994. He was director of the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1977 until 1981 and of the American Academy in Rome from 1984 until 1988. Melchert died at his home in Oakland on June 1, 2023, at the age of 92.
His work has been exhibited extensively throughout the world and is included in such prestigious collections as Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Stedelijk Musuem, Amsterdam; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; World Ceramic Center, Icheon, Korea; Museum of Art & Design, New York; Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.
Public Programs
Opening Reception
Saturday, October 18, 5-7 p.m.