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I-CONS, EMBLEMATIC CERAMICS OF VENEZUELA (2017)
LUIS FELIPE FARÍAS
CARACAS, 2017
I-Conos, Cerámica Emblemática Venezolana was an exhibition that brought together sixty members of the ceramic movement in Venezuela, creating a unique opportunity to appreciate works by ceramicists such as Miguel Arroyo, Luisa and Gonzalo Palacios, Cristina Merchán, Tecla Tofano, María Luisa Tovar, Seka, Reina Herrera etc, accompanied by stellar potters such as Gisela Tello, Josefina Álvarez, Cándido Millán, Belén Parada, Colette Delozanne or Noemí Márquez, among others. More contemporary works were also shown including pieces by Marta Cabrujas, Wolfang Vegas, Doménica Aglagioro, Isabel Cisneros, Ramsés Larzábal and Andreina Franceschi, among others. Each of the artists presented in the exhibition were represented with emblematic pieces and characteristics of their visual and narrative discourse. The exhibition also aimed to highlight the valuable contribution that the Sala Mendoza, since its creation, has manifested through the arts of fire and more specifically, through ceramics. The curator Luis Felipe Farías established connections, dialogues and discursive references between the body of works that made up the exhibition. Link could be found between the Seka spheres and the moonstones of Mara Vitanza, seen from ceramics to universal painting such as that of Josefina Álvarez and her "Encounter with Morandi", or coincidences in intimate and feminist nature as portrayed by the work of Tecla Tofano and Domenica Aglialoro, just to name a few cross readings. The exhibition is presented, without a doubt, as an important occasion to review the sophistication, versatility and validity of this language, as well as the recognition and appreciation it has acquired over the years, since all the pieces exhibited came from private collections. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalog that includes images of the works and specialized texts on the subject, as an important documentary contribution to the study of Venezuelan ceramics
Daughter of Dragutin Severin and Angela Tolg, Severin Tudja was a ceramist (Zagreb, Yugoslavia, 1923 – Caracas, Venezuela, 2007). She played from a young age with clay, modeled figurines. During her youth, the term ceramics did not exist, and she didn't know how she would pave her path in the years to come.
Seka studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (1942-1945) with Frano Krsinic and Krsto Hegedusic. After being awarded a scholarship by the French government (1946-1948), she lived in Paris. Seka studied sculpture and drawing at the Academia La Grande Chaumiére and graduated in Art History and Archaeology at La Sorbonne (1948). During her time in Paris, she made figures with the technique of lost wax for film animations.
In 1952 Seka moved to Caracas, where she began to research and experiment with ceramic techniques exploring the variations that occurred through alterations of technical canons and testing heat variations and firing times. Her work is defined by her rigorous research of shape, texture, and color.
In 1962 she made completely closed pieces, contrasting her other works determined by partially open holes. After 1972 she decided to work on only closed forms, resembling lucid variations of the sphere and the oval. Seka used hand-modeled red or white clay - that often gave its pieces a particular cracking - varying earth and oxides. She applied the cover pigments using varying brushes and oils. These technical processes were applied methodically and with determination and are recorded in the titles of the pieces themselves, which were named by serial codes combining letters and numbers.
Seka was an active participant in the Official Hall, where she was awarded a prize in 1955 and the ceramic salons held in the Mendoza Hall. She participated in numerous collective exhibitions: "Contemporary Ceramics" (National Museum of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires, 1962), "Venezuelan Pottery" (Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, 1963), "9th Ceramic Art" (Smithsonian Institute, Washington, 1963), "Les émaux dans la cerámique actuelle" (Musée de l'Ariane, Geneva, Switzerland, 1965), "Internationale Kunsthandwerk" (Stuttgart, Germany, 1966), "Form und qualitt" (Munich, Germany, 1967), "International Exhibition of Ceramics" (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1972), "In Praise of Hands" (WCC, Toronto, Canada, 1974), I Triennial Of Small Ceramics (Zagreb, 1984), "Sculptures du XXe si.cle. From Rodin to Tinguely" (Rath Museum, Geneva, Switzerland, 1984), "International Ceramics" (Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan, 1985), "Venezuelan Studio Ceramics" (British Crafts Center, London, 1985), "Meeting of Contemporary Ceramicists of Latin America" (1986-1988), "Barro de América" (MACC, 1992), AIC (Umeleckoprumyslové Muzeum, Prague, 1996), "Europe and Venezuela, Ceramic Link" (MACCSI and Museum of Art, Choir, 1996) and "The Energy of Mud" (Sidor Room, 1996), among others.
In 1972 she was appointed a member of the AIC, and from 1979 she was an honorary member of the AVAF. Miguel Arroyo spoke of Seka's work, "it is planned, configured and timeless - as in splendid sequential diagrams - the shocking process of seizures, eruptions, slips and fusions through which matter will have to pass - and pass - until it reaches its final stabilization. Therefore, when we look closely, we discover that the resonances they produce in our minds are not motivated by superficial associations but by much deeper causes that have to do with the linkage between their materials and others that lived similar or identical process of conflagration and stabilization."
