TORONTO, Ont. - The Gardiner Museum, shows Postmodern Porcelain is a special exhibition of objects made mostly in the 1980s and 90s that recombine elements from different artistic traditions in playful and ironic ways. The exhibition, which runs until January 4th, 2009, features work from two private collections and the Museum’s permanent collection, and includes pieces by Akio Takamori (Japan), Adrian Saxe (USA), and Richard Millette (Canada), among many others.

Though postmodernism is an artistic style applied to many media, exhibition curator Charles Mason explains, “Because of its long and varied history, porcelain provides particularly rich material for artists interested in the postmodern strategies of appropriation, manipulation and reinterpretation. The association of porcelain with elite culture and with the rituals of food and drink offer ample opportunity for unexpected juxtapositions and humorous inversions.” By displaying the postmodern pieces in a gallery of historical porcelains, Mason is attempting to amplify the allusions to tradition and encourage visitors to think more carefully about the relationship between historical and contemporary ceramics. The exhibition will feature a selection of postmodern porcelains that embody the best characteristics of the genre.

Mason will give a lecture about the exhibition on Saturday, September 20 at 1:45 pm. The lecture will be free with admission and is organized in cooperation with the Canadian Art Foundation’s annual Art Hop.

Charles Mason is Chief Curator of the Gardiner Museum, where he is responsible for exhibitions, permanent collection displays, and acquisitions. A graduate of Cambridge and the University of California (Berkeley), Mason joined the Gardiner in August 2007. Previously he held curatorial positions in Asian art at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio, and the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida. He has curated more than 20 exhibitions, published a number of exhibition catalogues, articles, and chapters, and taught courses on Chinese art history and museum studies. His major research interests are Chinese art of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911) and Japanese art of the Edo period (1615-1912). He is fascinated with the connections between artistic genres and how objects were used in different social and cultural contexts.

The Gardiner Museum offers an intimate look at one of the world’s oldest and most universal forms of art and material culture—ceramics. Complemented by special exhibitions, the collection exceeds 3,000 historical and contemporary pieces and spans continents and time, giving you an extraordinary glimpse into the development of the ceramic process, decoration and shape. Visit : www.gardinermuseum.on.ca/