Radical Roots: Stanley Rosen

• Published in: Sculpture (Washington, D.C.) D.C.), 2018-03, Vol.37 (2), p.40-45
• Main Author: Gover, Karen
• Format: Magazinearticle
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; 21st century; Abstract expressionism; Ceramics; Clay; Double consciousness; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Rosen, Stanley; Sculpture; Visual artists
• ISSN: 0889-728X

Despite the radical openness and pluralism that characterize contemporary artistic practice, the phrase "ceramic sculpture" can still be interpreted as an oxymoron. Stanley Rosen is the greatest living pioneer of American ceramic sculpture that you have never heard of. Through his enigmatic, intimate, hand-built forms, he tests the material in ways that few others have dared to do. His obscurity is not due to some arbitrary twist of fate: while his peers Peter Voulkos, Ken Price, and John Mason established themselves as prominent artists capable of leaping the abyssal divide separating craft and fine art, Rosen deliberately chose to remain out of the public eye. Intensely private, idiosyncratic, described as "shamanic" in his practice, he did not seek art world recognition. For the past 60 years, he has rarely exhibited or published his work, choosing instead to focus on teaching and his private studio practice. In the late 1950s, however, he formed part of that cohort of innovators in ceramic art whose works revealed new expressive possibilities for clay as a sculptural medium. This puts him in a deeply ambivalent position in relation to the history of ceramic sculpture: on the one hand, he was part of the vanguard that freed ceramic art from the expectation that it be functional, decorative, or a virtuoso display of technical skill. At the same time, his influence has been largely indirect; it can be traced primarily through his legacy as a teacher of a new generation of ceramic artists, rather than through his exhibition history.