Kung Fu Goo

08/16/19-10/06/19

Matt Goldberg’s ceramic studio is attached to a karate dojo. The spaces each foster a version of ‘kung fu’– which refers to any discipline requiring patience, energy, and time to complete. In this way, the two adjacent rooms make perfect neighbors (aside from the dust). Kung Fu Goo combines elements of discipline with the looser tradition of West Coast ceramic ‘goo’ ­– the Bay Area’s legacy of canonical, if goopy, ceramic sculpture.

In KFG, the irreverence of Bay Area funk ceramics is replaced with broader material considerations, the relationship between objects across media, and the friction between the intimately caressed and cared for material and the American consumer product. The coldness and ease of the online shopping click married to clay forms and their evidence of hand. The relationship of food-to-object through the longevity of the ceramic vessel and the short-lived yet over-sized consumer packaging of our snacks. Each work forms its own visual poem while the series provides insight into a practice of collecting, sourcing, and building a vocabulary of idiosyncratic art objects. 

Kung Fu Goo is a precursory exhibition to Embark Art’s show “Extra Ordinary,” which  explores the function of everyday objects in art and opens on Friday, September 13 (6-9 PM).