Category Archives: Exhibition

Longquan, China “Crashing Ceramics” Exhibition at Wangou Art Museum

The new forms in Leuthold’s installation, Longquan Hands, in the exhibition “Crashing Ceramics” are derived from the squeezing of clay in the hand. Over 100 visitors to the artist’s Longquan studio were invited to squeeze clay including the mayor, the repairman, the cleaner, and artists. A leader asked if he could sign the clay he had squeezed in hands. I suggested he shouldn’t so the focus here in China would remain on an ideal where every person matters. These beautiful forms, some glazed and some unglazed, hang above and around circular sculptures. When trying to get close to the circular sculptures, viewers may inadvertently collide with the suspended squeezed forms causing them to chime. In the Taoist tradition, the ringing of bells and the playing of music has special significance, as it is both an instrument in the temple and a medium to evoke reverence for the spiritual.

Mr. Feng Boyi with Li Yifei, and Gao Wenjian curated the “Crashing Ceramics” exhibition at the Wangou Art Museum, May 5 – October 1, 2025. The exhibit features “material based” artists, – artists who work with concepts, installation, video, ceramics, glass, metal, wood, and other media, often in combination. In the West artists of this kind are often called craft artists. “Crashing Ceramics” artists have exhibited at MoMA, NYC, the Metropolitan Museum, NYC, Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing, the Venice Biennale, Italy, the British Museum, London, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA, the Rockbund Museum, Shanghai, and the Sidney Biennale, Australia.

“Migration” exhibition

“Migration” is a solo exhibit featuring 54 sculptures and a large wall installation at the Guangdong Shiwan Ceramics Museum of Foshon in Guangzhou City, China. Leuthold is the first foreigner to be invited to present a solo exhibition at the Museum. Most of the works were created in China from 2018-2022 when Leuthold worked in China as the first and only foreigner to be appointed to a full-time ceramics professorship in China. Most of the works feature Leuthold’s signature carvings and/or circular forms. The wall installation consists of 8 paintings recording Leuthold’s gestural movements in creating art along with 50 carved ceramic discs. Most of the fluted discs feature an abstracted silhouette of iconic persons the artist admires. One of the discs references a Chinese national craft master based in Dehua.
The exhibit shares the results of an artist who migrated his practice to China for five years. Interestingly, some of this period includes the Pandemic period. And usually, Leuthold experienced lengthy lockdowns both in Shanghai and in New York City, a challenging time that allowed for artistic contemplation.

Unsayable Installation at Yijin Museum

The Yijin Museum hosted a Leuthold solo exhibition in the Spring of 2023. The exhibition was a two-part interactive installation. Part 1: Leuthold invited visitors to walk on his porcelains while viewing a video of his work intermittently dissolving and reconstructing from and into kaleidoscopic abstract patterns and artwork.

Part II: With the resulting shards of Part 1, Leuthold constructed a translucent porcelain sculpture within a glass box inscribed with a text by Rainer Maria Rilke that inspired the title of exhibition, “Unsayable.”

Then, joining Marina Abamovic, Julian Opie and others, Leuthold’s Part 1 was included as a keynote exhibition for the summer-long 2023 “Seeking the CIty ” exhibitions hosted by the city of Datong in Western China.

An expanded version of Part 1 will be included in the upcoming “Pulse of the Hinterland,” 4th Xinjiang International Art Biennale at the Xinjiang Art Museum in the Uyghur Autonomous Region of China during the summer and fall 2024 – curated by Central Academy of Art Museum (Beijing) Director Zhang Zikang.

Leuthold donated the Part II solar powered sculpture to the Chantilly Art Center of Shanghai where it was installed outdoors. The work was a statement about “time” and the cycle of creation, destruction and rebirth.

Critic Mario Cutajar comments, ‘The “Unsayability” of art may also point to its original connection with the Sacred. Per German scholar and philosopher Rudolf Otto (1869-1937), the Sacred is the “Wholly Other” and thus outside of the scope of discursive understanding and only apprehensible by a cognitive faculty open to revelation.’

Leuthold comments, “Brokenness is very much the marker of our age. How and when the inevitable renewal begins is unknown.”

More images and videos.

Marc Leuthold’s Foray Into Fiberart

Marc Leuthold’s display at the 12th “From Lausanne to Beijing” International Fiberart Biennale Exhibition at the Yunnan Museum in China.

Chief Curator, Professor Lin Lecheng of Tsinghua University invited Marc Leuthold to create fiberart sculptures to exhibit in the 12th “From Lausanne to Beijing” International Fiberart Biennale Exhibition at the Yunnan Museum in China. For decades, this exhibition has served as the world’s foremost fiberart exhibition. 

Professor Lin invited Leuthold to work collaboratively with China National Craft Master Ai Jing Wei’s studio in Yunnan Province. In North America, Leuthold filmed short videos and created paper templates and maquettes.  Using Leuthold’s videos and stills, Mr. Ai’s artisans recreated the sculptures in silk.  Leuthold also directed variations of the historic indigo dying process to allow for varied results. This experiment yielded a collection of silk sculptures that, in combination with porcelains, are being exhibited in the Biennale among established fiberart masters. 

Leuthold comments, “My parents studied at the STF Schweitzerische Textilfachschule in Zurich and wove fabrics for decades. As a child, I designed for my father and from ages 12 to14, I wove every day. Blue and white porcelains are a revered tradition in China. Now, as a ceramist with my personal history, working with indigo to create blue and white silk sculptures seemed especially intriguing. I am deeply grateful to Professor Lin and Master Ai for supporting this project.”

Detail view.
Leuthold and Professor Lin Lecheng with Lin’s artwork.

Ke Museum of Fine Arts in Shanghai Adds Marc Leuthold’s Ivory Accretion to its Permanent Collection

The Ke Museum of Fine Arts in Shanghai has purchased Marc Leuthold’s Ivory Accretion for its permanent collection, following the exhibition “Encounter: Shanghai Contemporary Ceramics Experimental Art.”  24 Chinese and 8 foreign artists were invited to participate in the exhibition.  In a press release, the exhibit was described as a collision of various camps in the evolving arena of avant-garde ceramics.  Li Xiaoshan, Zhao Peishang, and Yuan Hong co-curated the exhibition.

Marc Leuthold at Art Labor Gallery, Shanghai

ART LABOR Gallery is pleased to present the dual solo exhibition by American artist Marc Leuthold and Chinese artist Li Lihong. The exhibition is from September 21st to October 27th, 2019. The opening reception is from 6 – 9 pm, Saturday, September 21st.

Both artists are renowned in the field of ceramic art, yet distinct with their own unique atheistic. Entitled “Hand and Machine”, the exhibition is a conversation between the handmade and machine creation, as well as a conversation between the two artists exploring Eastern and Western cultural influences.

Marc Leuthold has a long interest in Eastern philosophy, and this eastern aesthetic is embodied throughout his creations. On the contrary, Li Lihong, born into a long family line of porcelain artisans tracing back to the emperor Tong Zhi in the early Qing Dynasty, has been focusing on exploring temporary porcelain under the influence of western pop art and consumer culture. Both artists are grounded within the cultural contexts of their upbringings, while searching for expressions through the other.

Through this medium of clay, Leuthold’s works are a play between the soft and hard, and the fluid and crystalline. An element of surprise occurs in his studio, sometimes yielding unexpected forms, surfaces and colors. This leads to re-invention and experimentation. Even when repeated, forms are inherently unique. His ceramic sculptures, most often, are discrete objects that are exhibited sometimes singularly and sometimes in dialogue with one another in installation environments. In these environments, the artist often incorporates other media such as wood, glass, paper, ink paintings, bronze and literary texts.

After years of hand making all his sculptural works, Li Lihong started experimenting with ceramic 3-D printing last year. Blending the cutting edge technology into his practice, creating artwork that plays with the new possibilities while testing its limitations is what intrigues him the most. Even with the machine, the seemingly unified sculptural form is still hard to find. With 3-D printing, each piece expresses its own uniqueness through inimitable “line prints”, upon close observation, the stereotypical notion of repetitiveness and uniformity dissipates, making us dive deep into and question the concepts of hand verses machine, monotony verses diversity, command verses free will.

Marc Leuthold’s Spirit at China Art Museum

The 18-meter-wide sculptural installation, Spirit, is a combination of ink paintings and objects. Many of the porcelains depict silhouettes of women. A few of the discs depict the silhouette of Master Su, a leading ceramic 4th generation artist in Dehua, China.

Spirit is on display as part of the “Beyond Ink” exhibition at the prestigious China Art Museum in Shanghai until December 5.