Camp Fires

Résumé du livre

The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Arts breaks new ground with this exhibition catalogue dedicated to the work of three Canadian ceramic artists, each of whose work is marked by a gay aesthetic sensibility. The concept of ‘camp’ has been variously understood to include elements of irony, exaggeration, excess, humour, sentimentality, theatricality, artifice, parody and devotion - all of which are amply demonstrated here. Léopold L. Foulem, Paul Mathieu and Richard Milette have worked with themes pertaining to the gay male experience in their art for more than three decades. Their shared perception that they are outside of the artistic and social mainstream has driven them to create an aesthetically powerful and intellectually engaging body of work that is rooted in and critical of conventional art history, ceramic history and contemporary culture. Extensively illustrated, this survey of the artists’ oeuvre highlights their subversive historicism, their conceptual use of clay, and Queer identity. In English and French.00Exhibition: Gardiner Museum, Toronto, Canada (29.05.-01.09.2014).