After the ROM's re-opening last Friday a group of friends and I stumbled across Object Factory: The Art of Industrial Design at the Gardiner Museum across the street. The exhibit is an excellently curated sample of interesting modern ceramic designs. And to my delight its centerpiece was my long time favorite Ingo Mauer chandelier Porca Miseria! It almost brought me to tears! Here's a photo from the Mauer catalogue, but it's breathtaking in person.
In many ways I thought Object Factory was a perfect showcase of "re-imagined possibilities of ceramics", as it set out to be, save for one oversight; as Jesar noted, Charles Kraftt's porcelain shot guns (below) would have truly completed the exhibit. Nonetheless, kudos to curator Marek Cecula on a beautiful show. Object Factory runs at the Gardiner Museum until Sept. 7, 2008.
