BRIAN MOLANPHY - THE QUICK AND THE DEAD - 2018 - 2019
Brian Molanphy, The Quick and the Dead, terra-cotta, graphite on paper, curated by Sofia Bastidas, 2018-19
Vantablack was made for missiles
Or planes for defense purposes so dark
No eye could see it some voices are
Like that no one could hear them it
Is not good to be lost to be lost is
More than metaphor for spiritual
Condition I sit at the terrace overlooking
The green sea perhaps it is failure
That ought to be sought the voice
That fails falls silent Sheila’s or
The body’s the blue failed me the sun
Fails every evening I we you have all
Failed too everyone who strove all these
Long years for peace failed
-Kazim Ali, from “The Voice of Sheila Chandra”
The Quick & the Dead is inspired by Kazim Ali & Yoshikawa Masamichi among many others. Instead of solemn solid elegiac containers preserving content, it bursts at the seams in irrational exuberance. Empty, it wears its content on its sleeve – the texture & drawing of the surface. The ubiquity of the blue & white tradition is the launching pad, passing particularly through the rose terra cotta & pale blue majolica of Marseille.
Brian Molanphy learned to apprehend the world through containers. He is Associate Professor of Art in the SMU Meadows School of the Arts. Molanphy has lectured & participated in panel discussions for the Newberry Library, the Franco-American Commission for Educational & Cultural Exchange, the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), the Nasher Sculpture Center, as well as several universities. He is represented in public & private collections in East Asia, Western Europe, & North America.