Robert Chamberlin: Synesthesia of Desire
Just as a child who comes to terms with his reality upon projecting it on a fragment, the artist tests the notion of desire, encounter and divergence through his porcelain pieces. Each work is literally conceived as a person
The temerity of expression, joy, inspiration in Nature and especially affectionate subjects characterized the Rococo era, the artistic trend that prevailed in France and other European countries during the 18th century until the French Revolution in 1789. The art of Louis XV’s court becomes a breath of fresh air and charm focused on expressing the delight of a carefree life through painting, sculpture and porcelain objects. In every discipline, Rococo sought to reflect what was pleasant, extravagant and sensual.
Robert Chamberlin, Fountain 03, 2014, porcelain, 38 x 35.5 x 35.5 cm
In this context, interest grew in the continent for exotic Chinese porcelain, which was regarded as a rarity due to its hardness, transparency and whiteness. To no avail, countless attempts were made to duplicate it in experimental production workshops. It wasn’t until the middle of the 1700s, and mainly following the support of the King’s beloved Madame de Pompadour, that the industry eventually flourished in the French city of Sevres. Since then, ceramics has been tied to “desire in itself”. It is from here where the Americanartist Robert Chamberlin begins.
As a photography graduate he started to get into the clay world, but it was many years later that his career took an unexpected and productive turn. “During my post-graduate studies, I worked with photography, performance, sculpting and even a little video. It was then when I had the chance to meet Kathy King and really start to see clay in a very different way to how I had been doing it. I found artistic opportunities where I had only seen functionality before,” explains Chamberlin.
Today, although he has time for photography, the focus of his work is mainly on his porcelain pieces. Described in his country as one of the young artists of our time, his latest incursion in the 2014 edition of VOLTA in New York proves it. Since its beginnings, this fair has been linked to emerging art and is a showcase for important stances on contemporary art. Chamberlin’s installation, on this occasion, was considered a successful continuation of his previous exhibition Fill me up, shown in the Miller Yezerski Gallery in May, 2013.
The base form of the pieces, which are generally in the Sevres style, is worked by the artist as a single piece and is sometimes decorated without prior design. Through this, each recipient is molded by hand and its conception is a completely handmade, polished and meticulous process. “The use of a porcelain glaze done in clay, which is the last step, is similar to filling a piping bag and decorating as if it were a cake and I a chef,” says the artist. Perhaps that would explain why when in front of his work, we are flooded with desire to taste them, because looking isn’t enough to understand them in their entirety.
An unmade bed, a deprived environment and dozens of white pieces around, for a moment, subvert the roles. The porcelain pieces appear as intimate bystanders to what happened in that apparently unkempt room. Blue dominates the sheets and curtains, like in the installation where more than 100 pieces were displayed on a table dressed with tablecloths of that color. Historically, blue is related to all that is sacred and royalty, and from what is known, it was the favorite color of the French court in the 18th century.
His white porcelain pots, which are models from big thrift stores, refer to the sensuality and showiness of Rococo and the court art of yesteryear. However, they are far from being mere decorative objects; the viewer experiences them as a guilty, almost lewd pleasure. They are fetishistic pieces. The artists gives them anthropomorphic qualities and the casting on them runs through objects with typical, imaginary or real names, taken in some instances from the intimate environment of their creator, or from family intrigues of great dynasties from history, like the Romanov, in Russia.
Just as a child who comes to terms with his reality upon projecting it on a fragment, Robert Chamberlin tests the notion of desire, encounter and divergence from his porcelain pieces. Each work is literally conceived as a person, its surface is handled as skin and not surprisingly, the pots have a “neck”, “belly” or “arms”. Some are broken by their own embellishments, others are paired together, melted, and almost all of them refer to the dynamic between the pairs, those that want to be a pair, or those that were.
Chamberlin assures us that his vessels are “placed in hope of finding the right viewer.” The viewers will be charged with the task of penetrating, if it is possible in contemporary times, their sensitive, aesthetic field. They shall allow themselves to have the fantasy of tasting those recipientshaped bodies, touching the perfectly smooth but cold skin, and succumb to voyeurism to see them love each other. In short, their ideal viewer must give in to the synesthesia of desire. He or she must connect their entire sensitive field with their involuntary memory, and enjoy.
