Lisa Krigel’s functional ceramic sculptures are inspired by the designs and utopian ideology of modern and brutalist concrete architecture. They draw in particular on buildings seen on a visit to Berlin and on the aesthetic of the industrial structures photographed by Bernd and Hilla Becher. For this reason, they made an ideal partner when shown in parallel with Amgueddfa Cymru’s recent exhibition Bernd and Hilla Becher: Industrial Visions (2019-2020).
The influential German photographers are known above all for their typologies, grouped images documenting European and American industrial structures from their photographic inventory of winding towers, blast furnaces, cooling towers, gasometers, grain elevators, water towers and lime kilns. Seven Stacks (2019) is a kind of typology in its own right, an appropriate ceramic homage from Wales to the Bechers, whose early career was strongly influenced by Wales from the time of their first visit there in 1965.
Seven Stacks comprises individual stacked pieces in combinations of four to eight elements: mugs and cups, plates and bowls, spoons and containers. All hand-thrown and precisely finished, these have been made using a stoneware clay blended with oxides to achieve the colour and texture of concrete, an effect that is the result of extensive experimentation. Each ‘tower’ alludes to the industrial, engineering and architectural uses of ceramics, blending sculptural qualities with functionality. Krigel is fascinated by the parallels and dichotomy between hand-crafted ceramic techniques and industrial construction methods, between clay and concrete as well as between the domestic and the monumental. While the ostensible purpose of the towers of vessels is to store, share and serve specific foods, they also actively encourage the user to engage in a ritual of construction and deconstruction. Krigel’s work finds an ideal home in a strongly interdisciplinary collection like that at Amgueddfa Cymru, where ceramics and photography, art and industry, architecture and social ritual are some of the many cross-cutting themes.
A graduate of Pennsylvania State and Alfred Universities in the USA, Krigel moved to the UK in 1999. Since 2000 she has been a member, and is currently Chair, of Cardiff’s Fireworks Clay Studios, the ceramics-focused artist collective founded in 1995. Socially engaged practice has been a feature of her career in south Wales, which has included roles as an educator leading workshops in schools and community groups.
