Editor’s Pick
“Personal Space’s next group show opens May 31st. They primarily exhibit artist-curated group shows; this one, curated by Reniel del Rosari, features nine artists working with ceramics in peculiar ways. A consistently amazing gallery, Personal Space’s shows always have something new to get excited about. It’s a haul to get to, but the openings I’ve been to there have always been terribly lovely; otherwise it’s open Sundays 11-3pm.”
-Aaron Harbour
About the Exhibition
Curated by Reniel del Rosario
Taking its title from Giant Steps by John Coltrane — a composition renowned for its rapid movement through shifting major keys — Giant Steps brings together artists who push ceramics beyond the traditional boundaries of the medium. Through leaps into assemblage, installation, temporality, and mixed-media practices, the exhibition highlights artists who use clay not as a fixed endpoint, but as one element within broader material and conceptual frameworks.
The works on view challenge long-standing assumptions about ceramics as primarily functional or static objects, expanding the medium beyond familiar historical precedents and popular-culture associations (that scene from Ghost). Instead, these artists embrace hybridity, experimentation, and spatial engagement, revealing how ceramics has evolved into a dynamic contemporary practice capable of holding performance, narrative, fragmentation, and transformation. Giant Steps traces this ongoing shift, foregrounding the ways contemporary artists continue to redefine what ceramics can be.
Featuring works by: