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: