Robert Arneson, Untitled, c.1960. Glazed ceramic, 15 × 13 1/4 × 10 inches. Installed in the exhibition Shapes from Out of Nowhere at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2021.
Robert Arneson is included in an exhibition of contemporary ceramic sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Titled Shapes from Out of Nowhere, the exhibition was organized on the occasion of a major gift of 125 modern and contemporary ceramics from Robert A. Ellison Jr.'s personal collection in honor of the museum's 150th anniversary.
The exhibition presents over 75 works from the gift which chart the evolution of abstraction in clay from the second half of the twentieth century through the present. Arneson is represented in the exhibition by two Untitled ceramics from the 1960s, both of which exemplify his early experimentations with transforming functional vessels into abstract sculpture, on view amongst works by his contemporaries such as Lynda Benglis, Kathy Butterly, George Ohr, Ken Price, Peter Voulkos and many others.
Shapes from Out of Nowhere is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through August 29, 2021. Find more information here.