READING ROOM highlights past essays, reviews and interviews about Betty Woodman, Francesca Woodman, and George Woodman that provided new insights and lenses through which to understand their work.

“FEEL MORE: Ahead of her solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Betty Woodman talks to Amy Sherlock about ceramic histories and modern painting.”

AS: Was there a point where you thought: ‘I am an artist. I am no longer a potter.’

BW: Yes. I think it was probably about 30 years ago that I realized that I wanted my work to be seen outside of a ceramics context—around the time that I started to show with Max Protetch in New York, which was in 1983.

At the time, Max was also working with Scott Burton, who encouraged me. He was making sculpture that was furniture—or the other way around. It was about functional and art objects not necessarily being in opposition. For instance, he made those chairs outside the AXA Equitable building in New York, which are still used: people sit on them every day. In the same way, I think that some of the confusion of my work has been that I move back and forth between the actual object and something else. Both Scott and I were interested in making forms that were domestic, but situating them outside of that context

....For many years, I have considered myself to be an artist among other artists: I have my material and you have yours. I wouldn’t call myself ‘conceptual’; on the other hand, I have a few ideas in my head.

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Click here to read the rest of Sherlock's interview with Woodman, originally published in “Frieze,” no 177, March 2016.

Amy Sherlock. “Feel More.” Frieze, No. 177, March 2016: 124-129.

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