OPENING: Pittsburgh gallery mounts ninth annual “Teapots!” exhibit, celebrating a timeless form

“Teapots! 9,” an exhibition opening in Pittsburgh this Friday, will be both a celebration of the myriad ways the timeless form can be interpreted. For each of the past nine years, Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery has held an annual exhibit of teapots that broadens their material focus to include fiber, ceramics, wood, and metal. Over 60 artists' work will be featured in the upcoming exhibit that runs through June 13, 2015. For director Amy Morgan, who has arranged it and invited the artists herself, the iconic shape is a platform ready to burst with adventurous narratives. The works of several glass artists’ reimagine spouts and handles as a lamp, a chandelier, or even an octopus. “All artists are challenged to explore the teapot form literally, metaphorically, narratively or abstractly, while keeping true to their own aesthetic,” reads an exhibition statement on the Morgan website.

Conscious Pot by Eunsuh Choi is an ethereal teapot of dreamy clouds, constructed by an airy web of clear glass strands. A whimsical metaphor for consciousness, smoky white whiffs are suspended over the lid and extend from the spout, mimicking thought bubbles. For Choi, her aspiration of working “meditatively” with her medium, as stated in her artist statement, is exposed in the cloudy mass of her teapot, using flameworked glass for the flowy transparent lines.

Less of an event fixated on the novelty of teapots, Morgan selects the artists with the goal that they’ll churn out distinct, personal topics through the challenge of the teapot form. A press release states that when invited artists tell her they do not make teapots, she exclaims: “That’s precisely the point!” Many of the exhibiting teapots are the first that the artists have made.

Benjamin Cobb’s Pot Purple-Red might seem like one of the least functional of teapots. A smooth dark violet slab of glass, it still adheres to the form of a teapot through an architectural, modern structure. A slender, up-reaching spout on one end and a simple curling handle, one can still discern a teapot in the minimal construct, with a hole in the body for where the liquid would be. In another piece, Tealight by Angus Powers, the teapot is functional, but as an electric light. The glass serves as the outer shade of a lamp while a thin blue wire coming out of the spout is a small stream of water "pouring" out. 

Although such a show would not be expected to have strong themes, Morgan believes the teapot is a universal form.

“If you look at the history of a teapot, you realize there was a time when drinking tea was a commonality,” she told the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet in 2010. “People were brought together through the ritual. Because of this, the teapot has become an emblem of a culture.”