Curator tour HANS COPER — LESS MEANS MORE

Guest curator Sandra Percival, founding Director and Curator of Zena Zezza will lead a tour of the exhibition featuring over forty works of Hans Coper installed in a “Gesamttkunstwerk” or “total work of art” in conversation with Portland-based artist, Malia Jensen. Coper pushed the boundaries of clay and forms of abstraction in his work, fusing the functional with the cultural with the symbolic. Since 2013, Zena Zezza’s artist project seasons have featured artists such as Josiah McElheny, Stan Douglas and Chantal Akerman accompanied by a series of performative lectures and events on the ideas and influences in each artist’s practice.

Percival is joined by artist Malia Jensen for a conversation on Coper’s work and the origins of his practice as a studio potter, first working with and sharing a studio with Lucie Rie from 1946 to 1958. Jensen’s father, Jay Jensen, was a studio potter in Oregon, thriving during the fertile art and craft scene of the 1970s. Malia Jensen’s work often combines raw and seductive materials, including clay, to call attention to the brutality and beauty of daily life. Central to her practice is a metaphorical exploration of the human condition. Jensen’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and she has been an Artist in Residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Jensen is represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery.

The next Curator tour/talk will be Aug. 8, 4-5 pm.