Ken Price (1935-2012)

“In the age of fabricators, studio assistants, and digital reproductions, there is nothing that provokes a greater erotic pleasure than the evidence of touch itself-something you feel every time you a see a sculpture by Ken Price.”
— (P. Schimmel, quoted in Ken Price: A Survey of Sculptures and Drawings, exh. cat., London, Hauser & Wirth, 2016)

From the collection of Ronald W. Longsdorf, a renowned collector and scholar-connossieur of Song Dynasty ceramics, Ken Price's Greenbo (2001) bridges the divide between today's contemporary and the longstanding practice of ceramic-making, refined by craftsmen for generations. Examples of celadon, porcelain and stoneware represented in the Longsdorf collection bespeak the nuances inherent to the different materials and techniques. Captured initially by the wealth of knowledge to be gleaned from these pristine remnants of past civilizations, Longsdorf soon fell under the spell of the objects themselves, drawn to those that spoke to him from far across the centuries: "Every time I look at a potential acquisition, my first consideration is visual. How does it strike me as an object, apart from any historical or technological considerations? Is it beautiful? What makes it so? The form, the potting, the color, the glaze, all? As a designer myself, I have always relied on and made my living with my eye" (R. W. Longsdorf, quoted in Song Dynasty Ceramics: The Ronald W. Longsdorf Collection, exh. cat., New York, J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art, 2013, n.p.).