Artes Magazine – Ceramic Sculptures to Preserve Memory

By Thimo Pimentel

"A Traves de los Ojos de Mi Padre (Through My Father's Eyes)" is the title chosen for the most recent exhibition from Elizabeth Dychter, Argentinean sculptor in the exhibition halls of the Museo del Holocausto (Holocaust Museum) in Buenos Aires. Clay, cracked enamels, salt.. you will find the figures with submissive, devoted or surrendered attitudes, attitudes which recall the many millions of people exterminated in the Holocaust, once again they are brought back from the darkness of memory. This conceptual perception of the artist, ennobles with this gesture the many missing and above all the murdered family members.

The curator work of the exhibition was excellent, both in sculpture and in installations and photos that support visual interaction between them through the language of memory.

Of the more than twenty sculptures in clay, oxides and the most delicate enamel treatments, calls our attention on particular, the series "Condemned", which is a graphic icon that will accompany the sculptor while life she has. Her white figures, cracks, repeaters, heads bowed, surrendered, submitted, are the result of a lifelong passion for the memory and the company of her father Henry, patient and suffer at first hand.

In this new century of careless technologies, the potter faces the conceptual challenges offering as a tribute to the man and his memory. With her blessed hands they transfer soul and sensations, these “condemned" are reborn and are rescued from oblivion with those white figures, static, full of mystery and memories.

It calls our attention other of the sculptures presented by the symbiosis between the shapes and the piece's surface treatment, it is clear that the author has experienced not only with color and oxides, but with the temperature of her ovens. It undoubtedly reflects an internal war for the sculpture rips in joints and disunities. Expressions of Dychter allows the spectator to make a fair offering to the memory of these so many, for that multiply sorrow, for that ignominious label stamped with fire on humanity itself.

In the central chamber of the facility was placed what in the sculptor's words strengthened her intention to communicate the distress and suffering of all those "condemned". Watching she working, her hands exploring the matter (mud) letting it guide her in her creations and says ... "You never know where the piece will go, I make no sketches, no drawing, I let the clay lead me". "Only know what I'm going to make, when working in series with molds. There I do have a preconceived idea, I do not know what the reason. it simply is and do not question it". "What is pottery for me? … Something I'm questioned about and that I still wonder.

When I began studying pottery more than twenty years ago, I never thought it would become as fundamental to my life as the very air I breathe today. I cannot imagine doing anything but what I do.

The sculptor has been driven a while ago by one of the most solid technique Argentine potters that I know, co-author of one of the most educational books published about Ceramics in Castilian language "Raku Pottery, a technique a passion", where

Alejandra Jones gives us the opportunity of learning from her experiences in this popular and ancient pottery technique.

Alexandra Jones deserves to be mentioned in the technical success of this magnificent exhibition of Elizabeth Dychter, her student for years, and I would think that her hand was also an excellent guide for the curatorship of this exhibition.

And what is the ceramic to a sculptor like Dychter?

“It's the creativity in three dimensions, the possibility to play, make mistakes and recover instantly. It is the uncertainty of waiting, the ability to test your patience, sensitivity of the clay... the magic of fire."

“It is the land, fire, water and air.

It is the matter that allows you everything. The absolute freedom chance plays against and even the error is still wonderful. Today I am grateful to life that has been bent on showing me this way.”

“Of course life was not only one… nothing could have been possible without the invaluable wisdom and sensitivity of Alejandra Jones who knew how to teach me and guide me, stimulating me with infinite patience and absolute conviction... something that only have a great soul ... Thanks Ale!”

Fairly grateful to her mentor and friend, the artist reinforces her feelings skillfully managing the terms patience, sensitivity, magic and the uncertainty of waiting.

The sculptor shows in her work a human warmth, very special and unequivocal artistic maturity. This feeling not only explains the close relationship with all the family and those harrowing stories of her father throughout his life.

Works such as "Limbo", "Matches", "Trains," "Wait", and "Death March" reflect a deep commitment to the memory state of excitement through the eyes of his father, an exceptional witness of the most unspeakable episodes of horror in concentration camps. This exhibition of individual works and facilities of great emotional and artistic feelings should be acquired in its totality by a large Holocaust Museum as an example of how the artist makes out of memories an indelible stamp that will serve to attract the new generations to study and remember those horrors and what should never be repeated. And using technological methods of current communication we close this presentation with some questions to the author this magnificent exhibition of high technical and conceptual exposition.

In reviewing what happened in this, her latest exhibition, "Do you consider yourself to have fulfilled the purpose of the exhibition?"

"In this latest exhibition, I do not only achieve the goal but exceeded my expectations. I think the sample was round, with a beginning and an end well defined, and beyond my personal satisfaction. People liked it a lot”. As you have taken the success of this show with such favorable comments, has it been worth the anguish of all this work?"

"Yes, of course it was worthwhile. But I note that one recently or accept it, when the exhibition ends. While the enjoyment to do it is great by far the anguish and stress of a definite date are very large. And yet, I suppose one thoroughly enjoys."

We know that some of the works in this exhibition have been acquired, including one by an ambassador of the Dominican Republic in Buenos Aires, have you received proposals to take the exposure elsewhere?

"It was an honor to know that the Ambassador of Dominican Republic in Argentina, a charming person and a great connoisseur of art, acquired one of my works.

“There were some proposals to bring the exposition or any part of it to other places that never materialized. The theme of the exhibition is not for any space."

You now have a greater challenge ahead, with bonds rather high where it is headed your work now... What should we expect from you?

"Where does my work go? Generally, I do not plan what I am going to do; I let the clay lead me. From the new images that are emerging, is where I route the work, if what appears seems to be interesting. So the answer to the question: where is my work leading me, would be, wherever she wants..."

Elizabeth Dychter: Faenza, Italy 2019

Elizabeth Dychter's work is the result of a one-month artistic residency at the Faenza Art Ceramic Center (FACC), involving an extensive technical process with porcelain, in which she developed and incorporated new concepts in collaboration with the center’s technicians and curators. Thus, the FACC adds a new chapter to this fertile, sensitive, cultural, and artistic alliance between continents, with a reference point: the city of Faenza.

Apparently ironic and irreverent, Elizabeth Dychter conveys a deeper reflection than what the observer visually appreciates. The breast, a powerful female instrument, is presented in two installations under the title Tetas (Breasts). Beauty and decadence, love and pain, life and death, all summarized in the same “breast.” Born and raised in Buenos Aires, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, she knew from the very beginning what the transmission of memory and the value of life meant. After a journey of more than 30 years, rich in successes and recognitions, the artist continues to delve into the need to leave a legacy.

The works will be on display in the new Faenza space for contemporary art: Officine Matteucci, which boasts a rich artistic and historical identity; recognized as the National Center for the work of entire generations of Matteucci wrought iron craftsmen, from 1640 to 1960. Today, Officine Matteucci is lead and managed by four young Faenza natives, a team with extensive professional capabilities.

Choosing clay

Almost by chance, Elizabeth Dychter came to ceramics to dazzle with her work.

  • How did your journey with ceramics begin? Had you had other artistic experiences before?

My journey with ceramics began quite casually and, in hindsight, in a pretty amusing way. I was very young when my father-in-law moved into my house. I decided I had to get away from him because he was very demanding. Two blocks from my home, I saw a sign at the Asociación Española del Socorro Mutuo de Belgrano that read: “Ceramics lessons, Prof. A. Jones.” And I walked in. It was 1988. The following year, I joined Alejandra Jones's private workshop. Before and while I was learning how to work with ceramics, I studied textile art with Rosa Chernoff, which I abandoned later to stick with clay.

  • Were you self-taught, or did you have teachers who initiated you into this artistic journey?

As I mentioned earlier, my teacher was Alejandra Jones. I have never felt the need to change workshops because I believe Alejandra was the best teacher I could have ever found. She is extremely generous with her knowledge and has an unparalleled human touch.

  • Does the choice of raw materials condition or determine the type of work? Or the process is the other way around?

Until I ventured into porcelain around 2012, I had never even thought about whether the material influenced the type of work I would create. It was simply a matter of letting my hands touch the clay and allowing the images to emerge.

Today, working exclusively with Parian porcelain, I would say it absolutely conditions me. I need to know beforehand what I want to create to figure out how to build it.

  • What are the themes that inspire or move you?

For most of my life as a ceramic artist, my recurring theme was the Holocaust. As the daughter of a survivor, I felt the need to convey my father's experiences through my work. I believe that life and death is what inspires me. For example, my series Tetas (Breasts) is about breast cancer. Nowadays, my colorful waves in the series Colapso (Collapse), made of Parian porcelain, is about disasters and resilience.

  • Any plans for the rest of the year?

My plans for the rest of the year include studying 3D programming and continuing to experiment because I have a significant project coming up in Italy next year involving a 3D printer.

In the very center of history

Without images, there is no memory, and without memory, there is no history. When we talk about images, we are also talking about language, memory, and knowledge. Starting from this premise, we can assert that the tragedy of the Shoah must be possible to imagine. Far away from Adorno's thoughts, which denied the possibility of poetry after this disaster, the circumstance posed the sublimity of Auschwitz, making horror inconceivable and unspeakable, concepts that, in the future, bear the weight of forgetfulness. Can we then continue to argue, nowadays, that there is no way to represent the Shoah?

Elizabeth Dychter takes a defined stance of resistance and proposes an image for such atrocity; the sculptural ceramics is the chosen means through which she translates her father's experiences in Auschwitz. Those torsos with bowed heads that reveal their drama in the cracking of the glaze, figures of those marching towards the trains, without distinguishing features, anonymous, their identities lost.

The artist presents us with a history of horror but with a renewed interpretation, since she did not live through such circumstances. Undoubtedly, addressing historical trauma from an aesthetic perspective presents disagreements and ambiguities, but the truth is that every memory could be laden with these concerns because there is no singular and all-encompassing collective memory.

This shows us that the resistance of the images represented in this sculptural corpus entails that history does not close and paves the way for these events not to fall into oblivion.

Luciana Acuña

Arte Mediante

Curatorial Team