‘I think sculptors learn to draw so that they can see what they’ve been visualising.

Hauser & Wirth presents a retrospective of the work of Ken Price, reknown as one of the first artists that brought ceramics from a purely functional medium to the realm of art object. The wide selection of pieces on display highlights the Los Angeles-born artist’s strong connection with landscapes, folklore and modern artistic heritage. Finding inspiration in eclectic sources such as the Bauhaus, classic Southwestern pottery, jazz music and counter cultures of the 1960s, he developed a unique contemporary language unveiling the surprising possibilities of ceramics as sculpture. Iconoclastic pioneer, Price brought together the artisanal roughness of Mexican pottery and Japanese wabi-sabi tea ceremonies, the precision of Brancusi and Henry Moore‘s modernist study of form, to create fantastical compositions in psychedelic colors, featuring biomorphic shapes and erotic innuendo. Drawing represented a particularly joyful element within the artist’s practice and throughout his career Price produced an extensive body of works on paper that complemented his scupltures.