Two Way Connection

Date2021

Label TextContemporary artist Woody De Othello continues in the legacy of many West Coast artists of the 1960s and ’70s, using ceramics to explore complex themes around art, humanity, and connection. Here, a traditional ceramic vessel is anthropomorphized with eyes, ears, mouths, and hands and topped with a telephone receiver. Made during the COVID pandemic, the mutated figure reflects our own imperfect abilities to communicate and our human longings for connection. The familiar is rendered uncanny in an object that merges a disquieting humor with deep pathos.

Object number2021.42

ProvenanceThe artist; [Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, California]; purchased from gallery by Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2022

Photo CreditPhoto: Scott Leen

Exhibition HistorySheboygan, Wisconsin, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Woody De Othello: Hope Omens, September 26, 2021 - September 25, 2022. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Reverberations: Contemporary Art and Modern Classics, Dec. 22, 2022 - ongoing [on view December 22, 2022 - September 2, 2023]. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Poke in the Eye: Art of the West Coast Counterculture, June 21 - September 2, 2024.

Credit LineRichard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis Acquisition Fund for Global and Contemporary Art

DimensionsSculpture: 28 x 15 x 17 in. (71.1 x 38.1 x 43.2 cm) Base: Height: 32 1/2 in. (82.6 cm), Diameter: 18 1/2 in. (47 cm) Sculpture and base: 58 1/2 x 21 x 23 in. (148.6 x 53.3 x 58.4 cm)

MediumCeramic and glaze