Acquired for the British Council Collection in 2011, British artist Alan Kane’s Home for Orphaned Dishes explores the participatory act of giving and the physical remnants and value of trends. Originally premiered at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2011, the installation comprises of a floor-to-ceiling display of a moment of popular craft revival; the resurgence of traditional wheel thrown, glazed stone and slipware pottery that became fashionable in the 1960s and 1970s as an alternative to mass production and Modernist design. Once treasured, these pots are now often considered ugly or plain, and dwell at the back of kitchen cupboards, charity shops and attics. Selected by the artist from a collection made by Lynda Morris, Kane invites visitors to be inspired and hunt out their own unwanted pieces of pottery to add to the ever evolving assembly of orphaned dishes. Please bring in your own dishes to donate to the display.

Home for Orphaned Dishes is shown as part of Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum's exhibition "Kubbe Makes an Art Museum - by seeing, gathering, studying and exhibiting".

Alan Kane Born in Nottingham, Alan Kane lives and works in London. His numerous solo exhibitions include The Stratford Hoard at Stratford Station as part of TfL's Art on the Underground series (2008), Punk Shop at Ancient and Modern, London (2013) and Orphaned Dishes, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2011).

http://www.britishcouncil.jp/en/events/home-for-orphaned-dishes-tokyo

Collection Artist(s)

Installation Images

  • On show at the Whitechapel Gallery
See all (1)

Glossary

  • Craft

    The creation of handmade objects intended to be both useful and decorative.

  • Design

    The arrangement of elements or details in an artefact or a work of art.

  • Installation

    An artwork comprised of many and various elements of miscellaneous materials (see mixed media), light and sound, which is conceived for and occupies an entire space, gallery or site. The viewer can often enter or walk around the installation. Installations may only exist as long as they are installed, but can be re-created in different sites. Installation art emerged in the 1960s out of Environmental Art (works of art which are three-dimensional environments), but it was not until the 1970s that the term came into common use and not until the late 1980s that artists started to specialise in this kind of work, creating a genre of ‘Installation Art’. The term can also be applied to the arrangement of selected art works in an exhibition.