Ann Agee
P·P·O·W is pleased to present Madonna of the Girl Child, an online project by Ann Agee. Known for her Hand Warmers, a series of ceramic shoes exploring craft traditions, industrial production and the erosion of the handmade world, Agee extends this practice to the digital realm showcasing a series of ceramic sculptures based on folk Florentine clay salt cellars in the shape of the Madonna and child. Reimagining such devotional domestic objects, Agee transforms the Christ child into a female. In a myriad of styles, slips, and glazes, each bearing the logo of Agee’s fictional enterprise, “AGEE MFG”, Agee celebrates the sororal relationship between mother and daughter and proposes a feminist iconography venerating baby girls.
Ann Agee
Holy Madonna of the Girl Caul, 2019
red earthenware with colored slip
22 1/4 x 9 1/2 x 7 3/4 ins.
56.5 x 24.1 x 19.7 cm
In an expression of their domestic utility, Agee situates her sculptures within digitally collaged rooms, combining iPhone images of her Brooklyn home with silkscreened diagrams detailing her first apartment in New York, the place where she first began to work in clay. In many ways an autobiography of lived space, her sculptures and their fantastical environments present the domestic as sacred, and as a site of inspiration.
In conjunction with Madonna of the Girl Child, P·P·O·W will host a digital conversation between Ann Agee and Glenn Adamson, a curator and writer who works at the intersection of craft, design history and contemporary art. Currently Senior Scholar at the Yale Center for British Art, he has previously been Director of the Museum of Arts and Design; Head of Research at the V&A; and Curator at the Chipstone Foundation in Milwaukee.
Ann Agee (b. 1959) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She has presented installations at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA. Her work has been included in notable group exhibitions, including Bad Girls at the New Museum, NY; and Dirt on Delight at the Institute of Contemporary Art, PA and the Walker Art Center, MN; and Conversations in Clay at the Katonah Art Museum, NY. Agee has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, among others. Her works are included in the permanent collections of The Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY; The Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; The RISD Art Museum, RI; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; The Henry Art Museum in Seattle, WA; and The Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI, among others. P·P·O·W will present a solo exhibition of Agee’s recent works in 2021, her third exhibition with the gallery.
Ann Agee
Tipping the Salt Cellar Madonna, 2020
red earthenware, colored slip, matte glaze
17 1/4 x 10 x 9 ins.
43.8 x 25.4 x 22.9 cm
Ann Agee
Raised Curtain Madonna, 2020
glazed porcelain, matte blue glaze
14 3/4 x 10 1/4 x 8 1/2 ins.
37.5 x 26 x 21.6 cm
Ann Agee
Moira Orfei Madonna, 2020
lustered black-stained porcelain, red overglaze enamel
21 1/2 x 7 7/8 x 5 1/4 ins.
54.6 x 20 x 13.3 cm
Ann Agee
Psychedelic Theorema Madonna, 2020
pink porcelain with matte glaze and stoneware with porcelain slip and glaze
17 1/2 x 6 x 7 ins.
44.5 x 15.2 x 17.8 cm
with base:
25 1/2 x 7 1/4 x 8 ins.
64.8 x 18.4 x 20.3 cm
Ann Agee
Dorothea Lange Madonna Salt Cellar, 2019
orange-stained porcelain, red overglaze enamel
10 3/4 x 6 1/2 x 3 3/4 ins.
27.3 x 16.5 x 9.5 cm
Ann Agee
Circus Madonna Salt Cellar, 2019
terra cotta, colored slips, red overglaze enamel
11 1/8 x 6 x 4 1/2 ins.
28.3 x 15.2 x 11.4 cm
Ann Agee
Adjusting Flip-Flop Madonna, 2020
glazed blue-stained porcelain
10 5/8 x 6 1/4 x 6 1/2 ins.
27 x 15.9 x 16.5 cm
Ann Agee
Modeled Pietà Madonna, 2020
black-stained porcelain, red overglaze enamel
10 1/8 x 7 1/2 x 8 1/8 ins.
25.7 x 19.1 x 20.6 cm
Ann Agee
Reclining Nude Madonna, 2020
earthenware, white slip
9 x 13 3/4 x 8 1/2 ins.
22.9 x 34.9 x 21.6 cm
Ann Agee
Hand-in-Face Madonna, 2020
red earthenware, colored slip, matte glaze
13 3/8 x 8 3/4 x 7 1/2 ins.
34 x 22.2 x 19.1 cm
Ann Agee
Baby Steps Out Madonna, 2019
glazed porcelain, red overglaze enamel
10 1/2 x 4 3/4 x 10 ins.
26.7 x 12.1 x 25.4 cm