 Joseph
Abi Yaghi Self
taught
Collective exhibitions:
S.A.D. Lebanon - 1996
Epreuve d’artiste - 1996-7-8-2001
Fiad - 1998
Artuel - 1998
A.U.B. - 2001
Individual
exhibitions:
My fomer house - 1997
Les Créneaux - 1999-2000
Alice Mougabgab - 2000
French cultural center - 2003
Crypt St- Joseph Church - 2009
Prizes:
Salon d’automne (Sursock museum) special distinction - 1995
Salon d’automne (Sursock museum) special distinction - 1996
Salon d’automne (Sursock museum) first prize - 1997
Opinion:
The
Art of Ceramics – Joseph Abi Yaghi
How do you promote
a very talented artist? I have asked myself this question for a
long time, and write this letter to all those who really love beautiful
ceramics.
My name is Birgitta;
I am from Copenhagen, Denmark. I am a Ceramist, and started my workshop
26 years ago in Copenhagen. In the evenings I worked as a teacher
in different art schools. I really love to teach, to feel the joy
when students succeed in the learning process. I have been a teacher
beside making my own ceramics, until I left Denmark almost three
years ago to live here in Lebanon.
I write this
letter to promote a young Lebanese Ceramist - Joseph Abi Yaghi.
When I first met Joseph, he had made ceramics, learning from books.
He did many nice things and he was talented, but he had never used
a potter's wheel.
Using a potter's
wheel is a difficult task and it normally takes years before you
are an expert. Joseph and I worked together for only five weeks
in his small workshop in Ashrafieh. When you teach how to throw
on the wheel, it is very important to give the students an idea
of the feelings they should have in their fingers, when the wheel
is turning the lump of clay in their hands. So I sat there - on
the floor - cupping my hands over his hands. Joseph worked very
hard, day after day, week after week, and bigger and bigger pots
grew up between his hands. In a few months he raised to be an excellent
potter, he continued to improve his skills and he became an artist.
Today he throws very big bowls and pots and he completes their beautiful
forms with wonderful decorations and glazing.
Joseph is the
most talented artist I have ever worked together with, and I am
very proud of his work. Every time I visit his shop in Ashrafieh,
I become overwhelmed with the splendor of this ceramics. A few days
ago he showed me an amazing bowl, very big, thin stoneware with
a decoration of drops outside and inside. If this bowl was exhibited
in Copenhagen, London or Paris it would be classified as International
Art at its best.
From December
17 Joseph will exhibit his ceramics at the Epreuve d'Artist Gallery.
By this time
I have left wonderful Lebanon, but I wish Joseph the best of luck
with the exhibition, with his work and with his future.
Birgitta
Ostergaard Hansen
The
creative forces of an ancient craft - Joseph Abi Yaghi is an artist
with tremendous power and skill, writes Helen Khal
The Daily Star, FRIDAY, JULY 4, 1997
The production of pottery
in Lebanon goes back thousands of years. We still see evidence of
the tradition, lined up along the roadside, in row upon row of red
sienna pots, vases, water jugs and bowls that, in style and material
substance, have remained unchanged throughout the centuries.
In this ancient land,
as elsewhere, pottery has always been viewed as a popular craft
designed for specific functional purpose. Only in this century has
it evolved into a valid art form, relatively devoid of function
and worth investigating primarily as a medium of expression. Similar
to how the concept of "art for art's sake" elevated the
function of art a century ago, so has "pottery for pottery's
sake" altered our perceptions of pottery today.
While Lebanon is inundated
with painters and sculptors, it has had very few contemporary potters.
Until she died too young in 1991, Dorothy Selhab Kazemi was the
only known figure in the field. Possessing an outstanding sensitivity
for the potentials of clay, she became the first potter to mold
the material into unique sculptural expression.
Working alongside her
in the early eighties as her student was Samar Mougharbel, who is
now recognized as a ceramist of note. Like Kazemi, she ventures
beyond the traditional approach to uncover new, more personal, directions
in the medium.
We now have Joseph Abi
Yaghi, a potter of extraordinary power and skill who is currently
holding his first one-man show. A maverick of sorts in his disregard
for professional status and commitment, Abi Yaghi rejects the label
of artist and insists that he is simply a potter, no more, no less.
He became one two years ago, after only five weeks of instruction,
and says he doesn't know - nor really care - whether or not he'll
still be making pots next year.
He is exhibiting not
in a gallery but in the courtyard of a lovely old villa in Tabaris,
Ashrafieh. There, beneath the hanging fragrance of magnolia, hibiscus
and lumquat, around a small oriental fountain and on into the villa's
rooms, are displayed more than 300 examples of his work.
While some of the work
is standard, functional pottery that by itself would not elicit
much comment, many of the pieces, in which Abi Yaghi has pushed
his power as a potter to its ultimate limit, are quite remarkable.
Seldom have I seen clay vessels of such elegant beauty, such innate
purity of spirit, such astonishing skill in production.
Most pottery, wheel-thrown,
rises in curves that define a closed interior space. The potter's
hands, in pulling the soft malleable clay up from the swiftly turning
wheel, usually guide it outward then inward but always upward into
circular vessels of containment.
In contrast, the creative
force that shapes the pottery of Abi Yaghi is open and giving. His
forms do not close in to contain space, but rather stretch out and
offer it communion with the limitless space beyond.
When I asked him about
this outward pull, he threw his arms out, saying, "Yes, this
means opening… a wide chalice of endless love, caring and beauty…”
Then, crossing his arms in a tight huddle across his chest, he said:
"Never, never closed like this!"
Another distinctive,
and certainly the most unusual, element in Abi Yaghi's pottery is
his ability to stretch the soft clay out into wide horizontal, curving
planes as thin as glassware. Imagine the Wheel turning and your
hands guiding the clay out into wide, precarious suspension. What
could hold such a fragile flange of wet earth in suspended symmetry
except a prayer?
That Abi Yaghi works
in stoneware helps. The clay he imports from Denmark provides him
with the tough consistency of material his kind of pottery demands.
It is fired at high temperatures of above 1200 degrees centigrade,
making it ovenproof and completely sake for cooking use. Lebanon's
clay, on the other hand, is porous and fired at low temperatures.
Most of the earthenware we see around us is made of this clay and
is not considered safe for cooking.
One of the star attractions
in the exhibit, a delicate beige platter of prancing horses (shown
here) is 20.7cm in height and 63.2cm in diameter. It took Abi Yaghi
one month of daily work to finish it. At any stage in the production
process - shaping on the wheel, bisque firing, glazing and final
firing - an accident or error would take him back to square one.
Another equally impressive
piece, of the same size and form, carries around its wide surface
the glazed imprint of the names of Sidon's nine mosques, rendered
in the intricate, entwined script of Diwani Arabic. In the perfection
of its design, we see a sure hand and an innate sensitivity for
balance.
Adding to the difficult
challenge of the process itself is the handicap Abi Yaghi faces
in not having adequate studio space. He works on the wheel in one
small, closet-sized room, transports the air-dried piece for firing
in another place, moves it from there to a third space for glazing,
then back to firing again. That breakage which occurs on the way
is not uncommon.
I am sure the cryptic
string of letters that Abi Yaghi cuts into the clay next to his
initialed signature on the bottom of each piece is a private charm
intended to protect his work from harm. Each inscription differs
from the other. Curious as usual, I asked him what they meant. Turns
out they are quotations from the Bible, each letter representing
the first letter of each word of the quote. We get no more than
the initials; only Abi Yaghi knows what they mean.
The exhibition
ends July 7, but if you miss it (though I hope you don't), stop
in when you can at Abi Yaghi's handicraft shop, Sienna, on Rue des
Saints Coeurs in Tabaris to see whatever is left of the show. Most
of them are quite affordable and would make marvelous gifts.
Potter
with a passion for ‘lightness of being’ - Helen Khal to
Daily Star - 1999
Sudan joins the foray
with a painting exhibition by one of its leading artists.
Joseph Abi Yaghi is,
without exaggeration, a potter of world-class merit. I said so two
years ago when I wrote about his work, and must say it again after
seeing his exhibition at the Creneaux this week.
Before getting into the
pottery, however, the Creneaux itself deserves a tribute. It’s the
handsome new clubhouse built by the alumni of the Nazareth, one
of Achrafieh’s oldest private schools. Completely financed by its
members, it has absolutely everything from indoor tennis and
squash courts to exercise and games rooms to a swimming pool, plus
an auditorium, restaurant and bar.
Superbly designed by
architect Simone Kosremelli, the building elegantly integrates modern
functional facilities into a stately structure of simple lines that
discretely echoes Arab architectural traditions. There is no other
clubhouse like it in Beirut.
On display in the split-level
garden adjoining the club’s restaurant, Abi Yaghi’s pottery projected
its own qualities of traditional craftsmanship wedded to creative
innovation.
There were 131 pieces
in all bowls, vases, cups and pitchers of all sizes, the largest
75 centimeters in height each unique and handcrafted to perfection.
Abi Yaghi’s forte is
his ability to give pottery a “lightness of being.” Never have I
seen pottery of such fragility. Imagine huge bowls pulled without
a single flaw into millimeter-thin shells of clay on a whirling
wheel. What magical hands are these that can work such wonders?
In using color glazes,
Abi Yaghi is a minimalist. He embellishes most of the pots with
simple concentric swirls or centered patches of color. In several,
he focuses more on design and fills the surface with the repetitive
pattern of a fish or winged horse. But always, his passion for pottery
is fired by his love for the ethereal lightness and beauty of form.
New in this collection
is a series of strange but stunning bowls that are roughly textured
and not resembling clay at all. When I saw them, I immediately thought
of Pompeii and imagined them as pots fired by volcano lava and left
to petrify for 2,000 years. These also are wheel-thrown, but made
of hard granules of fired clay mixed with raw clay. Abi Yaghi admits
the material is difficult to work with and sometimes makes his hands
sore for days.
The exhibition
ends Saturday. After that, Abi Yaghi’s pots can be found at the
Sienna shop in Tabaris.
Last week, Sudan brought
us a sampling of its art in an exhibition made up of paintings by
one of its leading artists, Ahmed Chibrine, alongside a collection
of its traditional handicrafts.
Held at the Ministry
of Tourism’s Glass Hall under the patronage of Minister of Culture
and Education Mohammed Youssef Beydoun, the show drew a large mixed
crowd of people, all curious to see what Sudan had to offer.
Chibrine is a name familiar
to many of us who were on the scene during Lebanon’s cultural prominence
before the war. It was a time when Beirut was known as the “Paris
of the Middle East” and artists from all over the Arab world
as well as from other, more distant lands were thronging to
Lebanon. Considering the astounding number of exhibitions filling
our calendar to mark Beirut’s reign this year as the cultural capital
of the Arab world, it looks like our fair city is well on its way
to becoming “Paris” again.
Sudan, admittedly, is
a late starter in the emergence and development of its contemporary
art. Its first generation of modern artists did not appear until
the early 1960s some 50 years later than in Lebanon, Egypt
and Iraq, for example. Chibrine was one of its pioneers.
In looking at his work
now and remembering his early paintings, I could easily recognize
the old Chibrine. He retains a consistency in style and content
that acts as a trademark focused as it is on abstract compositions
based on the rhythms of Arabic calligraphy. What is new, however,
is his heightened interest in color contrast as a design element.
This strengthens the vitality of his graphic patterns and adds a
more personal note to his arabesque style.
The handicrafts
on exhibit belong to traditions centuries old. They include handloomed
textiles, woven basketry and a variety of carved wooden items that
speak of the enduring legacy of a people’s art and how it serves
to grace their daily lives with functional objects of beauty.
Other
French Articles
►► Some
of the artist's artwork
Contact:
editorial@onefineart.com
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