Odyssey:
The Voyage of Gerit Grimm
A Survey of Works, 2002–2023
Guest curated by Hieyler Pimpton
February 22–June 8, 2025
Overview
Growing up in East Germany under socialism, Gerit Grimm was exposed to ceramics as a young adult working in a factory as a production potter. This job honed her skills and ignited her desire to study in the United States, where she continued to develop as an artist. Odyssey: The Voyage of Gerit Grimm reflects this journey with 22 works, primarily ceramics, that span 21 years of her career.
When guest curator Hieyler Pimpton first spoke with Grimm in preparation for this exhibition, Grimm told Pimpton of her goal of becoming a Yacht Master. Immediately, The Odyssey, Homer’s epic poem, came to mind. They agreed that it would be a good idea to show her work in a timeline—a journey of her progress. Pimpton asked Grimm, why sailing? Grimm replied that “it all started with a drawing of a sailboat” made by her father. It was his dream to sail around the world, and, as she was very close to her father, it became her dream as well. This dream came closer to reality, when she moved near the Baltic Sea and sailed to Saint Petersburg as a journeyman.
Grimm had a strong desire to become an artist. After trying several times to get into graduate school for sculpture, she finally succeeded; the dream of sailing remained but had to be put on hold for a while, though it did find its way into her work through the subject of movement. When she became a professor in Madison, Wisconsin, she joined a sailing club and finally made her dream come true by becoming a Yacht Master by the age of 50.
Travel is a major inspiration for Grimm. Her experiences emerge in the objects she creates, whether through documenting her travels or photographing herself along the way. While she works intuitively, she also looks at a lot of paintings. Grimm does not think of the viewer when making work; instead, she thinks about impressing herself and pushing objects to the point where they satisfy her artistic instincts. “On my trips, I’m an explorer, researcher, and photographer,” she told Pimpton. “Adventures have become my storybook. Instead of just making clay figures about stories known, I’m telling new stories, a new folklore for grandmas to tell their granddaughters.”
This timely exhibition is a chance for both viewers and Grimm herself to reflect on 33 years of an artistic practice and how she has arrived at this moment—her Voyage.
Artist Statement
The central idea for my artwork is to transgress the boundaries of folk art and fine art by means of the following method: appropriate historically significant folk art and theatrical genres and interpret them through visual idioms of contemporary sculpture. My work appropriates historical narrative subjects deriving from fables and myths, and interprets them in forms that have visual and conceptual affinities with contemporary fine art—affinities that allow me to further explore and question the boundaries between pop art, kitsch, and high art. This new direction of my work is a hybrid between ceramics and traditions within contemporary sculpture. By risking technical failure in the process of creating forms, I am able to attain a complexity, dynamism, and litheness of the form. The technical risks are a corollary to another type of risk—one that reinterprets a folk figurine tradition and pushes it to its limits. My reinterpretation of this tradition combines both narrative and form— synthesizing pots with fairy tales in a way that tests the boundaries of each. The result is often an uncanny union—one that evokes all manner of stories about dolls, puppets, and statues coming to life. It is a union at once wonderful, elegant, and fanciful but also at times uncomfortable and awkward.
The increase in scale highlights the sculptural forms of my ceramic figures. To date, I have been quite successful in building life-size and larger-than-life ceramics with some exceptions. I use reduction kiln-firing techniques to produce a highly austere (a subtle metallic sheen or bronze looking), surface which leads to the stone-like appearance of my work. This surface reinforces its sculptural qualities and conveys an appearance of moments frozen in stone and in time.
Biography
Born and raised in the formerly East German city of Halle, Gerit Grimm learned the traditional German trade of pottery at the Alt Bürgeler blau-weiss GmbH in Bürgel and then worked as a potter for Joachim Jung in Glashagen. Earning an Art and Design Diploma in 2001 studying ceramics at Burg Giebichenstein in Halle, she was awarded that same year with the German DAAD Government Grant for the University of Michigan School of Art and Design, from which she graduated with Master of Arts in 2002. She received a Master of Fine Arts from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2004. After numerous teaching positions and residencies, including the Kohler Arts & Industry Program and the Archie Bray Foundation, she is now an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Grimm’s work is represented in collections around the world including the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, California; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska; and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. In 2009, National Education Television featured Grimm in a “Nebraska Story” segment called “Fantasia in Clay” when she was living and working in Nebraska.
Guest Curator Statement
Odyssey, The Voyage of Gerit Grimm, presents a variety of visually stunning works in clay ranging in many different sizes encompassing imagination and narrative.
The genesis of this exhibition began with a couple of conversations with the artist at a time when she was training to become a yacht master. The quest was earmarked by her 50th birthday. It seemed like a natural materialization to do a retrospective exhibition. Looking through her body of work, there is a suggestion of movement. Works like Beauty Salon, Sirens, and Death Entombment embody this analysis. Her creations are fluid. Grimm is a student of figural expression. It is wonderfully captured and expressed.
This retrospective exhibition spans a career of over 20 years. There is a natural progression in Grimm’s work as each year of work builds on another. There is a visual vocabulary she employs, coupled with her travels and inspirations, to create such lively and intricate works. She is particularly detailed and an amusing storyteller at times. Other times, her subjects require reflection. The pivot from glazed work to a natural clay look lends a seriousness to the work.
It has been such a pleasure for me to pore over Gerit Grimm’s body of work and determine what would be in this environment for you to see. I hope you will see something extraordinary, something that piques your interest. I hope you will enjoy it.
Hieyler Pimpton
Guest Curator
Hieyler is an artist living in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a painter, collage artist, and printmaker. She has an M.F.A. from Savannah College of Art and Design.
Selected Works From the Exhibition
Views From the Exhibition Gallery
