Worth the earth

After the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the New World, they set about suppressing the cultural and religious identity of its indigenous inhabitants. One way of doing this was to prohibit the making of clay images. They had seen that clay was a powerfully symbolic material for the Indians. Modelling in clay was revived in spirit only in a flush of Mexican nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s, but to see the work in Just A Glance, an exhibition of contemporary Mexican ceramic sculpture at the American College, you'd swear that the tradition is was as strong as ever. The work in the show displays every awareness of employing an ancient medium and a serene confidence in its ability to sustain contemporary concerns.

Highlights include Jorge Marin's strange, plump little figures with disproportionately large heads, Miriam Medrez's allegorical figure studies and Maribel Portela's gathering of hunters. Gerardo Azcunaga, Perla Krause and Rosario Guillermo brilliantly combine clay with other materials, while the architectonic forms of Christina Martinez del Campo, Paloma Torres and Gustavo Perez recall pre-Columbian buildings in various ways. Originally conceived for Lisbon's Expo '98, the show has toured Ireland and is now briefly installed at the American College in Dublin. It's well worth catching either there, until Friday, or, from August 4th, at the Garter Lane Arts Centre in Waterford.