Julian Stair, art, death and the afterlife, Sainsbury Centre Norwich

This exhibition showing at the Sainsbury Centre Norwich is a bit different to the norm as all the pots and other exhibits are related to the subject of death and peoples attitudes to the subject ,the installation part of the exhibition consists of a large number of pots all of which have been made by Julian Stair and a number have the ashes of people who died during the pandemic embedded in the clay. Julian Stair seems to specialise in this area of funerial jars and containers some of which are human in scale. It seems that a number of potters have moved into installation work in recent years

Those look very interesting pots. Thanks Coper. Bit creepy though. Gives new meaning to an Urn for your loved ones ashes! One could probably see it catching on in trendy households.

My mum has four pots of ashes lined up behind the sofa. I'm looking forward to sprinkling them on the roses when she's gone.

I think a lot of people are a bit squeamish about this subject and the exhibition seems to have attracted very few visitors. I have visited a couple of times and find it quite fascinating by the way different cultures treat death .There is also a short video showing Julian Stair making these pots.

It is a strange thing in this country. We now talk very widely and normally about many things that were taboo only a generation or two ago.
But death is pretty much still a thing we do not much mention. Not so much a taboo, but a a typical English reticent subject.
So a display of very tall pots which Asks the question does this remind you of your own death and mortality? Not exactly a cheery subject to enlighten your artistic world!
Mind you, given the trendy place the Sainsbury centre is. One is not surprised at a show like this BReaking boundaRies bLAH bLAH!

Mr Stair has been making pots like this for over 10 years, so it isn't really new. I do like the look of them.

I always thought a good project for foundation art students was for everyone to make something, then the rest of the class take turns to guess one word that it is meant to evoke. So it could be horrible, beautiful, sad etc  

I think most people would call these creepy but saying that a lot of ceramics are deliberately strange

Yes, N, we chucked granny in the river

P.S. We did ask permission, grandad was a gamekeeper on the Frome, salmon etc.

There were several of these Julian Stair pieces in the 2017 in the important THINGS OF BEAUTY GROWING exhibition back in 2017. At the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge and in the Paul Mellon centre in Princeton. It had the John Driscoll collection at its core. It was a very impressive exhibition, and its catalogue weighs a ton!

A large jar similar to the ones in 'Things Of Beauty Growing' is in the permanent collection at the Sainsbury centre, these jars are very large but different to his most recent productions which are showing a more human form, i don't think that the combination of human cremated ash and pottery clay has been done before, well not in recent times anyway, Julian Stair it seems has always had a fascination with funeral jars and smaller ones entered the Lisa Sainsbury collection in 2000.

One wonders what the market for these very large jars is. In a domestic setting they would be impressive, but one would be scared stiff of breaking them!