You may notice some differences between this space and LACMA’s other galleries. Next time you visit this exhibition, you may see subtle shifts in the design. This is because LACMA has partnered with the Neuroscience Lab of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego to develop an innovative research project to understand how exhibition design can enhance visitor experience. All museum visitor data collected as part of this research will be anonymized.

Here, Julia Kunin evokes amphibious environments with slip-cast rocks and snails submerged in pooled, iridescent glaze. She has long been inspired by the macabre tradition of casting once-living specimens pioneered by French Renaissance polymath Bernard Palissy and widely elaborated over the centuries. For this body of work, she was also entranced by images of the historical iridescent ceramics produced by the internationally acclaimed Zsolnay ceramics manufactory in Hungary.

Elite Europeans collected elaborate, domestically-produced vessels that imitated the look of luxury imported blue-and-white porcelain from Asia. For example, this crowned English posset pot is adorned with faux Chinese scenery. In Trophy Wife, Elyse Pignolet relates the collecting of prized ceramics to the objectification of desirable women. Her sculpture lures viewers with the pretty and familiar Asian-inspired motifs of blue-and-white pottery, only to confront them with equally ubiquitous misogynistic stereotypes.

Refined jars painted with regal dragons made in government-controlled kilns held wine or flowers during Joseon court rituals. The Chicago-born son of Korean immigrants, Steven Young Lee first learned Asian ceramic techniques in a Western education system, studying vessels like this one in books and museum collections. His reinterpretation of a ceremonial jar challenges traditional standards of perfection, elevating and exaggerating defects like drips and cracks.

Having perfected the technique of printing detailed scenes onto ceramics, potteries in England’s industrial heartland created products for an expanding consumer base in the United States. Appealing to American interests, they depicted patriotic landscapes and commemorated newsworthy tragedies like the 1835 Great Fire of New York City. The First Amendment plate memorializing newspaper editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy (1802–37) championed the Abolitionist cause for which he was killed.

Courtney M. Leonard’s sculpture is inspired by Indigenous fish baskets and fishing nets. However, her choice of delicate earthenware has rendered the form impractical and vulnerable to breakage. She relates the loss of functionality to diminished traditional food sources, advocating for the consideration of Indigenous knowledge in managing the fragile Atlantic coastal ecosystem. By contrast, the English fruit bowl would have formed the centerpiece of a fashionable dessert service.

The richly-layered surfaces on these stoneware vessels appear similar, but were produced differently. The cylindrical vase is an example of Iga ware, a virtuosic Japanese ceramic tradition requiring numerous multi-day high-temperature firings. Airborne ash in the wood-fired kilns lands on the unglazed clay, creating a variegated surface. Inspired by the textures of Japanese ceramics, Adam Silverman experimented with ways to achieve similar effects with the resources available to him in Los Angeles.

In Korean, the word “geum” means both “crack” and “gold.” In this monumental sculpture, Yeesookyung poetically engages this homonym, using the precious metal to assemble discarded shards of reproduced inlaid celadon wares. Her fascination with fragments came after she witnessed a Korean master potter destroying works he deemed imperfect.

Continuously produced since the thirteenth century, ceramics from the Bizen area in Okayama Prefecture, western Honshu (the largest Japanese island), display beautiful firing marks. The local clay is carefully guarded by potters, who have traditionally enhanced its smooth, dense texture through repeated filtering. The mottled bamboo node-shaped bottle bears a shiny glaze formed naturally through a multi-day firing. The red markings and “sesame seed” spots around the top of Wakimono Hiroyuki demonstrate the material’s receptivity to reactions within the kiln.

An Indigenous man rockets across Diego Romero’s Theater of War in this farcical response to President Donald Trump’s 2017 flirtation with a massive attack on North Korea. Romero, a self-proclaimed “chronicler of the absurdities of human nature,” draws on wide-ranging cultural references, from global pottery traditions to popular films and comic books. His precise, geometric imagery is a tribute to the centuries-old pottery of the Cochiti artist’s Mimbres ancestors.