The Art of Betty Woodman, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a good title for an exhibition that has to hoist ceramics over the great institution's lofty hurdle - it is art, in case you were wondering. I saw the show on my recent trip uptown, but it was hard to figure out what to make of such an aggressive onslaught of craggy form and exuberant color. (Peter Schjeldahl struggled a bit too.)
Good thing, then, that I stopped in to the Max Protetch gallery in Chelsea on Saturday, because there her recent work makes perfect, comforting sense. In these pieces, from 2005 and 2006, she sometimes incorporates canvas and paper along with her glazed earthenware. With this bit of context, her clay slabs become part of a larger pictorial plane, and her influences - like Bonnard and Roman art and architecture - help to place her in a grand aesthetic tradition.
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