Klara Kristalova Sounds of Dogs and Youth 27 October- 28 January 2012 Lehmann Maupin. New York, by craniv boyd.

Klara Kristalova Sounds of Dogs and Youth 27 October- 28 January  2012 Lehmann Maupin. New York, by craniv boyd. 

If you like, cute contemporary art with sinister overtones like the  Marcel Damza, a Canadian draftsman whose creations are most of the time, sane, watered down apparitions of the outsider art of Henry Darger, then the glazed porcelain works of Czechoslovakia born  Klara Kristalova will appeal to your senses. Her New York  debut exposition consists of skillful clay pieces that when fired are static tokens of unprepossessing characters who might be at home in the videos of Swedish artist, Natalie Djurberg. That Klara Kristalova, has her training and much of her artistic vitæ, in Sverige, begs the question of if there is a larger cannon of adorable art with a dark twist up north. 

That ceramic arts, so often dismissed, from a so-called pluralistic avant gaurdistic Contemporary, into a  hand crafts ghetto, would now be presented in an art dealership, Lehmann Maupin, that displays the works of ultra hip Young British Alumnus, Tracy Emin is quizzical. Is there new tolerance for hand crafted art objects? The dream like story book art works look like illustrations for a children's book. Now I have nothing against Momin Trolls, or Björk Guðmúnsdóttir making a sound track to a film about these magical creatures, but to claim that the kitschy decorative objects authored by Klara Kristalova  are on par with surrealism, because they are surreal,(in the words of the press release,) is far fetched. 

Kristalova's  work is far to deliberate, and it's orientation towards the art market, precludes it as surrealist. Proof of this, her artwork poses fewer display, and conservation issues, than the biennial artist  Natalie Djurberg, does.  For collectors who  love  ungainly clay formed protagonists, that Mrs. Djuberg makes yet  do not want to bother about whether or not their video art purchase will work with audio visual display technology fifty or seventy years later; than the akin, yet conservative materials of Klara Kristalova are a clear choice for acquisition. The juxtaposition of raven-haired awkward girls with, Crows, standard urban dwellers in Northern European Cities,  with tangled tree branches and ghost like specters, is a friendly, soft edged clay artifact. Northern exoticæ for a pan Scandinavian experience, that in their vagueness allude to half forgotten Nordic fables. by craniv boyd.