There is a remarkable moment near the beginning of Jenni Sorkin’s book Live Form, in which she discusses a milk jug by the potter Marguerite Wildenhain. Made during Wildenhain’s tenure at the Weimar Bauhaus, it features an unusual combination of hazy-blue cobalt coloration and salt-glazed firing technique. But it is the function of the pot that arrests Sorkin’s attention. She points out that, at the time this “slightly potbellied” jug was made, Wildenhain and her fellow students were subsisting on a near-starvation diet: oatmeal three times a day and homegrown swiss chard. Though the pot is suggestive of “the humble abundance of raw, fresh milk, the crown jewel of the farmhouse table,” Sorkin writes, in fact “there was none to be had” (55). Through this biographical reading, the simple utilitarian form becomes infused with human interest—all the more poignant given that the milk jug was the only piece Wildenhain managed to take with her when, fleeing the Nazis, she emigrated to the United States. Many of the important aspects of Live Form are present in Sorkin’s interpretation of this jug. First of all, the object itself could easily be overlooked. It is modest in scale, utilitarian in nature; one might pass it by even if it were in a museum display case. Second, the force of the interpretation is not just context-dependent, but reliant on intensive research into everyday details that other historians might scant. Third, one is left to wonder whether the narrative that Sorkin has constructed would have been clear to the protagonist herself—that is, whether Wildenhain understood how powerful a statement she made in clay. It is this last aspect of Live Form, I think, that makes it an especially important achievement. Sorkin’s book is a corrective not only to the history of modern craft, which is still in the early days of its scholarly construction, but to our understanding of feminist methodology and postwar art in general. In essence, it comes down to this: patriarchal attitudes made the myriad contributions of women invisible, sometimes even to themselves. To create a more genderbalanced history, we need to do more than reclaim understudied figures and the works that they made. We need to stop prioritizing finished “works” in the traditional sense entirely, because the making of them was

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为什么会有伟大的女性陶艺家

在 Jenni Sorkin 的书 Live Form 的开头附近有一个非凡的时刻，她在其中讨论了陶艺家 Marguerite Wildenhain 的一个牛奶罐。它是在 Wildenhain 在魏玛包豪斯任职期间制作的，其特点是将朦胧的蓝色钴色和盐釉烧制技术相结合。但吸引 Sorkin 注意力的是锅的功能。她指出，在制作这个“有点大腹便便”的水罐时，威尔登海因和她的同学们正以近乎饥饿的饮食为生：一天吃三顿燕麦片和自产的瑞士甜菜。Sorkin 写道，虽然这个罐子暗示着“大量生鲜牛奶，这是农舍餐桌上的皇冠上的明珠”，但实际上“没有什么可吃的”（55）。通过这次传记阅读，简单实用的形式变得充满了人类的兴趣——考虑到牛奶罐是 Wildenhain 逃离纳粹移民到美国时唯一能随身携带的物品，这一点更加令人心酸。Live Form 的许多重要方面都体现在 Sorkin 对这个水壶的解释中。首先，对象本身很容易被忽视。规模适中，功利性强；即使它在博物馆陈列柜中，也可能会被它擦掉。其次，解释的力量不仅依赖于上下文，而且依赖于对其他历史学家可能缺乏的日常细节的深入研究。第三，让人怀疑索尔金构建的叙事是否对主角本人来说是清楚的——也就是说，Wildenhain 是否理解她在粘土中发表的声明有多么强大。我认为，正是 Live Form 的最后一个方面使其成为一项特别重要的成就。索尔金的书不仅是对仍处于学术建设初期的现代工艺史的纠正，而且是对我们对女权主义方法论和战后艺术的总体理解的纠正。从本质上讲，归根结底是：重男轻女的态度使女性的无数贡献隐形，有时甚至是她们自己。为了创造一个更加性别平衡的历史，我们需要做的不仅仅是收回未被充分研究的人物和他们制作的作品。我们需要停止完全优先考虑传统意义上的完成的“作品”，因为它们的制作是 索尔金的书不仅是对仍处于学术建设初期的现代工艺史的纠正，而且是对我们对女权主义方法论和战后艺术的总体理解的纠正。从本质上讲，归根结底是：重男轻女的态度使女性的无数贡献隐形，有时甚至是她们自己。为了创造一个更加性别平衡的历史，我们需要做的不仅仅是收回未被充分研究的人物和他们制作的作品。我们需要停止完全优先考虑传统意义上的完成的“作品”，因为它们的制作是 索尔金的书不仅是对仍处于学术建设初期的现代工艺史的纠正，而且是对我们对女权主义方法论和战后艺术的总体理解的纠正。从本质上讲，归根结底是：重男轻女的态度使女性的无数贡献隐形，有时甚至是她们自己。为了创造一个更加性别平衡的历史，我们需要做的不仅仅是收回未被充分研究的人物和他们制作的作品。我们需要停止完全优先考虑传统意义上的完成的“作品”，因为它们的制作是 重男轻女的态度使妇女的无数贡献变得不可见，有时甚至连她们自己也不知道。为了创造一个更加性别平衡的历史，我们需要做的不仅仅是收回未被充分研究的人物和他们制作的作品。我们需要停止完全优先考虑传统意义上的完成的“作品”，因为它们的制作是 重男轻女的态度使妇女的无数贡献变得不可见，有时甚至连她们自己也不知道。为了创造一个更加性别平衡的历史，我们需要做的不仅仅是收回未被充分研究的人物和他们制作的作品。我们需要停止完全优先考虑传统意义上的完成的“作品”，因为它们的制作是