Ceramics Is Having a Market Moment — and Museums Are Following
Ceramics has moved from the margins of contemporary art into the center of the conversation. In New York, California, Chicago, and on the East Coast, galleries, fairs, and museums are giving the medium unusually broad visibility, while prices for leading artists continue to climb across a wide range.
The recent run of sales makes the point clearly. At James Cohan in New York, Kathy Butterly’s pieces sold out at $45,000 each. Nicole Cherubini’s exhibition at Friedman Benda nearly sold out at prices up to $65,000, and Ruby Neri’s work at Salon 94 reached $75,000. Ron Nagle also had work on view at Matthew Marks, which recently showed Ken Price, another key figure in the medium’s contemporary history.
Theaster Gates used his latest Gagosian exhibition to honor David Drake, the enslaved South Carolina ceramicist whose work has long resonated with Gates’ own practice. Meanwhile, the New Art Dealers Alliance staged NADA Ceramics at the Locker Room in Tribeca from March 6 to 8, with more than 40 exhibitors, including artists, galleries, and studios.
The fair circuit has been equally active. At Frieze in California, Olney Gleason sold Bosco Sodi clay sculptures for about $72,000. Jeffrey Deitch devoted a solo booth to Sharif Farrag, with prices between $14,000 and $35,000, while David Kordansky showed Doyle Lane glazed pots and later presented Betty Woodman earthenware priced as high as $190,000. At Post-Fair, Anton Kern showed vessels by Francis Upritchard and Nicholas Brandon, Mariposa sold Peter Schlesinger works, and Marta presented George Sherman.
Beyond the market, museums are helping to stabilize ceramics’ place in the canon. The recently reopened Princeton University Art Museum has dedicated a room to Toshiko Takaezu through July 5. The RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island, is showing “A Shared Journey: The Barkan Contemporary Ceramic Collection” through March 5, 2028. Kathy Butterly’s work remains on view at the Tang Teaching Museum in Saratoga Springs, New York, through July 26.
The medium’s renewed visibility is not entirely new. Ceramics has been in production since the Paleolithic era, and 20th-century artists including Lucio Fontana, Joan Miró, Isamu Noguchi, and Pablo Picasso all worked extensively in it. Yet the question remains whether the market will fully catch up with the medium’s cultural standing. For now, ceramics is still negotiating an old divide: craft in one register, high art in another — and the gap between the two is narrowing, if unevenly.
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