Students in Professor Gregg Moore’s Advanced Ceramics course were invited to participate in another exhibition with Chef Hoon Rhee and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, building upon the partnership that began last spring. 

This year, the students are working with Chef Rhee to create original ceramic dishes. Their work will be used at Stir, the museum’s restaurant, in conjunction with an upcoming exhibit on the American Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, and will be inspired by the style of plateware used in the French tea houses Cassatt enjoyed while spending most of her adult life in France, as well as by Cassatt’s paintings and Rhee’s French-inspired menu.

“The students that worked with Chef last year did such an excellent job,” said Moore. “So much so that Elizabeth Argo, the curator of that exhibition, The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989, connected us directly with Jennifer Thompson, Gloria and Jack Drosdick Curator of European Painting and Sculpture and Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection; and Laurel Garber, Park Family Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings, who are co-curating this year’s exhibit Mary Cassatt at Work.”

This partnership with Chef Rhee and the Philadelphia Museum of Art offers a unique opportunity for students to gain a new kind of access to the museum that they wouldn’t be able to get otherwise. They’re able to tour the museum with the exhibition curators to learn more about the artwork and examine the styles they’ll be working with, gaining a better understanding of the curation process and how these exhibitions come together.

“This is that step into the outside experience so critical when making objects activated by use,” added Moore. “The stakes are higher because their work is going right into the museum. It’s very exciting.”

Senior actuarial science major Ilija Chacon-Flores has been taking ceramics classes without needing them for any major or minor requirements; they simply enjoy the discipline.

“For me, this project is special because I’ve been removed from art while pursuing my major,” they explained. “I get to do something outside of my major and really sink my teeth into something big.”

The goal of Moore and Rhee’s partnership is to continue working together each spring, bringing Moore’s ceramics class a new exhibit, menu, style, and ultimately a new challenge for students to learn from, while also contributing artwork to be utilized alongside a large-scale exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The exhibit will be open from May 18 to Sept. 18. Tickets can be purchased on April 1.