Ceramic artist Lawrence Epps tempts art lovers with art slot machine called AGAIN

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Public invited to take a gamble on new ceramic artwork during an afternoon at Firstsite

Ceramic artist Lawrence Epps is used to giving his art away. His signature piece for the British Ceramics Biennial in 2013, Take Stock, invited visitors to take a unit of a 12,000 piece sculpture away with them, and for the Manchester Future Everything Festival the same year, 8,000 of his small clay men (tiny terracotta workers) were up for grabs to anyone who chanced upon them.

Now this most generous of ceramicists is finessing his idea – slightly – with a new installation launched at Firstsite in Colchester, which combines the tempting tactile warmth of the artist’s ceramic works with the adrenaline of the arcade.

AGAIN is a customised arcade-coin pusher which will be situated in the middle of Firstsite's MOSAIC gallery for one afternoon only on Saturday September 12.

Stocked with thousands of porcelain and terracotta coins made by the artist visitors can take a free coin from a dispenser, and if they wish, play the coin pusher for the chance to win the some of the ceramic fortune inside the machine itself.

“Visitors can choose to walk away with the winnings in their hands, or risk them again,” says Epps who says his thinking behind the idea for the piece was about "our desire to acquire accompanied by the constant pressure to disregard what we already have in a bid to get something more".

When asked about the decision behind allowing the public to take, play and speculate with his artwork, Epps says, “it's all part of the concept of the work." 

"The ceramic coins are artworks in themselves and viewers are immediately invited to decide their value and whether it would be worth playing the machine and risk losing it for the chance to win more or something else.”

Epps’ last work exploring the conceptual dimension of ceramics was Shit Job Machine, which pumped clay ‘excrement’ onto a Cambridge gallery floor as part of an artwork questioning office culture.

Accompanying this latest, arguably more nuanced piece, Epps has collaborated with the poet Holly Corfield Carr to produce the very last time, a book containing a collection of brand new writing by various authors responding to the nature of chance, value and loss.  

Each copy carries one of the artist’s ceramic coins in its cover while ephemera from the betting shop floor and the artist’s studio have been folded into its pages. The publication will be available to purchase in both a standard and special edition throughout the afternoon.

Visitors are welcome to collect their coins and try their luck at AGAIN in the Mosaic Space at Firstsite from 2pm on Saturday September 12. Throughout the afternoon there will also be readings from contributors to the very last time.

• Following on from the launch at Firstsite, AGAIN will be exhibited at the British Ceramics Biennial in the former Spode Factory site, Stoke-on-Trent from September 26 to November 8.

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/ceramics-and-craft/art536066-ceramic-artist-lawrence-epps-tempts-art-lovers-with-art-slot-machine-called-again