Queering Ceramics with Addison Wolff at NSU Art Museum

Vibrant colors, oblong and misshapen forms, rough textures – these are a few of the traits that typify Fort Lauderdale artist Addison Wolff’s ceramic sculptures. While they perhaps look interesting upon first glance, it’s the subtext that makes the work daring, and in our current time, perhaps a bit dangerous: These are bodies, and more specifically, they’re queer bodies. 

“So much of politics today is based on the body, like looking at and judging the body,” Wolff says. “(People) talk about queer folks today, and it’s like, you’re not seeing them for who they are today, but you’re trying to examine how far they’ve changed or your perception of their physical history.” 

Originally from Winter Park near Orlando and now based in Fort Lauderdale, Wolff’s latest project is a reassertion of the physicality of queer existence. “At The Baths,” his solo museum debut opening September 21 at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, takes its theme from gay bathhouses, an institutional feature of LGBTQ+ culture. Bathhouses and saunas serving queer communities were once common as safe spaces for both platonic gathering and sexual encounters, though they have dwindled amid cultural shifts. 

Viewers may not find the theme particularly obvious when looking at the ceramics, though titles such as Reach-Around and Cheek to Cheek offer some suggestion of what’s really going on. Wolff describes that subtlety as a feature. “It’s not figurative or illustrative, but I think you’ll see body parts,” he says. Indeed, some of the pieces do resemble human anatomy such as heads, shoulders, and twisted torsos. At the Gasper Arts Center in Dania Beach, where Wolff keeps his studio and fires his ceramics, one fellow artist who works as a nurse noted that she could see veins on the surface of one sculpture. 

The anatomical perspective also brings out another reference point, Greco-Roman statuary. While cultural perceptions of ancient sculpture going back to the Renaissance trend toward bare and white exteriors, the Ancient Greeks actually painted their statues in vibrant colors, a practice called polychromy. 

“The Metropolitan Museum had an exhibition on polychromy,” Wolff says. “And when you really look at these paint fragments or layers and you recreate the actual colors of that polychromy, it’s kind of gaudy, or what we perceive as gaudy or in poor taste today. And so I like toying with that, and that question of taste and excess.” 

The exteriors of the sculptures, covered in patches of coarse clay, also both resist the usual conventions of ceramic art, which favors smooth surfaces, and the material nature of Greek polychromy. 

“I really want the gesture and the layering to be a part of the form, as opposed to, like, a decorative element on the outside,” he says. “The traditional norm of clay is being glazed, and I like it. But in my work, I think I was trying to make it look that the color is sitting as if it is one with the form, and it’s acting as a skin, versus polychromy, where it’s kind of just painted on.” 

The subtleties of Wolff’s show are also an advantage in the current political climate. It’s the kind of topic that might not have raised eyebrows a few years ago, but in 2025 risks censorship and reprisal from Republicans and the political right. Last year Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed the entire state art budget, citing the funding of events that included LGBTQ+ themes that he considered “sexual.” 

“Sometimes censorship is quiet, or things are toned down,” he says. “And I think that’s where my work can straddle in this kind of less opaque way.” 

Wolff says the museum has fully supported the show, and any decisions to change its content came from him. The exhibit was originally planned to be more explicit before the spatial limitations in the gallery led to a rethink. 

“At first I wanted it to be really dark. I wanted to reference much more of a sex club,” he says. “But it kind of evolved into (something else). I fully support where it has led to, and I think it pushes enough and shows enough visibility. That’s crucial in this time and allows a space in this museum to show different voices.” 

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Addison Wolff: At The Baths

WHERE: NSU Art Museum, 1 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale

WHEN: Noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday, closed Monday. Opening Sunday, September 21

TICKETS: $16 for adults, $10 for seniors, $8 for military, $5 for students 13 and older with ID, free for NSU students, faculty and staff, Broward College students, and children 12 and under.

INFORMATION: (954) 525-5500 and nsuartmuseum.org.

This story was produced by Broward Arts Journalism Alliance (BAJA), an independent journalism program of the Broward County Cultural Division. Visit ArtsCalendar.com for more stories about the arts in South Florida.