Welcome to Spotted, our weekly grab bag of interesting items from the worlds of contemporary ceramics and contemporary ceramic art! This week we’re starting off with Studio KDSZ from Taiwan, who are wowing us with glass!
From Designboom:
The series conceptual bases begins with the traditional forms of Chinese vases and bowls which are then given a modern, contemporary look via their double walled, hand-blown construction. By constructing the pieces from transparent borosilicate glass, the works display the color of the liquid in.
About the Studio
Chi Hsiao-En, the studio founder/creative director was born in 1978 in Chu-Nan, a beautiful small town in northern Taiwan. He gained his mechanical engineering and architecture degree from Chun-Yuan university (1996-2001). After working in Taipei, he set out for his design journey starting from Art Center, Pasadena then IED Milano(2005-08). During his stay in Italy, he had worked with Mario and Claudio Bellini for leading international brands including Kartell, Poltrona Frau, Natuzzi and Steelcase. When backing to Asia in 2008, he joined luxury Chinese brands FRANZ and LiuLiGongFang, responsible for design and branding works. In 2010, he relocated to Bei-Jing to set up his studio KDSZ, focusing on furniture, living and interior design.
Richard Wilson’s Still Life Jug
About the Artist
Richard Wilson was born and brought up in Norwich, and has been making pots since the early 1970s. After studying for two years at Great Yarmouth College of Art, he worked from 1974 to 1980 at Le Dieu Pottery in Norwich before spending 3 years in Australia and New Zealand, and a further five in Germany, working with many potters using different techniques, in particular woodfired saltglazes.
Richard Wilson, Still Life Jug, 2015, ceramic, 40 x 59 x 28 inches. On offer through Plinth, London. $3,618. Click to see a larger image.
Whilst in Germany, Richard spent some time with potters whose work drew from Eastern European designs, and has himself been especially inspired by Hungarian and Romanian slipware from the 1800s. He has also been strongly influenced by the Cardew tradition of English country pottery, having spent some months working at Wenford Bridge in the 1980s, learning about the strengths and subtleties of Cardew’s work.
Recently his work has explored colour and abstract patterns in strong forms that capture the ebb and flow of the sea and the landscape of South West Dorset.
Laerte Ramos “Casamata” Series, 2014
Laerte Ramos, Untitled (Casamata series), 2014, ceramics and various plants, 20 x 40 x 47 inches, $1,000 – $2,500 inches. On offer by Blau Projects, São Paulo.
Click to see a larger image.
About the Artist
Laerte was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and had his first artistic teachings in clay, wood, metal and stone during his school years, through his childhood and teenage years, at the Rudolf Steiner Waldorf School, between 1985 and 1996. At the time, some of his masters were war refugees coming from Germany and Switzerland. Counting with a strong influence of an alternative, post-war education, the war references were ever-present in his infancy learning, and are still very visible throughout his production. As he entered FAAP – Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in 1997, the college where he completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in Arts (1997/2001 – Bachelor’s degree, and 2002 – Licence), he found himself immediately drawn to means image reproduction through printmaking, such as woodcut and serigraphy.
Michel Pérez Pollo Painting
Pollo’s work is on offer through Mai 36 Galerie in Switzerland.
Michel Pérez Pollo, Trepanación II, 2015, oil on canvas, 78 3/10 x 78 2/5 x 4/5 inches. Sold. Click to see a larger image.
About the Artist
“Michel Pérez Pollo paintings may seem childlike and naive, his concern is to avoid faithful accuracy in favor of a universal expression. His models are figures and shapes made of modeling clay, which he greatly enlarges and exaggerates when painting them. Pérez is more interested in the fundamental constellations of human existence and interaction than in any popular ubiquitous and increasingly hollow social criticism.” — Axel Jablonski
Elmgreen & Dagset at the V&A
From the Victoria and Albert Museum:
Click to see a larger image.
In 2010 the V&A invited Elmgreen and Dragset to create a unique exhibition experience in the V&A. The resulting work is the exhibition, ‘Tomorrow’, a fictional domestic interior that belongs to the architect Norman Swann. The exhibition draws from the V&A collection as well as props, loans and new artworks created by Elmgreen & Dragset.
As part of the exhibition, the artists have created a site specific work that sits on the hoarding currently masking the refurbishment of the forthcoming Europe galleries.
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