Michael Cleff, Germany - Edmund
de Waal, Great Britain
Edmund deWaal
born 1964
Artists Statement
I love the ‘visible imperfections’ that come
from the gestures of throwing and handling clay and the fierce
symmetries of industrial porcelain, the vessels of the chemical
laboratory. My pots span both these histories. Working in
Japan has given me a feeling for how pots can work in the
hand, how their heft, balance and texture matters. So my pots
are slightly bashed, slightly crooked and tell of their making.
For the last eight years I have also been making installation
groups. I called them ‘cargoes’ of pots, an image
that came from the images of sunken cargoes of porcelain.
There are few images of groups of porcelain – we are
much more used to seeing single pieces in isolated splendour
– and this has haunted me. This focus on installation
has allowed me to be ambitious in making pots that challenge
architectural space. My installation groups focus on the ways
in which subtle modulations are manifested through repetition.
Much of my recent work explores the different colours that
make up white. These new pieces look at how colour change
through shadow.
All these pots were made in porcelain as I believe that it
is the porcelain that is the matrix for East and West, the
Sung dynasty and the Bauhaus.
It remains to a powerfully contemporary medium.
Edmund de Waal
Michael Cleff
born 1961 in Bochum
For many years Michael Cleff's sculptures have impressed
with their concentrated power, a power drawn from their simplicity,
from their compactness and from the stringency with which
Cleff pursues and powers forward his intention, continuously
studying his concept, drawing new conclusions and gaining
new insights.
His use of geometrical shapes or multi-storeyed rotunda most
readily suggests parallels with architecture. Not only because
the clay forms he constructs have been fired as hard as clinker;
much more than this, it is the subjects he draws on, the relationship
between the basic ground plan and the total volume, the way
vertical and horizontal interact; it is the way the various
elements composing the surfaces create their own rhythms,
the way in which the internal and external interlock, the
subjects the sculptor chooses, and the features that coincide
with classical architectural tasks.
Cleff's language is spartan, yet never cold. The forms he
uses are strict, yet never dogmatic. What interests him is
the reduction of phenomena to enable satisfying perception,
of one's own voice, one's own reactions, and ultimately of
one's own self. What he creates is the discovery, the plan
and the accessibility of our own inner rooms. In the midst
of a raging torrent of information and events, he constructs
and opens up rooms for us, where we can withdraw into our
imagination; refuges for our thoughts, oases of quietness,
and places where we can encounter our own quest and experience.
Gabi Dewald : „Don’t say much. On Silence“,
2004 (Extract). In: Michael Cleff: Something of Everything.
Sculptural work. Stadtmuseum Hattingen, Catalog.
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"Über Grundrisse",
2004
H = 35 cm |
"Über Addition",
2004
H = 30 cm |
"Über Innen
und Außen", 2004
H = 47,5 cm |
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"Über Addition",
2005
H = 23 cm |
"Über Addition",
2004
H = 29 cm |
"Über Addition",
2004
H = 33 cm |
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