Sgrafo vs. Fat Lava

"Ceramics and Porcelains made in West Germany, 1960-1980"<br />Curated by<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Nicolas Trembley</span><br />@ <a href="http://azpcgallery.com/">Alex Zachary Peter Currie</a>, 16 East 77th Street, NY<br /><br />"In a way I still don’t know anything about German ceramics and have always wondered why I went into it so deep (apart from the paradigm exercise on Collecting.)"<br /><br /><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8005/7575830670_b5f76597a0_c.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8005/7575830670_b5f76597a0_c.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 702px; height: 468px;" /></a><br /><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7112/7575834304_6a3888c081_c.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7112/7575834304_6a3888c081_c.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 701px; height: 469px;" /></a><br /><br /><br />"<span class="description">Whether it is a question of Sgrafo vases, of Raymond Loewy's "Form 2000" for Rosenthal (1954), or of the improbable "Fat Lava"glacis of the 1970s, postwar German ceramics attest to a surprising stylistic inventiveness and diversity.<br /><br />Through these creations, both well-known and anonymous designers knew how to capture the impulses of a society in the middle of reconstruction and desirous of looking to the future. Mixing references to Op art, the geometry of a Verner Panton, or <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">the vegetal style of the hippie wave, these objects follow a path of exaggerated shape unique in the history of forms.</span><br /><br />In this sense they simultaneously incarnate the inevitable bombacity that menaces design, and its aspirations to autonomy as a quasi-artistic practice. It is this crossing of intentions and this body of supposedly ordinary objects that this publication explores, with a text by the specialist Horst Markus, and an interview with the designer Ronan Bouroullec.<br /><br />Published with the support of Galerie Andrea Caratsch, Zurich; CEC, Centre d'édition contemporaine, Geneva; and FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims." <a href="http://www.jrp-ringier.com/pages/index.php?id_r=4&id_t=&id_p=6&id_b=1990"><span style="font-style: italic;">(text from here)</span></a></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7131/7575833714_bb37136638_c.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7131/7575833714_bb37136638_c.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 701px; height: 469px;" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7116/7575832380_eedaa75792_c.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7116/7575832380_eedaa75792_c.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 700px; height: 467px;" /></a><br /><br />"Last year, I was invited by the Centre d’Edition Contemporainae in Geneva to propose a show. I said, “Let’s show those vases. I have 150 now. It should be enough, then the story’s over.” The show was a success and even Artforum wrote an article about it. Now the show is going to Frac Champagne-Ardennes in Reims, and we published a little booklet with Jrp-Ringier, with contributions from Ronan Bouroullec. I sent it to Kreo Gallery and Didier called me back.<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> “Nicolas, I told you, when you have enough vases, we can do a show.” </span>The show is scheduled for June.<br /><br />In a way I still don’t know anything about German ceramics and have always wondered why I went into it so deep (apart from the paradigm exercise on Collecting.) I found the answer recently. I offered a vase to my father for his 70th birthday. When I gave it to him, I was in his office in the French provinces. He opened the box and said, “That’s great. It looks like one of my Raku Asian ceramics.” I was like, “What? What Asian ceramics?” When I looked at the shelves in his office, I saw hundreds of ceramics — a colletcion I’d totally forgotten…"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">text by nicolas trembley, taken from Apartamento 07</span>

Sgrafo vs. Fat Lava

"Ceramics and Porcelains made in West Germany, 1960-1980" Curated by Nicolas Trembley @ Alex Zachary Peter Currie , 16 East 77th ...

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