Ceramics in Quarantine

Design Museum Den Bosch presents the exhibition Ceramics in Quarantine. It is a selection of international masterpieces from the museum’s collection. The exhibition is free and can be viewed by anyone walking past the museum windows in De Mortel. Of course, the pieces are placed at least one and a half metres apart. This so-called window display exhibition features exceptional ceramic work by Miquel Barceló, Glithero, Jean Lurcat, Ettore Sottsass and others. In a few weeks, some of the objects in “Ceramics in Quarantine” will be replaced.

Home School Design Tool

Schools and museums may be closed, but there is still much to learn at Design Museum Den Bosch. For the window display exhibition “Ceramics in Quarantine”, we have developed a home school design tool for all primary school pupils. Print out the pages, bring a pen or pencil and come and see the window display exhibition. Don’t live in Den Bosch? You can also find the works on the museum’s Instagram and Facebook pages.

Vase, Hans Coper, 1957

On the left of this photograph is a vase with a diabolo-like shape, made by Hans Coper (1920-1981) in 1957. The equal halves give the vase a playful yet monumental character. As with many of his other vases, Hans Coper uses beige and brown firing pigments on the worked clay. The diagonal lines make the vase appear to rotate around its own axis. In 1946, Coper, who had never worked with ceramics before, became Lucie Rie’s assistant. Coper and Rie shared a studio until 1958 and collaborated for more than thirty years. His work is above all sculptural and abstract, and thus groundbreaking in its method and form. Coper starts on the potter’s wheel with a substantial amount of clay to create a “heavy” basic form and then continues by hand, which brings a certain lightness to the form. He is not interested in functionality, although his pots always remain recognisable as pots; Lucie Rie simply puts flowers in them at home! Coper avoids shiny glazes. He likes a rough texture, which draws attention to the design. ⁠

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As in the Sink II, Arman, 1990

A machine-moulded and baked centrepiece, composed of various stacked tableware items. Arman designed this humorous tableware for the renowned tableware manufacturer l’Ancienne Manufacture Royales de Limoges. Born in Nice, artist Armand Fernandez (1928-2005) studied mathematics and philosophy. In 1947, he met Yves Klein, whom he subsequently assisted with his happenings. In 1960, together with Klein, César and art historian Pierre Restany, among others, he founded the Nouveau Réalistes art movement, an initiative similar to American Pop Art. Arman usually works with mixed techniques. In the 1950s, he caused a stir with his so-called Accumulations. These are plexiglass cabinets that he filled with series of the same materials. Variations on this principle emerged as autonomous “sculptures” and jewellery. In the 1960s, he created his Coupés (cut into pieces) and Coléres (smashed into pieces) objects. He then applied these techniques to some of his ceramic works, such as As in the Sink II.

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Vases, Ettore Sottsass, 1956-1959

These are two of the diabolo-like earthenware bowls designed by Ettore Sottsass in the 1950s. The size of the bowl and base varies. Sometimes a cylindrical connecting piece is used, giving the bowl a slightly more stately appearance. The glazes are often pastel-coloured, giving the bowls a fragile and cerebral quality. The Italian architect, designer and theorist Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) always had an innovative outlook. In 1981, he was one of the founders of the postmodernist Memphis, a group of designers who sought to break through the classic distinction between high and low culture with radical designs, bright colours and materials such as laminate. Sottsass also loves clay. For him, it is the primordial carrier of culture. Since 1956, he has designed hundreds of ceramic pieces, sometimes made by himself, but mostly produced by third parties based on his prototypes. He uses the most common types of clay and glazes to create a contemporary and innovative visual language. Design Museum Den Bosch has more than 50 different works by Sottsass in its collection.

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Blueware, Glithero, 2010

With “Blueware”, Glithero refers to the historical relationship between ceramics and the colour blue. The images of plants in the series are created using cyanotype. This photographic process, which is used to make blueprints, was discovered in England in 1842. Glithero came up with a new application in 2010. Their handmade ceramics are impregnated with light-sensitive chemicals, after which they are covered with wild flowers and plants from the surroundings of their London studio. After a period of exposure to an ultraviolet lamp, the uncovered surfaces turn Prussian blue and the areas under the plants remain white. The small pieces of tape used to stick the plants to the ceramics also remain visible as white lines. The keen observer can thus unravel the creative process.

Vase, Andrea Gill, 1982

A vase with a deceptive decoration reminiscent of dazzle paint: is it a real vase or a painted one? The extra ears are loosely “glued” on. The interplay of two-dimensional paintings and three-dimensional shapes evokes the image of an amphora, a classic Greek jug. It also evokes associations with a woman’s body. In addition to serving as decoration, the patterns function as a design element in the fairly flat vase shape. Andrea Gill (1948) is one of the well-known contemporary American ceramists. She is inspired by 15th-century decorated ceramics, such as Spanish and Italian tin-glazed majolica, Persian tiles and historical textiles, but her work also shows affinities with Postmodernism (such as Memphis in Europe). Gill is a skilled painter who makes use of historical references and plays with illusory depth and contours in her patterns.