In the PROFILES section: 6 ceramic artists from Korea, Germany, Netherlands, Korea / France, Switzerland. Coverage of EXHIBITIONS and EVENTS in Germany, China, Romania, France, Portugal, Belgium, London, USA . In the section ARTIST JOURNAL, we present ChengOu Yu and Viktória Maróti. And we also have interviews with artists IN STUDIO as well as listings of Dates, Courses, Seminars and Markets.
NEWS
PROFILES
Kwon Jin-hee – Korea
Susanne Eckert-Trautnitz – Germany
Edith Tergau – Netherlands
Nora Arrieta – Germany
Seungho Yang – Korea / France
Thomas Weber – Germany
Laurin Schaub – Switzerland
EXHIBITIONS / EVENTS
Hedwig Bollhagen Museum – Velten – Germany
Porcelain Tiles in Jingdezhen – China
Cristina Bolborea – Bucharest – Romania
Jeux de Matières – Le Don du Fel – France
Cerdeira – Portugal
Space Time Weekend – Diessen – Germany
Ceramics & Travel – Africa IV
Ceramic Art Brussels – Brussels – Belgium
COLLECT – London – UK
NCECA – Salt Lake City – USA
BOOKS
New literature
ARTIST JOURNAL
ChengOu Yu (China) and Viktória Maróti (Hungary) Ting-Ju Shao
IN STUDIO
Doris Becker – Evelyne Schoenmann– Interview / Developing Skills
DATES / Exhibitions / Galleries / Museums
COURSES / SEMINARS / MARKETS
ADVERTISEMENTS
PREVIEW
Upon entering the spacious first gallery of the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum for the 2024 Taiwan International Ceramics Biennial, visitors are greeted by the work of four award winners, among which a vibrant orange vessel paired with a tapered vessel adorned with black dots on white ground stands out. This Gold Award-winning piece by Kwon Jin-hee, titled Conceptual Core_Hangari, is one of the centre pieces of the biennial.
In Conceptual Core_Hangari, the two vessels stand or lie quietly on the pedestal. They are vessels, but ones transcending our notion of those for daily use: the urn-like orange one has a strong presence, while the tapered vase reminds one of ancient ritual vessels. Viewers bend unconsciously to look closely at the internal and external structures of the orange vessel and then the irregular black dots of the other. Despite their seeming simplicity, their colours, textures and shapes attest to Kwon’s creative energy.
Kwon’s approach has transformed the ordinary vessels into extraordinary objects that spark surprise and imagination. Gaps have been ingeniously left between coils to induce a novel sense of structure. Her perspective reinterprets how vessels can be. As viewers examine the orange vessel, they seem to step into an architectural space, scrutinizing its layered structure and gaps in the walls, which suggest wind and light.
(Shao Ting- Ju)
Kwon Jin-Hee
Ceramics as a celebration of nature at cellular level
The world of ceramics offers a special blend of craft and art, where natural forms and conceptual beauty come together in tangible objects. In this world, Edith Tergau is known for her deep fascination with nature, especially the smallest life forms that are not visible to the naked eye. Her work, which she groups together under the name Natural Curiosities, goes beyond pure visual aesthetics. It is a tribute to the fragility and power of nature, in which she crosses the line between art and science.
A visual ode to the microscopic world
Tergau’s ceramic sculptures are inspired by the science of living organisms and microscopic life forms. What at first glance appear to be abstract shapes are actually magnifications of elements that normally escape the eye, such as bacteria, flagella or plant parts. In doing so, she invites the viewer to see the natural world in a new way and reflect on the complexity of life.
Her work explores the delicate balance between growth and transience, a theme that runs throughout her oeuvre. Sculptures such as Closterium and Pistillum Flore show the intimate details of life at the cellular level, emphasizing that the world encompasses much more than we can directly perceive. “Nature does not end with trees, plants and animals,” explains Tergau. “Without microorganisms, we could not exist. This is what I try to express in my work.”
(Martin van Cruchten)
Edith Tergau
Monika Gass talks to Nora Arrieta
How did your ceramic career begin and why this material in particular?
It took me a while to get used to ceramics. I worked with clay as a sculptural material from an early age, as a child with air-hardening masses, for example to make my own toy figures, and as a teenager in sculpture courses where we modelled with plaster or clay, but without firing or glazing processes. While I was studying sculpture at Weißensee Academy of Art in Berlin, I worked a lot with printmaking and drawing, sculpting with a wide variety of materials: bronze, stone, concrete, construction foam, plaster, sugar, wool… and also ceramics. My first major ceramic project was my graduation project at Weißensee, a collection of 24 “vases”. After postgraduate studies in Dresden, I completed a master’s degree in ceramic art in order to explore the material and especially the glazes even more intensively.
Working with clay and the possibility of glazing and firing it combines many artistic interests for me. I like the gestural and spontaneous elements, the way a moment formed with the hands is captured in the material, a property of clay that always reminds me of the moment of drawing. Also, clay can take on any shape and in this sense is a very direct material for me, with which I can adapt my inventions of forms and use to implement my artistic visions. I am also deeply fascinated by glazes, they are a material in their own right and their properties, such as the colours, viscosity, layer thickness, etc. are for me painterly metaphors and translations for landscape emotions.
Nora Arrieta
Crooked in light blue, unsteadily falling to its knees, defying gravity, rigid and very soft, the sculpture from the series Stemmen und Hängen (“Lifting and Hanging”), created by the Ludwigsburg sculptor Thomas Weber between 2019 and 2020, appears to us like the embodiment of all-too-human conditions.
It forms a link, as it were, between the archaic-looking, natural, stumbling Hochstapler (“Impostors”) and the colourfully staged Gespinste (“Webs”) that were presented in the Ludwigsburg Residence Palace in 2018, adding a “Baroque” elelment to the rooms of the palace. Schlossgespinste und Kerzenständer (“Castle Webs and Candlesticks”) was the name of the exhibition, which took place in the immediate vicinity of Weber’s place of work, Karlskaserne barracks in Ludwigsburg. The artist runs the clay workshop of the Labyrinth art school there.
The opulent, wildly intertwined, sprawling sculptures shine in intense colours or in black and gold. They magically attract the viewer, tempting them to reach out and touch, but at the same time they push them far away, as if they were the reflection of an inner world in which we have no place. Under the title Weite Welt da drinnen (“Wide World Within”, the Gespinste (“Webs”) were most recently shown at the Böblingen Art Association alongside his other works from the last seven years.
(Katrin Burtschell)
Thomas Weber
Journey through South African Ceramic Culture – Part IV
The Rust-en-Vrede Gallery + Clay Museum complex is situated in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, in Durbanville, South Africa. This heritage building, originally built in 1845 is an art-oriented community center and home to the Clay Museum with its extensive collection of mainly contemporary South African ceramics. In addition to the Clay Museum, there are several galleries and a teaching studio located which provides classes for a variety of art and crafts. This space also functions as a venue for workshops. The complex also has a café that serves light meals and refreshments both inside the building and on the shady patio outside. The lush community garden is especially popular for visitors during lunch time hours.
On the outer periphery of the complex are several studios housing different artists and craftspeople.
In keeping with the Centre’s educational mandate, many of Rust-en-Vrede’s exhibitions are accompanied by walkabouts, talks and workshops.
Rust-en-Vrede hosts a variety of exhibitions throughout the year including the biennial Portrait Awards and in November 2024 the first South African Clay Awards.
(Guangzhen Zhou)
Porcelain Succulents by Adele Sherlock
LONDON
Somerset House from 28 February to 2 March 2025
Presented annually by the Crafts Council, this year was the 21st edition of Collect as the leading art fair for contemporary craft and design, which took place for the fifth time at London’s landmark exhibition space, Somerset House, from 28 February to 2 March 2025.
Collect is the only fair dedicated to presenting established and new galleries showcasing work in the craft field and this year was no exception. Famous internationally as an unmissable event for the contemporary craft movement, Collect 2025 has brought together again 40 specialist galleries from across the globe, among them 8 new galleries from Switzerland, Taiwan, Cyprus and the UK, featuring over 400 living artists from over 30 countries including South Korea, China, Japan, Ukraine, South Africa, Greece, Canada and the UK.
On the days I visited, the fair was packed as usual. Following the trend of the last few years the traditional collectors’ audience has expanded. Visitors are looking to discover and commission pieces to enhance interiors and the fair continues to be a vital opportunity to connect galleries, dealers and artists with collectors, interior designers, architects, art advisors and general public. Therefore, several design galleries exhibited, among them first-time exhibitor and London-based gallery Melissa Paul, who presented the first solo show in the UK for French ceramist and sculptor Agnes Debizet showcasing a room of ceramic furniture and functional clay sculptures. The gallery won this year’s prize for the best display of the show.
(Regina Heinz)
Cynthia Corbett gallery presented Ebony Russell, Siren Grotto Urn
Formation 26 – 29 March 2025
Formation, the theme of the 59th annual conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), invited visitors to dig deep into the historical and cultural significance of ceramics worldwide. John Dewey, philosopher and educator wrote, “The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.” Formation, the website nceca.net says,
“is the rhythmic heartbeat that pulses within our construction of self, ever-present throughout nature and represents the beginning of all materials, things, and ideas. The Great Salt Lake region has undergone shifts in climate and geology that manifest formation in notable ways. Teaching, learning, and creation through clay involve continual engagement with formation as action, engagement, and analysis.
Formation orders and reconfigures our understanding of cultural identity, continuity, and change in times of environmental crisis and innovation. Formation is a moment of opportunity – a dynamic process of definition, vision, and determination within individuals, communities, the human-made, and the natural world. This event, centered on ceramic art, explores formation through exhibitions and presentations by diverse creators and culture workers involved in pottery, sculpture, design and installation, and performance.“
(Monika Gass)
Lindsay Pichaske, SOUVENIR, 2018 – 2019, stoneware, porcelain – Photo – Monika Gass
ChengOu Yu – China
Ceramics has a long history, with its forms and glazes continuously changing and evolving over time, giving rise to an endless variety of shapes. While many contemporary ceramic artists focus on renovating or exploring vessel shapes or glazes, Chinese ceramist Chengou Yu (1990) deepens the interpretation of his works through their unique perspectives and deformations.
Yu’s works are based on the concept of objects. The Vessel and Void series, for instance, takes the shape of continuous mountain walls and valleys of streams, with glazes evoking ancient cliff walls. While retaining the shape of vessels, it has transcended the conventional idea of what vessels look like.
Viktória Maróti – Hungary
Ceramics is rooted in clay, a transformative material that artists can shape into vivid visual landscapes. Marilyn Levine’s jacket and Chen Ching-Liang’s wooden bridge both exemplify this transformative power of clay. Unlike the two senior artists who transformed ceramics into sculptural objects, Hungarian artist Viktória Maróti (1990), a 2018 graduate of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, explores new techniques by turning clay into yarn-like materials. She weaves them from the bottom up, much like knitting a sweater, into steel-like or nest-like constructs, or miniature bottomless valleys.
(Ting-Ju SHAO)
ChengOu Yu – China
Viktória Maróti – Hungary
Doris, first up I like to ask my guests about their training and their ceramic background.
Art and creativity have always been a constant companion in my life. I took ceramics courses from an early age. I later enrolled at the Académie des Beaux Arts in Arlon (Belgium) and the European Art Academy in Trier (Germany) and specialized in ceramic sculpture.
You used to work with wood and stone. Is there any reason why you went on to specialize in ceramics?
Yes, I have also worked with other materials such as wood and stone and for a while I worked regularly in a collective sculpture studio in Luxembourg City.
Clay eventually became “my” material. Unlike wood or stone, where you deliberately remove material, with clay I can shape, add, etc., so it’s a completely different way of thinking and working with the material. Clay also offers me the best opportunity to realize my delicate textures.
You are always doing further training, for example in 2024 in Paris at the Cité Internationale des Arts. What do you take home with you intellectually from such residencies?
Three months in Paris, with its huge cultural offering including exhibitions in galleries and museums, is definitely personally enriching. Working in the Cité des Arts, surrounded by art and artists from very different backgrounds, is an unforgettable experience, inspiring and educational.
(Evelyne Schoenmann)
Doris Becker
