Re-naturing the Vessel
the shared approach of Julian Stair and Simone ten Hompel
Rosemarie Jaeger Gallery
22 May – 12 June 2016
This collaboration over many years has taken the form of two exhibitions: the first iteration at Rosemarie Jager gallery and later at Oxford Ceramics Gallery and also further phases at international fairs. German metalworker Simone ten Hompel and English potter Julian Stair have a shared interest in the vessel.
The first exhibition at Rosemarie Jager galley in Hochheim contained pieces by each artist and showed them collaborating for the first time on a number of works in metal and clay. Despite different cultural backgrounds and chosen mediums, both ten Hompel and Stair have a common history of exploring the multivalence of the vessel, its operation in social space and its capacity to disclose memory, sensation and symbol.
Stair and ten Hompel insist on a social locus for their work and for its realisation through physical use in contrast to the way contemporary art engages primarily through the visual and conceptual. They are conscious of how the complexity of material culture can be lost through static displays that do not encourage diverse forms of interaction. As artists they are committed to developing knowledge of objects through haptical appreciation and regard phenomenological engagement as fundamental to our understanding of the world. The Rosemarie Jäger Gallery with its idiom of domestic architecture provided an evocative setting for re-valuing these ‘everyday’ objects.
Photo: Katrin Schilling
Embodied Vessels: A Material and Cultural Exchange
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Julian and Simone held a seminar for German and British curators to accompany their exhibition Renaturing the Vessel. The seminar addressed shared themes within the artists’ work ranging from the multivalence of the vessel, anthropomorphism, to the importance of haptical appreciation. Drawing upon the rich material history of English ceramics and German semantic discussion around the importance of the hand and tacit knowledge, issues of ‘use’ for these two artists extend beyond ideas of functionalism and what the writer Arthur Koestler described as the ‘Cartesian Catastrophe’ of rationalism which split matter and mind. Using an intentionally limited vocabulary of cups, beakers and spoons, ten Hompel and Stair invite both reflection on, and engagement with, these vessels, in the belief that such forms can effect a powerful agency and in doing so, have the potential to become an embodied or active narrative within our lives.
Guests included:
Dr Stefan Kraus, Kolumba Museum
Dr Rudiger Joppien, University of Hamburg
Dr Olaf Thormann, Grassi Museum
Dr Sabine Runde, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt
Wolfgang Lösche, Galerie Handwerk, Munich
Amanda Game, independent curator
Clare Philips and Claire Wilcox, V&A
Oxford Ceramics Gallery
16 November – 23 December 2016
