Edmund de Waal: Wu-chüeh: two poems, 2020, kaolin, gold leaf, graphite, compressed charcoal, and oil stick on ash, in aluminumframe, 36 1/4 × 26 × 3 inches (92 × 66 × 7.5 cm) © Edmund de Waal
Edmund de Waal: cold mountain clay. Gagosian Gallery Gagosian Gallery present ‘cold mountain clay’, an exhibition of new and recent works by Edmund de Waal. November 20, 2020 – January 9, 2021.]]>
Source: Gagosian Gallery
A potter since childhood and an acclaimed writer, de Waal makes porcelain works that function asrepositories of human memory and experience. Drawing equally from Eastern and Westerntraditions, de Waal’s works blend a minimalist visual language with invocations of the written word, positing the act of collection—of objects, texts, materials, and thoughts—as an artistic form.
The exhibition takes its title from the famed ‘Cold Mountain’ poems, a series of verses by the monkHanshan, who, according to legend, lived as a recluse on a Chinese mountaintop during the TangDynasty (618 – 907 CE). Composed with diaristic frankness and intensity, the poems address theunavoidable passage of time and trace the introspective state that comes with monastic solitude.
Inspired by Hanshan’s practice of writing on rocks, tree trunks, and cave walls—thereby letting theelements erode his verses—de Waal’s new works are made through a cycle of inscription andeffacement. He begins by coating a wood panel in liquid kaolin; while the slip is still wet, he floatsflecks of gold leaf and writes lines of Hanshan’s poetry in graphite, oil stick, and charcoal. He thenbrushes these marks with additional layers of slip, repeating the process multiple times to produce a“fugitive poem,” a palimpsest of text that emulates the haze of memory.
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