Events
Talk
ICRA Annual Conference 2022
Legacy: The Artist’s View
Thursday, December 1, 2022, 9:30am
Cromwell Place, London
icra.art
The International Catalogue Raisonné Association conference will give artists, their families, and catalogue raisonné authors space to articulate their thoughts on the theme of legacy. Engaging with the question of posterity, the conference asks how a family’s closeness to the artist can be both a blessing and a challenge, and thinks about ways in which later generations as well as nonfamily members can address issues surrounding an artist’s continued relevance. Edmund de Waal will be the keynote speaker and Michael Craig-Martin and Rachel Whiteread will contribute to the conference as well. The in-person and online event will include a question-and-answer session.
Photo: courtesy International Catalogue Raisonné Association
Shop Takeover
Edmund de Waal
November 8–December 23, 2022
Gagosian Shop, London
Edmund de Waal is taking over the Gagosian Shop in London’s historic Burlington Arcade with de Waal +, which brings together recent artworks, treasured objects, and a selection of books curated by the artist.
“I’ve always wanted to take over a bookshop,” de Waal remarks. “I’ve filled it with books, of course. And music and photography, pamphlets recording projects created over the last decade, writing on artists I adore and poetry that sustains me, collaborations with dancers and composers, editions I have made for the British Art Medal Society and for the Victoria & Albert Museum. And I’ve added some pots that I have just made.”
In his interlinked sculptural, writing, and research practices, de Waal studies and utilizes objects as vehicles for human emotion and history. His installations of handmade porcelain vessels, often contained in minimalist structures, investigate themes of diaspora, memory, and materiality.
In addition to working across mediums, de Waal has also collaborated with museums, poets, performers, musicians, and other artists. Offering viewers a glimpse of his varied interests and inspirations, de Waal says, “I hope you come and find a corner to sit and read.”
Edmund de Waal, clogged only with music like the wheels of birds, I, 2022 © Edmund de Waal. Photo: Alzbeta Jaresova
Book Signing
Maria Hummer-Tuttle
Objects of Desire
Thursday, November 17, 2022, 5–7pm
Gagosian Shop, New York
Maria Hummer-Tuttle will sign copies of her new book, Objects of Desire, at the Gagosian Shop in New York, to celebrate its publication. Featuring over two hundred photographs and a foreword by Edmund de Waal, the book captures Hummer-Tuttle’s three dwellings—a Los Angeles hillside house, a New York City pied-à-terre, and a beach house north of LA—highlighting objects ranging from an ancient Chinese horse sculpture to Andy Warhol lithographs. For Hummer-Tuttle, the objects she has collected over the years, from flea-market finds to the priceless, are precious not only for their beauty, uniqueness, and craftsmanship but also for the stories they tell. Published by Vendome Press, the book will be available for purchase at the event.
Maria Hummer-Tuttle, Objects of Desire (New York and London: Vendome Press, 2022)
In Conversation
Edmund de Waal
Sandee Brawarsky
Thursday, April 7, 2022, 6:30pm EDT
In conjunction with the exhibition The Hare with Amber Eyes, on view at the Jewish Museum, New York, through May 15, 2022, Edmund de Waal will be in conversation with journalist and author Sandee Brawarsky as part of the James L. Weinberg Distinguished Lecture series. The pair will discuss de Waal’s recently published writings and their intricate mappings of objects and stories, as well as the exhibition and his ceramic installations that investigate themes of history, memory, identity, exile, and displacement. To join the online event, register at thejewishmuseum.org.
Installation view, The Hare with Amber Eyes, Jewish Museum, New York, November 19, 2021–May 15, 2022. Photo: Iwan Baan
Auction
Warburg Renaissance
Friday, March 4, 2022
Phillips, London
www.phillips.com
As part of Phillips’s 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, donated works by artists including Edmund de Waal, Anselm Kiefer, and Gerhard Richter will be offered in support of the Warburg Renaissance, a project to enhance the Warburg Institute’s facilities and programming. Proceeds will help fund the completion of the Institute’s renovation and expansion, led by Stirling Prize–winning architecture firm Haworth Tompkins, as well as provide support for new exhibitions, residencies, and commissions for contemporary artists, writers, and thinkers. The artworks are viewable at 30 Berkeley Square in London from February 23 to March 3.
Edmund de Waal, Einmal, 2020 © Edmund de Waal
In Conversation
Edmund de Waal, Ange Mlinko, and Don Paterson on Rainer Maria Rilke
Wednesday, February 23, 2022, 2pm est (7pm BST)
From February 2 to 23, 1922, poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote the Sonnets to Orpheus and completed the Duino Elegies in less than three weeks, a period he described as a “savage creative storm.” As part of the London Review Bookshop’s “That Year Again” series, a program of special events marking some of 2022’s many significant centenaries, Edmund de Waal will join poets Ange Mlinko and Don Paterson in a discussion about Rilke and intense productivity, a century after the conclusion of his “creative storm.” To attend the online event, purchase tickets at eventbrite.co.uk.
Left: Edmund de Waal. Photo: Tom Jamieson. Center: Ange Mlinko. Right: Don Paterson. Photo: Geraint Lewis/Shutterstock
Announcements
Playlist
Edmund de Waal
In the Studio
On the occasion of his Artist Spotlight, Edmund de Waal has created a playlist of music he listens to in his studio. Ranging in genre from contemporary classical to rock, electronic, and African folk, the selection features composers and musicians such as Philip Glass, Talking Heads, LCD Soundsystem, and Michael Kiwanuka. The twenty-three tracks are synthy, expansive, rhythmically hypnotic, or just generally dreamy—sharing a meditative quality with de Waal’s visual artwork.
Edmund de Waal’s studio, London, 2014. Artwork © Edmund de Waal. Photo: Hélène Binet
Video
Edmund de Waal Introduces “Letters to Camondo”
In this video, Edmund de Waal introduces his new book, Letters to Camondo (2021). The book consists of a sequence of haunting imaginary letters from de Waal to Count Moïse de Camondo, the owner of a Parisian palace turned into a memorial for his son, who died in World War I. The Camondo family lived a few doors away from de Waal’s forebears, the Ephrussis. Both families were collectors and part of Belle Époque Parisian high society. Both were also targets of antisemitism. De Waal describes the particular resonance of this home, now the Musée Nissim de Camondo, as a “house for a lost family” and discusses his need to write this story.
Still from “Edmund de Waal Introduces ‘Letters to Camondo’”
Initiative
Edmund de Waal: The Hare with Amber Eyes
Eine STADT. Ein BUCH.
In November 2021, 100,000 copies of Der Hase mit den Bernsteinaugen, the German edition of Edmund de Waal’s family memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), will be given away across Vienna as part of Eine STADT. Ein BUCH (One City. One Book). The initiative, where one book is selected, printed, and distributed for free, began in 2002 and takes place in Vienna every year.
Edmund de Waal, Der Hase mit den Bernsteinaugen (Vienna: echo media buchverlag | echo medienhaus ges.m.b.h., 2021)
Honor
Edmund de Waal
Edmund de Waal was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in Queen Elizabeth II’s 2021 birthday honors list for his service to the arts as a potter and a writer. The title CBE is bestowed to individuals who have made distinct and innovative contributions to the United Kingdom.
Edmund de Waal. Photo: Tom Jamieson
Award
Edmund de Waal
Edmund de Waal will receive the Max and Trude Berger Award from the Jewish Museum Vienna on November 6, 2018. De Waal generously supported the museum by donating the Ephrussi family archive and netsuke collection to the institution earlier this year.
Photo: Ben McKee
Museum Exhibitions
On View
Edmund de Waal in
Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art
Through January 8, 2023
Hayward Gallery, London
www.southbankcentre.co.uk
Strange Clay is the first large-scale group exhibition in the United Kingdom to explore how contemporary artists have used clay in unexpected ways. The artworks, by twenty-three artists working across recent decades, range from small abstract works to large-scale installations, vary in finish and technique, and address topics including architecture, social justice, the body, the domestic, and the organic. Work by Edmund de Waal is included.
Edmund de Waal, atmosphere, 2014, installation view, Turner Contemporary, Margate, England © Edmund de Waal. Photo: Mike Bruce
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Edmund de Waal
we live here, forever taking leave
June 15–October 23, 2022
Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury, England
waddesdon.org.uk
This exhibition showcases new and celebrated works in porcelain by Edmund de Waal. Powerfully thoughtful, the installations explore the interconnected relations between faith, history, displacement, learning, and archives—themes that feel more relevant than ever and that are woven into Waddesdon Manor’s own fabric and existence.
Edmund de Waal, the night office, 2022, installation view, Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury, England © Edmund de Waal. Photo: Chris Lacey
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Edmund de Waal
Lettres à Camondo
October 7, 2021–May 15, 2022
Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris
madparis.fr
This exhibition, titled in French after Edmund de Waal’s recently published book Letters to Camondo, is designed as an intimate dialogue between de Waal’s works and the historic furnishings held in the Musée Nissim de Camondo, former residence of Count Moïse de Camondo, whose family’s tragic history is recounted in de Waal’s epistolary novel. De Waal presents new installations made especially for the museum’s rooms and collections, which have remained unaltered since 1936.
Edmund de Waal, muet I, II, and III, all 2021, installation view, Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris © Edmund de Waal. Photo: Christophe Dellière © MAD, Paris
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The Hare with Amber Eyes
November 19, 2021–May 15, 2022
Jewish Museum, New York
thejewishmuseum.org
The Hare with Amber Eyes tells the story of the Ephrussi family, celebrated in the best-selling memoir of the same name by Edmund de Waal, and showcases the breadth and depth of their illustrious collection. The exhibition explores the family’s rise to prominence and splendor in the first half of the nineteenth century, the life of the prolific collector and historian of art Charles Ephrussi (1849–1905), the interwar years, and finally World War II, when the family lost its fortune and collection to Nazi looting.
Installation view, The Hare with Amber Eyes, Jewish Museum, New York, November 19, 2021–May 15, 2022. Photo: Iwan Baan
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This Living Hand
Edmund de Waal Presents Henry Moore
May 19–October 31, 2021
Henry Moore Studios & Gardens, Perry Green, England
www.henry-moore.org
Curated by Edmund de Waal, this exhibition explores the role of touch and the iconography of the hand in Henry Moore’s art. Moore believed that “tactile experience is very important as an aesthetic dimension in sculpture.” Original carved benches by de Waal, as well as a group of Moore’s drawings and sculptural works charting his interest in the hand as a subject, are included.
Installation view, This Living Hand: Edmund de Waal Presents Henry Moore, Henry Moore Studios & Gardens, Perry Green, England, May 19–October 31, 2021. Artwork, left and right: © Edmund de Waal; center left and center right: reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation. Photo: Alzbeta Jaresova
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Edmund de Waal
sukkah
March 2021
Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, England
www.canterbury-cathedral.org
Edmund de Waal’s sukkah (2019), originally created for a synagogue in the Venetian Ghetto as part of his installation psalm, is currently on loan to Canterbury Cathedral. Sukkot, the Feast of the Tabernacles, is the festival that commemorates the forty years of wandering in the desert. The work comprises nine towers that appear to float above a table, each tower containing tall white porcelain vessels and leaning pieces of gilded steel that catch the light from the medieval stained-glass windows.
Edmund de Waal, sukkah, 2019, installation view, Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, England © Edmund de Waal. Photo: Alzbeta Jaresova
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Edmund de Waal
library of exile
August 27, 2020–January 12, 2021
British Museum, London
www.britishmuseum.org
Edmund de Waal has constructed a small library that houses two thousand books written by exiled authors from Ovid’s time to the present day. The external walls of the library are inscribed with a new text piece listing the lost and erased libraries of the world. Inside, embedded in the bookshelves, is a quartet of de Waal’s large-scale vitrines, containing porcelain vessels and page-like brackets of steel. This exhibition originated at the Ateneo Veneto in Venice.
To learn more watch de Waal speak about the project in a Gagosian Quarterly video.
Edmund de Waal, library of exile, 2019–20, installation view, Ateneo Veneto, Venice © Edmund de Waal. Photo: Fulvio Orsenigo
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Edmund de Waal
library of exile
November 30, 2019–February 16, 2020
Japanisches Palais, Dresden, Germany
japanisches-palais.skd.museum
Edmund de Waal has constructed a small library that houses two thousand books written by exiled authors from Ovid’s time to the present day. The external walls of the library are inscribed with a new text piece listing the lost and erased libraries of the world. Inside, embedded in the bookshelves, is a quartet of de Waal’s large-scale vitrines, containing porcelain vessels and page-like brackets of steel. This exhibition has traveled from the Ateneo Veneto in Venice.
To learn more watch de Waal speak about the project in a Gagosian Quarterly video.
Edmund de Waal, library of exile, 2019, installation view, Edmund de Waal: psalm, Ateneo Veneto, Venice. Artwork © Edmund de Waal
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Elective Affinities
Edmund de Waal at the Frick Collection
May 30–November 17, 2019
Frick Collection, New York
www.frick.org
The Frick Collection presents an installation of Edmund de Waal’s site-specific works made of porcelain, steel, gold, marble, and glass that are displayed alongside works from the permanent collection.
Installation view, Elective Affinities: Edmund de Waal at the Frick Collection, Frick Collection, New York, May 30–November 17, 2019. Artwork © Edmund de Waal. Photo: Christopher Burke
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Edmund de Waal
psalm
May 8–September 29, 2019
Museo Ebraico and Ateneo Veneto, Venice
www.edmunddewaal.com
Edmund de Waal: psalm is a two-part exhibition in Venice. The first part takes place at the Scuola Canton, a sixteenth-century synagogue under the aegis of Museo Ebraico, and includes new installations of porcelain, marble, and gold that reflect the literary and musical heritage of the place. The second part is at the Ateneo Veneto, where Edmund de Waal has constructed a small library within the main space that houses two thousand books written by exiled authors from Ovid’s time to the present day.
Edmund de Waal, tehillim, 2019 (detail) © Edmund de Waal. Photo: Mike Bruce
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Edmund de Waal
breath
February 20–May 11, 2019
Ivorypress, Madrid
www.ivorypress.com
Breath is an invitation for Edmund de Waal to work across Ivorypress’s three different spaces: the publishing house, the exhibition space, and the bookshop. At the heart of this project is an artist’s book, published by Ivorypress. To accompany the volume, de Waal has made a series of seventeen new works; alongside these is a reading room, housing a selection of one hundred books, inviting visitors to sit down and read.
Edmund de Waal, your name, 2018 (detail) © Edmund de Waal
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Edmund de Waal
–one way or other–
September 15, 2018–January 6, 2019
Schindler House, Los Angeles
makcenter.org
Edmund de Waal’s first architectural intervention in America is being held at the Schindler House: a landmark of West Coast modernism, built in 1922 in West Hollywood by Viennese émigré architect Rudolph Schindler. The exhibition includes recent works that respond directly to the materials and spaces of the house, and a sound piece conceived with the composer Simon Fisher Turner.
Edmund de Waal, –one way or other–, 2018 (detail) © Edmund de Waal. Photo: Mike Bruce