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Gagosian Quarterly

October 4, 2018

the poems of our climate

Edmund de Waal reflects on memory, sound, and the presence of poetry in a new body of work on view at Gagosian, San Francisco.

Installation view, Edmund de Waal: the poems of our climate, Gagosian, San Francisco, September 20–December 8, 2018. Photo: Johnna Arnold

Installation view, Edmund de Waal: the poems of our climate, Gagosian, San Francisco, September 20–December 8, 2018. Photo: Johnna Arnold

Edmund de Waal

A potter since childhood and an acclaimed writer, Edmund de Waal is best known as an artist for his large-scale installations of porcelain vessels, which are informed by his passion for architecture, space, and sound.

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This new series of works takes poems and vessels and puts them near each other. For years I have been writing—in notebooks, on walls, in the margins of books—but here words and porcelain come closer together. For twenty years, installations have had names that echo parts of poems, signal affinities. But here I’m trying to come closer to what it feels like to remember a poem, to carry it with you through the decades, a phrase or image coming into your life and making the world feel denser with possibility. It is rarely a whole poem. Sometimes it is just a few words. I carried Emily Dickinson’s “blue and gold mistake” throughout my thirties, trying to make celadon pots as beautiful as the early Korean and Chinese vessels. Sometimes it is the feeling of the shape of a poem on a page, the movement between two lines, the hesitancies, caesura, or pauses. Poetry is involuntary. Rilke knew this. There is the fierce lyricism of his Sonnets to Orpheus:

. . . It will end.
True singing is a different breath, about
nothing. A gust inside the god. A wind.

Vitrines are a kind of page in themselves and shelves are lines, but I’m not mapping pots as words. I’m using the shadows that objects throw, using gold, silver, and platinum to create auras. I’ve rewritten poems that mean most to me into slivers of thin porcelain, and these appear in fragmentary form. Starting places.

the poems of our climate

Edmund de Waal, a different breath, 2018, 27 porcelain vessels and 17 porcelain tiles with platinum and silver gilding in 5 aluminum and glass vitrines, 107 ⅛ × 37 × 4 ¾ inches (271.9 × 94 × 12.1 cm). Photo: Mike Bruce

This exhibition’s title is stolen from Wallace Stevens. His seductions of the world and mind mean a huge amount to me. His poems are threaded by “a world of white,” a pull towards clarity and the knowledge of a falling short.

. . . The day itself
Is simplified: a bowl of white,
Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round.

Rilke and Dickinson are here too, and John Cage, whose sense of sound and graphic line and poem are a powerful presence.

There are memories and sounds and vessels and shards here.

Artwork © Edmund de Waal; Edmund de Waal: the poems of our climate, Gagosian, San Francisco, September 20–December 8, 2018

Elisa Gonzalez and Terrance Hayes

to light, and then return—: A Night of Poetry with Edmund de Waal, Elisa Gonzalez, Terrance Hayes, and Sally Mann

Gagosian presented an evening of poetry inside to light, and then return—, an exhibition of new works by Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann, inspired by each other’s practices, at Gagosian, New York. In this video—taking the artists’ shared love of poetry, fragments, and metamorphosis as a point of departure—poets Elisa Gonzalez and Terrance Hayes read a selection of their recent works that resonate with the themes of elegy and historical reckoning in the show. The evening was moderated by Jonathan Galassi, chairman and executive editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Axel Salto looking at the sculpture The Core of Power in the kiln, 1956

Axel Salto: Playing with Fire

On the occasion of the forthcoming exhibition Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto, Edmund de Waal composed a series of reflections on the Danish ceramicist Axel Salto and his own practice.

Five white objects lined up on a white shelf

to light, and then return—Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann

This fall, artists and friends Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann will exhibit new works together in New York. Inspired by their shared love of poetry, fragments, and metamorphosis, the works included will form a dialogue between their respective practices. Here they meet to speak about the origins and developments of the project.

Edmund de Waal, stone for two hands and water, 2021, Hornton stone, bamboo, and water, 27 ⅜ × 56 ¾ × 23 ⅝ inches (69.5 × 144 × 60 cm), installation view, Henry Moore Studios & Gardens, Perry Green, England

The Thinking Hand

Edmund de Waal speaks with Richard Calvocoressi about touch in relation to art and our understanding of the world, and discusses the new stone sculptures he created for the exhibition This Living Hand: Edmund de Waal Presents Henry Moore, at the Henry Moore Studios & Gardens. Their conversation took place at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, in the context of the exhibition The Human Touch.

Edmund de Waal and Theaster Gates

Artist to Artist: Edmund de Waal and Theaster Gates

Join the artists for an extended conversation about their most recent exhibitions, their forebears in the world of ceramics, and the key role that history plays in their practices.

Installation view, Edmund de Waal: some winter pots, Gagosian, Davies Street

Edmund de Waal: some winter pots

Join the artist in his ceramics studio as he describes the impetus behind his exhibition in London and the importance of touch in the creation of these new works.

Edmund de Waal working in his studio.

Edmund de Waal: cold mountain clay

At his studio in London, Edmund de Waal speaks about his new body of work, created in the silence and solitude of lockdown. Composed of layers of porcelain slip inscribed with lines of verse by the poet Hanshan, these works are presented in cold mountain clay, de Waal’s first exhibition in Hong Kong.

Edmund de Waal, London, 2019

Edmund de Waal: psalm

Edmund de Waal speaks with Alison McDonald about the components of psalm, his two-part project in Venice. He details the influences behind the exhibition and reveals some of his hopes for the project.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1928. Photo: Lou Andreas-Salomé

Rainer Maria Rilke: Duino Elegies

Bobbie Sheng explores the symbiotic relationship between the poet and visual artists of his time and tracks the enduring influence of his poetry on artists working today.

Anselm Kiefer, Volkszählung (Census), 1991, steel, lead, glass, peas, and photographs, 163 ⅜ × 224 ½ × 315 inches (4.1 × 5.7 × 8 m)/

Cast of Characters

James Lawrence explores how contemporary artists have grappled with the subject of the library.

Sally Mann and Edmund de Waal at the Frick Collection, New York, November 8, 2019.

In Conversation
Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann

Sally Mann joins Edmund de Waal onstage at the Frick Collection in New York to converse about art, writing, and the importance of place in their respective bodies of work. 

Edmund de Waal and Jan Dalley, FT Weekend Festival, London, September 7, 2019

In Conversation
Edmund de Waal and Jan Dalley

At the FT Weekend Festival 2019 in London, Edmund de Waal sat down for a conversation with Financial Times arts editor Jan Dalley. They spoke about the relationship between words and sculpture in his practice, and about two recent projects: the two-part exhibition psalm, in Venice, and Elective Affinities, at the Frick Collection, New York.