Project Tag: Bouke de Vries

BOUKE DE VRIES: War & Pieces | North America Tour

BOUKE DE VRIES: War & Pieces | North America Tour

  • W&P | ON VIEW

  • NAS | PRESS & PUBLICATIONS

  • W&P | GUIDE

  • W&P | AT MUSEUMS

BOUKE DE VRIES | WAR & PIECES


Exhibiting  Internationally  |  2012 – Present

 

War & Pieces is Bouke de Vries’ contemporary interpretation of the decorative sculptures that adorned 17th- and 18th-century banqueting tables.

War & Pieces is currently traveling North America in its extensive tour, landing at its sixth US location in 2022. The installation has been exhibited at venues in Europe and Asia, beginning in 2012 at the Holburne Museum in Bath, England with support from the Arts Council of Great Britain. At each venue, de Vries works with the curators and the collection by responding to the region and its history and interacting with the interior settings. In some venues, he was able to add to the installation using relevant objects from the collection, as at Charlottenburg Palace, which was looted in the Seven Years’ War and almost completely destroyed in the Second World War, adding a special meaning to this era-spanning work.


WAR & PIECES


ON VIEW

This spring, the Lightner Museum’s grand ballroom gallery will be transformed by a dramatic ceramic centerpiece created from thousands of fragments of white porcelain.

War & Pieces is an eight-meter (26-foot) installation by Dutch-born artist Bouke de Vries inspired by the sophisticated figural centerpieces that decorated eighteenth-century European rulers’ banqueting tables. Displayed during the dessert course on special occasions, these figures first made of sugar and later increasingly porcelain, told stories or conveyed political messages to the diners.

Bouke de Vries draws on such traditions in his modern centerpiece, arranged around the mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion whose force appears to have turned the entire table into a wasteland. Battle rages across this heap of shards old and new, fought by myriad miniature figures with conventional arms. Jesus on the cross and the Chinese Buddhist goddess of compassion, Guanyin, watch over the death and destruction.

WAR & PIECES | ON VIEW


At The Lightner Museum

MORE ON BOUKE DE VRIES


VIEW MORE BY BOUKE DE VRIES HERE

Born in Utrecht, The Netherlands, Bouke de Vries studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven and Central St Martin’s, London. After working with John Galliano, Stephen Jones, and Zandra Rhodes, he switched careers and studied ceramics conservation and restoration at West Dean College. He has been a full-time studio artist based in London since 2010.

Bouke de Vries, “War & Pieces”, detail

WAR & PIECES | TOUR SCHEDULE


INQUIRE ABOUT TOURING PROGRAM HERE

EUROPEAN LOCATIONS


Harley Gallery | UK | 2018

Berrington Hall | UK | 2017

Gemeente Museum | Netherlands | 2015–6

Castle d’Ursel | Belgium | 2015

Chateau de Nyon | Switzerland | 2014–5

Yingge Ceramics Museum | Taiwan | 2014

Charlottenburg Palace | Germany | 2013

Whitespace | Netherlands | 2013

Alnwick Castle | UK | 2013

Charlottenburg Palace | Germany | 2013

The Holburne Museum | UK | 2012

WAR & PIECES


PAST PROGRAMMING

• Bouke de Vries: Virtual London Studio Tour

WAR & PIECES


PAST PROGRAMMING

• Explosion in the Green Gallery! Bouke de Vries: War and Pieces Comes to the Frick

WAR & PIECES


PAST PROGRAMMING

WAR & PIECES


PAST PROGRAMMING

WAR & PIECES


PAST PROGRAMMING
STRIKING GOLD: Fuller at Fifty, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA

STRIKING GOLD: Fuller at Fifty, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA

Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty

September 7, 2019- April 5, 2020

Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton MA

In honor of the Fuller’s ‘golden anniversary’, the museum looks at the role of gold within it’s recent acquisitions and permanent collection. Co-curated by Beth McLaughlin and Suzanne Ramljak. Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty, explores the storied traditions, contemporary interpretations, skillful applications, and conceptual rigor of gold as an artistic material, while investigating the multitude of cultural, material, and sociopolitical associations.For the 57 selected artists, gold remains central to their work as they delve far deeper than embellishment or decorative effect. This landmark exhibition celebrates the museum’s rich past as it plans for a brilliant future—and shines a light on all things golden.

FEATURING

Recent works by:

Claire Curneen
Bouke de Vries
Paul Scott
Anina Major

and in the permanent collection:
Roy Superior

More information can be found HERE.

CATALOG

Fully illustrated catalog with essays from the co-curators and Stuart Kestenbaum.

Click HERE to purchase.

CLICK TO VIEW THE VIRTUAL TOUR
OF STRIKING GOLD: Fuller at Fifty

 

Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty

DERIVED FROM THE DECORATIVE: Works by Faig Ahmed, Beth Lipman and Bouke de Vries at Cheekwood Estate and Gardens

DERIVED FROM THE DECORATIVE: Works by Faig Ahmed, Beth Lipman and Bouke de Vries at Cheekwood Estate and Gardens

DERIVED FROM THE DECORATIVE: by Faig Ahmed, Beth Lipman and Bouke de Vries

February 2, 2019 – June 9, 2019

Cheekwood Estate and Garden, Nashville, Tennessee

In the spring of 2019 Cheekwood will present an exhibition featuring work by Faig Ahmed (Baku, Azerbaijan), Beth Lipman (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), and Bouke de Vries (Utrecht, the Netherlands). The exhibition consists of artists and designers who take cues from decorative arts traditions yet invert the precepts by blurring the space between functional forms and art forms. The exhibition will celebrate the work of a national and international group of artists who look at traditional decorative arts as a point of departure for contemporary creations. The artists in this show challenge the idea of historically informed notions of craft and provide a contemporary entry point into the space between fine and decorative art. Through recognizable visual traditions, the works destabilize perceptions of the familiar. Integrating traditional fabrication methods along with digital contributions, the exhibition will present works that embrace a wide spectrum of time.

Click to view more work by BOUKE DE VRIES.

Click to view more work by BETH LIPMAN

 

 

CANARY SYNDROME

CANARY SYNDROME

Canary Syndrome

September 27–November 4, 2018 at Ferrin Contemporary

Ferrin Contemporary is pleased to present Canary Syndrome, a group show featuring recent works by U.S. and U.K.-based artists including Elizabeth Alexander, Evan Hauser, Elliott Kayser, Stephen Young Lee, Beth Lipman, Livia Marin, Paul Scott, Bouke de Vries, and Jason Walker, on view Sept. 27 to Nov. 4. An opening reception will be held at Ferrin Contemporary, located at 1315 MASS MoCA Way, on Sept. 27, from 5 to 7 p.m., in conjunction with DownStreet Art, a program of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts’ Berkshire Cultural Resources Center. The reception is free and open to the public.

The exhibition, inspired by the saying “canary in the coal mine”, suggests that artists, much like the caged canaries once used by coal miners as early indicators of dangerous gases in tunnels, are hypersensitive to the adverse conditions and forces that jeopardize human existence. Through their artwork, the artists in Canary Syndrome employ visual means to accentuate threats to the health of the environment, culture, and ethics — really, the condition of civilization in general, and to warn of worse things to come.

The now-discontinued practice of carrying canaries deep into coal mines to detect carbon monoxide and other toxic gases dates back to 1911. The phrase “canary in the coal mine” is widely used as an allusion by whistleblowers sounding an early alert for broken systems and dangerous conditions. Al Gore used the phrase in reference to indicators of global warming in his book and film, “An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It”. The planet’s “canaries”, Gore said, are the melting polar icecaps, a result of increasing levels of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere.

“Ferrin Contemporary is presenting Canary Syndrome as both an opportunity to reflect upon fragile beauty as well as provide inspiration to fellow travelers who are facing an overwhelming sense of antipathy and futility in our world today,” said Gallery Director Leslie Ferrin. “It’s our hope that art and artists will motivate others and help to fuel a societal call to action.”

The diverse and thought-provoking artworks in the exhibition invoke ominous portents and herald a call for change on a global level. The works of Elizabeth Alexander, Elliot Kayser, Steven Young Lee, Beth Lipman, Livia Marin, Paul Scott, and Bouke de Vries explore the concept of the flaw, the crack, the mistake, and the resulting debris, within the delicate world of ceramics and fragile glass.

De Vries’s glass cloud is an assemblage of shards of glass from recognizable broken objects, forming a 21-inch-high mushroom cloud. Kayser uses glaze “blisters” on black cow figurines and Scott repurposes a 19th-century platter with the addition of a photo collage of Houston that memorializes Hurricane Harvey’s rising waters. Alexander, Lee, Lipman, and Marin work with processes that exploit melting, etching, breakage, and erasing to produce metaphoric imagery that is often a harbinger of doom. The artists reference forms and history associated with familiar domestic objects such as plates and figurines, along with pottery shards, to reveal something new, carrying a foreboding warning.

Artists in the exhibition who use imagery to deliver their message include Evan Hauser, whose use of ceramic decal prints of Hudson River School paintings applied to Styrofoam cooler lids, cast in porcelain, reexamines historic and cultural scenes in a contemporary context. Jason Walker explores the consequences of manifest destiny, referencing the inherent conflict between man and nature, with meticulous illustrations painted on porcelain sculptures of birds and fish, which he has combined with cast porcelain machine parts made from gears, conduit, and aerators, and used as formal elements.

“The very act of creating provides these artists with an outlet for the anxiety caused by relentless exposure to contemporary conflicts,” said Ferrin. “They are compelled to address environmental and societal issues through their practice and are sounding the alarm in the form of beautiful and compelling pieces of art.”

For more information about the exhibition and individual artists, see ferrincontemporary.com

Elizabeth Alexander
Evan Hauser
Elliott Kayser
Stephen Young Lee
Beth Lipman
Livia Marin
Paul Scott
Bouke de Vries
Jason Walker

DOWNLOAD PRESS RELEASE

 

 

 

 

BOUKE DE VRIES: WAR AND PIECES CATALOG

BOUKE DE VRIES: WAR AND PIECES CATALOG

BOUKE DE VRIES: WAR AND PIECES

Bouke de Vries’ contemporary interpretation of the decorative sculptures that adorned 17th- and 18th-century banqueting tables.

War & Pieces is an eight-meter (26-foot) installation by Dutch-born artist Bouke de Vries inspired by the sophisticated figural centerpieces that decorated eighteenth-century European rulers’ banqueting tables. Displayed during the dessert course on special occasions, these figures first made of sugar and later increasingly porcelain, told stories or conveyed political messages to the diners.

Bouke de Vries draws on such traditions in his modern centerpiece, arranged around the mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion whose force appears to have turned the entire table into a wasteland. Battle rages across this heap of shards old and new, fought by myriad miniature figures with conventional arms. Jesus on the cross and the Chinese Buddhist goddess of compassion, Guanyin, watch over the death and destruction.

Click image at left to view catalog online.
Click to see more of de Vries work. 

REVIVE, REMIX, RESPOND

REVIVE, REMIX, RESPOND

THE FRICK PITTSBURGH


7227 Reynolds St., Pittsburgh, PA

February 17–May 27, 2018

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


In 2017, twenty contemporary artists were invited to respond to and produce new works that reference the art, objects, and social history of The Frick’s collections. 

Many contemporary artists are breathing new life into the ceramic medium by reviving and reinvigorating age-old concepts. This reinvention is distilled into the use of 18th-century processes and techniques to create new motifs and the depiction of stories inspired by history — often with a commentary or critique on modern society.

This topic is particularly relevant to the current state of the ceramics and museum field as it answers the questions of how history meets contemporary. How can artists draw on the rich artistic traditions of ceramic history while reinvigorating their relevance in a society that prizes the contemporary? Likewise, how can museums use contemporary ceramic art to illuminate and reinvigorate historic collections? The Frick Pittsburgh is committed to using the voices and artworks of contemporary artists to meaningfully engage our audience and our collections with issues and ideas relevant to the present day. Revive, Remix, Respond is an exciting opportunity to continue that dialogue.

Organized by Dawn Reid Brean, Associate Curator of Decorative Arts at The Frick Pittsburgh with Leslie Ferrin of Ferrin Contemporary, the museum has invited artists to submit work that is inspired by, responds to, or relates to historic ceramics in The Frick Pittsburgh’s permanent collection. Highlight’s from the museum’s collection include Clayton, the historic Gilded Age home of industrialist and art collector Henry Clay Frick and its impressive array of fine and decorative arts objects; 18th-century Chinese porcelains purchased by Frick from the collection of J. P. Morgan; and 18th-century French painting and decorative arts collected by Frick’s daughter, Helen Clay Frick.

The exhibition will consider the sources of inspiration shaping ceramics today and ways to keep clay vital in museums, schools, and artistic communities. These ideas directly relate to the organizing theme of NCECA 2018, CrossCurrents: Clay and Culture.

INSTALLATION


EXHIBITING ARTISTS


PAST PROGRAMMING


Remix Your Friday Exhibition Preview
Friday, February 16, 5:30–7:30pm

Join us for a happy hour in The Frick Art Museum to celebrate the opening of this exhibition, Be among the first to see this unique exhibition, which features work from established and emerging artists. The evening will also feature gallery talks from exhibition curator Dawn Brean and exhibited artist Beth Lipman.

FEATURED WORKS


NEW YORK CERAMIC & GLASS FAIR 2018

NEW YORK CERAMIC & GLASS FAIR 2018

NYC&G FAIR 2018


Bohemian National Hall, New York, NY | January 18–21, 2018

Bringing together a carefully selected and distinguished international group of more than 25 galleries offering all things “fired” — porcelain, pottery, and glass, in a setting perfect for the exhibition and sale of important small objects.

SPECIAL EXHIBITION

“Revive, Remix, Respond: Contemporary Ceramic Artists at The NYC&GF and The Frick Pittsburgh”

Organized by Dawn Reid Brean, Associate Curator of Decorative Arts at The Frick Pittsburgh, and Leslie Ferrin of Ferrin Contemporary.

In 2017, twenty contemporary artists were invited to respond to and produce new works that reference the art, objects and social history of the The Frick’s collections. Selected works by these artists whose artistic practice is informed by the past will preview in a special exhibition at the NYC&GF followed by the full exhibition at The Frick Pittsburgh, February 16–April 27, 2018. Click for more.

See below for illustrated lecture by Dawn Reid Brean.

LECTURE HIGHLIGHTS

“Pincus: Channeling Josiah Wedgwood”
with Peter Pincus
Friday, January 19, 12pm

Artist Peter Pincus speaks about his research and into the Wedgwood Collections at Birmingham Museum of Art and how conversations with curator Anne Forschler of the Birmingham Museum of Art are being incorporated into his new work and teaching. Pincus is visiting assistant professor of ceramics in the School for American Crafts at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Click for more.

“Revive, Remix, Respond: Contemporary Ceramic Artists at The Frick Pittsburgh”
with Dawn Brean and artists TBD
Friday, January 19, 2–3:00 p.m.

Dawn Reid Brean, Associate Curator of Decorative Arts at The Frick Pittsburgh, with Leslie Ferrin of Ferrin Contemporary and artists featured in the exhibition whose work is inspired by, responds to, or relates to historic ceramics in The Frick Pittsburgh’s permanent collection. Click for more.

“Time Travel in the Period Room”
with Elisabeth Agro, Barry Harwood, Sarah Carter
Friday, January 19, 4–5:00 p.m.

Three museum curators speak about exhibitions and projects that connect past and present in innovative ways, activating spaces through collaborations with contemporary artists and interdisciplinary scholars and informing new works. The curators will share how through working with contemporary artists and interdisciplinary scholars new works evolved, historic information revealed, audiences engaged, educational programming developed and connections made to the past while reflecting on present day issues.

• Elisabeth Agro is The Nancy M. McNeil Curator of American Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
• Sarah Anne Carter, Ph.D. is the Curator and Director of Research of the Chipstone
Foundation
• Barry R. Harwood, Ph.D. is the Curator of Decorative Arts at the Brooklyn Museum

Click for more.

“American Studio Pottery — Making of a Movement”
Adrienne Spinozzi with Linda Sikora and Mark Shapiro
Saturday, January 20, 4pm

Internationally recognized potters Linda Sikora and Mark Shapiro discuss their divergent backgrounds, training, and influences as a way to touch on significant themes in postwar North American ceramics.

Moderator Adrienne Spinozzi is Assistant Research Curator of American Decorative Arts, The American Wing, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Linda Sikora resides near Alfred NY where she has a studio practice and is a Professor or Ceramic Art at Alfred University. Mark Shapiro is a potter in Western Massachusetts. He is a frequent workshop leader, lecturer, curator, panelist, and writer, and is mentor to more than a half-dozen apprentices who have trained at his Stonepool Pottery. Click for more.

Dirk Staschke "Vanitas 1"

NEW YORK CERAMICS & GLASS FAIR 2017

NEW YORK CERAMICS & GLASS FAIR 2017

ABOUT THE NYCGF

New York Ceramics & Glass Fair
Bohemian National Hall, New York, NY
January 19–22, 2017
Click here for more

Bringing together a carefully selected and distinguished international group of around 28 galleries offering all things “fired” — porcelain, pottery, and glass, in a setting perfect for the exhibition and sale of important small objects.

EVENTS

HIGHLIGHTED LECTURES

“The Feminine Clay”
with Shannon Stratton
Friday, January 20, 12 noon

“Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery”
with Glenn Adamson
Friday, January 20, 4pm

“Buy, Sell, or Give? What Happens When the Kids Don’t Want It”
Panel discussion lead by Leslie Ferrin
Saturday, January 21, 2pm

Click here for more.

RE—Reanimate, Repair, Mend and Meld

RE—Reanimate, Repair, Mend and Meld

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

January 21–24, 2016
NEW YORK CERAMICS & GLASS FAIR
Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, New York, NY

February 13–April 17, 2016
Ferrin Contemporary
1315 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA, US

Oct 10–Nov 14, 2015
Bluecoat Display Centre
Liverpool, England, UK

Co-curated by Paul Scott and Andrew Baseman

This group exhibition examines the contemporary artistic interest in repaired ceramics. It focuses on materially related forms and graphic material by leading contemporary artists who exploit and explore the surrounding issues of conservation, restoration, over-consumption, reuse, and recycling.

“Before the advent of modern glues, broken ceramics or glass objects were drilled, wired, stapled or riveted together, textiles used to be darned or patched. Home-made or improvised ‘make do and mend’ repairs were made to a loved plate or jug and finer variations of these techniques used by serious conservators. The preciousness of these intimately repaired objects faded with time and in conservation circles practices which interfered with the ‘integrity of the object’ became actively discouraged and disapproved. A few years ago, in spite of their beauty, rivets in plates and wired handles hugely devalued a piece of antique tableware. In some museum collections even the evidence of a staple or riveted repair would be removed and hidden if new conservations took place.

“In more recent times, as we struggle to come to terms with our over consumption of finite resources, the concept of re-cycling has become a central tenet of modern life. There is an increasing interest for crafted, restored, once loved objects so that the obviously repaired,‘traditional’ processes again appear beautiful, functional and intriguing. Whilst their display is not yet common in our public museums, private collections and interests are building. Enthusiast Andrew Baseman has a comprehensive archive of beautifully repaired glass, and ceramic objects, which he makes available to wider public though his wonderful blog.

“For many artists, re-cycling and reuse has long been a natural part of practice; as well as ecological soundness, trash is generally cheap (if not free). Existent, damaged worn or broken objects carry messages, they have already had a life and carry evidence of their journey in material fabric. This realized physicality can be used or exploited in aesthetic form, as conceptual device or collateral evidence. Discarded graphic material has long been used in collage and more recently material from industrial archives are also being used to create new iterations.”

— Paul Scott, co-curator and artist

Click here to view or download press release.

Click here to view press coverage of “Mended Ways: The Inventive Art of Repair.”

Click here to view press coverage from C-File April 28, 2016.

Click here to view the video of Paul Scott presenting work from this exhibition at the Bluecoat Display Centre in October 2015. (His segment begins at 11:55 minutes.)

paulscottscreencapture

MENDED WAYS | The Art of Inventive Repair

MENDED WAYS | The Art of Inventive Repair

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

MENDED WAYS: The Art of Inventive Repair

A special exhibition presented by Andrew Baseman

January 21–24, 2016
New York Ceramics & Glass Fair
Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, New York, NY

An exhibit of repaired historic pieces from Baseman’s collection complemented with work from contemporary ceramic artists whose work imitates, replicates, or honors the inventive repairs of the past.

“Before the invention of Krazy Glue, broken household items were brought back to life with flair and ingenuity.” Examples of repaired historic pieces from Baseman’s collection will be complimented with work from contemporary ceramic artists whose work imitates, replicates, or honors the inventive repairs of the past.

Baseman presented a lecture at the New York Ceramics & Glass Fair 2016.
Click here for  part one and  part two.

RE—Reanimate, Repair, Mend and Meld

This curated exhibition examines the contemporary artistic interest in repaired ceramics. It focuses on materially related forms and graphic material by leading contemporary artists who exploit and explore the surrounding issues of conservation, restoration, overconsumption, reuse, and recycling.