Edmund de Waal: a sort of speech

Across his practice, Edmund de Waal (b. 1964) addresses the visual poetry of collecting and archiving, among other subjects. Recognised as an exceptional ceramist, de Waal models small unique vessels that form the base of his installations. His carefully composed vitrines offer lyrical narrations that result in a subtle dialogue between tradition and modernity, minimalism and architectural structure. Punctuated by notions of repetition and rhythm, the works are informed by the artist’s passion for literature as well as music and meditative contemplation.

‘I work with things. […] And then I arrange them, find places to put them down, on shelves or within vitrines, in houses and galleries and museums, move them around so that they are in light or in shadow. They are installations, or groupings, or a kind of poetry. They have titles, a phrase or a line that helps them on their way in the world.’

E. de Waal, ‘Irrkunst’, in Edmund de Waal: Irrkunst, exh. cat., Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler / Holzwarth Publications, 2016, p. 5