BOUKE DE VRIES MATRIX 180 WAR AND PIECES...WA MATRIX 180 Brochure-5.1.qxp_WA MATRIX 180 Brochure...

OCTOBER 4, 2018 – JANUARY 6, 2019 WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART

BOUKE DE VRIES MATRIX 180WAR AND PIECES

COVER: BOUKE DE VRIES, WAR

FIGURE 1. BOUKE DE VRIES, W AND 20TH-CENTURY PORCELA STEEL, ALUMINUM, GILDED BR (VARIABLE). COURTESY THE A PHOTO CREDIT: TIM HIGGINS.

Seventeenth- and porcelain succes conservator Bouk during the desse with the complex One ornate exam table center (fig. mythological figu

Futility. Bravery. Sacrifice. Traditi

—Bouke de Vries

WA MATRIX 180 Brochure-5.1.qxp_WA MATRIX 180 Brochure 10/11/18 12:32 PM

6 , 2019 M OF ART

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FIGURE 2. ARNOLD VAN WEST PALMER, EARL OF CASTLEMAI EXCELLENCE ROGER EARL OF C INNOCENT XI.” GETTY RESEAR

COVER: BOUKE DE VRIES, WAR AND PIECES, 2012 (DETAIL).

FIGURE 1. BOUKE DE VRIES, WAR AND PIECES, 2012. 18TH-, 19TH-, AND 20TH-CENTURY PORCELAIN, PLASTIC, SPRAYED PLASTER, ACRYLIC,STEEL, ALUMINUM, GILDED BRASS, AND MIXED MEDIA, 300 X 60 IN.(VARIABLE). COURTESY THE ARTIST AND FERRIN CONTEMPORARY.PHOTO CREDIT: TIM HIGGINS.

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sculpted sugar table decoration and itsporcelain successors, especially at Meissen, Germany, fascinate artist and ceramicsconservator Bouke de Vries. Elaborate figural ensembles decorated banquet tablesduring the dessert course. Knowledgeable dinner guests would have been familiar with the complex narratives and political messages that they often conveyed (fig. 2).One ornate example is the Wadsworth Atheneum’s Meissen The Judgment of Parista ble center (fig. 3), which was originally part of an ensemble that included othermythological figures.

Futility. Bravery. Senselessness. Nobility. Randomness.Sacrifice. Tradition. Glory. Myth-making.

—Bouke de Vries


FIGURE 2. ARNOLD VAN WESTERHOUT, TABLE SETTING FOR A BANQUET GIVEN IN ROME BY ROGERPALMER, EARL OF CASTLEMAINE, c. 1687 (DETAIL). ETCHING FROM “AN ACCOUNT OF HISEXCELLENCE ROGER EARL OF CASTLEMAINE’S EMBASSY, FROM…JAMES THE IID…TO HIS HOLINESSINNOCENT XI.” GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE, LOS ANGELES (83-B3076).

FIGURE 3. THE JUDGMENT OF MEISSEN PORCELAIN FACTOR WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUS J. PIERPONT MORGAN, 1917.1

and its and ceramics

nquet tables een familiar

nveyed (fig. 2). ent of Paris uded other


War and Pieces, B interpretation of battle royal betw the 18th- and 19t The artist had rea Duchess of Richm the Duke of Welli who had just cros battle on the tab

In the center of a miniature porcela Chinese Buddhist figures of childre flea markets, or f and sold on eBay sides, and the top ultimate centerp

FIGURE 3. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS, c. 1762. GERMAN,MEISSEN PORCELAIN FACTORY. HARD-PASTE PORCELAIN.WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART, GIFT OF J. PIERPONT MORGAN, 1917.1482.


War and Pieces, Bouke de Vries’ first large-scale installation, offers a contemporaryinterpretation of this tradition. According to de Vries, it is a “war banquet, staging abattle royal between ancien- régime sugar and revolutionary porcelain, referencing the 18th- and 19th-century tradition of grand banquets given on the eve of battle.” 1

The artist had read William Thackery’s Vanity Fair and was struck by the scene of theDuchess of Richmond’s ball, held on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo. During the ball,the Duke of Wellington and his generals were suddenly called away to fight Napoleon,who had just crossed the border into Belgium. And so de Vries decided to stage abattle on the table, not to celebrate war but to expose its inevitable chaos and futility.

In the center of a twenty-six-foot table is a nuclear mushroom cloud composed ofminiature porcelain figures and fragments. Porcelain skulls and broken figures of theChinese Buddhist goddess of compassion, Guanyin, join unfinished Hummel porcelainfigures of children. Fragments are brought together that are sourced from dealers andflea markets, or found in containers of wasters at the old German Hummel factory siteand sold on eBay ( figs. 4–5). Porcelain figures of the crucified Christ hang from twosides, and the top is a figure of a crying angel. For de Vries, the mushroom cloud is theultimate centerpiece, an image that is both beautiful and horrible at the same time.

FIGURE 4. BOUKE DE VRIES, W


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FIGURE 4. BOUKE DE VRIES, WAR AND PIECES, 2012 (DETAIL).


“I always find it fascinating how theseugly things can have a strange beautyabout them as well. So I’m trying to make this mushroom cloud beautiful likeporcelain with little figures. Everything isbeing sucked up into it―all the figures,animals, the Guanyins, everything isbeing sucked up.” 2

The war turns the table into a wasteland.Six battle scenes flank the centerpiece, and white porcelain shards are strewneverywhere. In the role of conservator, de Vries usually repairs porcelain, but inthis case he made the shards by breakinginexpensive IKEA plates, which aremass-produced in China. The irony of howmuch the value of porcelain has changedsince the eighteenth century is not loston the artist. He shares that with theviewer by putting one of the fragmentsupside down to reveal the IKEA logo.

The battles are fought by myriad miniature figures, the larger ones made ofsugar-coated plaster, molded from eighteenth-century figures of Mars and Minervamade at the Derby Porcelain Factory in England (figs. 6–7). Yet there is somethingamiss: the battling figures have mutated into cyborgs with colorful, plastic “bionic”limbs and heads from broken Transformer toys. They create a striking contrast to the white sugar and porcelain and signal that the battle is between sugar, porcelain, and plastic.3 These plastic elements―modern interlopers―underscore the toxiceffects of this non-biodegradable material.

While MATRIX 180 War and Pieces marks its debut in the Americas, it has been on viewbefore. The artist customizes the display to fit each venue, working with the curatorsand collections, responding to each site’s region and its history, and interacting withthe interior settings. At Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin (2013), the tabletop installationwas augmented by eighteenth-century cutlery decorated with scenes from Catherinethe Great’s campaign against the Ottoman Empire, creating an encounter between the new centerpiece and one of its historic precursors. At the Gemeentemuseum, TheHague (2016–17), de Vries created custom cutlery with resin handles fashioned like

FIGURES 6–7. FIGURES OF MIN DERBY. WILLIAM DUESBURY & ALBERT MUSEUM, 768-1877

FIGURE 5. “JUST DUCKY,” 2018. GERMAN, RÖDENTAL. M. J. HUMMELMANUFACTORY. PORCELAIN. © HUMMEL.

Khaleshnikov AK- Herefordshire, En transfer-printed in the paintings o Belton Hall, Nott and then gold pla

In Hartford, the a with mirrors and dark green cloth porcelain sculptu porcelain in front only light in the e and mirror glass the porcelain and porcelain creatio symbolic present the horrors of wa


ing how these range beauty m trying to ud beautiful like

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FIGURES 6–7. FIGURES OF MINERVA AND MARS, c. 1765. ENGLISH,DERBY. WILLIAM DUESBURY & CO. SOFT-PASTE PORCELAIN. VICTORIA &ALBERT MUSEUM, 768-1877 AND 28-1874.

FIGURE 8. BOUKE DE VRIES, K BRONZE, GOLD PLATE. COURT CONTEMPORARY.

Bouke de Vries’ W is layered with m the eighteenth c of waste and mas contaminating in uses broken cera pieces back to lif impact of violenc

LINDA H. ROTHSenior Curator and C

Curator of European

Khaleshnikov AK-47 rifles. At the English National Trust property Berrington Hall,Herefordshire, England (2016), de Vries decorated simple white plates withtransfer-printed images of ships, echoing the many maritime battles being fought in the paintings on the adjacent dining room walls. At another National Trust house,Belton Hall, Nottingham, England (2017), the artist had the cutlery cast in bro nze and then gold plated―the ultimate status symbol (fig. 8).

In Hartford, the artist called for a room bathed in dark green, the walls hung denselywith mirrors and empty frames from the collection, the table covered in a matchingdark green cloth and set with Chinese plates and his gilded cutlery. The whiteporcelain sculpture glimmers and is reflected in the surrounding mirrors. Displayingporcelai n in front of or on mirrors was common in the eighteenth century, when theonly light in the evening came from candles. The reflective nature of the porcelain and mirror glass enhanced the candlelight, while the flickering candlelight enlivenedthe porcelain and mirrors, combining to create a magical dining setting. But theporcelain creations on earlier tables would have been either lighthearted fan tasies orsymbolic presentations imbued with political narratives. None would have confrontedthe horrors of war, the subject of Bouke de Vries’ War and Pieces.


1 Bouke de Vries, “War and Pie 2 Interview with the artist, Ju 3 Bouke de Vries, War and Piec 4 Bouke de Vries http://bouke 5 Ibid, p. 3.

EDUCATION

1978–1981 Design Ac 1981–1982 Central S 1989–1992 West Dea

Bouke de Vries began designer before beco and more recently, a uses his skills as a re and present them in his process “the beau of reconstructing pie Instead of hiding the dramatic episode in t he gives it a new stat new values, and movi

BOU FIGURE 8. BOUKE DE VRIES, KHALESHNIKOV CUTLERY, 2016 (DETAIL).BRONZE, GOLD PLATE. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND FERRINCONTEMPORARY.

Bouke de Vries’ War and Pieces is the artist’s most ambitious work to date. The piece is layered with meaning. It is about historical table culture of the European elite andthe eighteenth century’s new luxury material, porcelain. It is about our current cultureof waste and mass production, and the clash between traditional materials and newcontaminating interlopers. It is about reuse, repurpose, and renewal, as the artist uses broken ceramics to create something entirely new, bringing these once beautifulpieces back to life. And it is a commentary on the follies of war and the continuingimpact of violence in our lives.

LINDA H. ROTHSenior Curator and Charles C. and Eleanor Lamont Cunningham

Curator of European Decorative Arts

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1 Bouke de Vries, “War and Pieces #1,” The Holburne Museum, Bath, in Bouke de Vries, War and Pieces, 1917, p. 3.2 Interview with the artist, June 2018.3 Bouke de Vries, War and Pieces, p. 3.4 Bouke de Vries http://boukedevries.com/biography/, p. 2.5 Ibid, p. 3.

Born 1960, Utrecht, NLives and works in Lo

EDUCATION

1978–1981 Design Academy, Eindhoven, Netherlands1981–1982 Central School of Art, London, UK1989–1992 West Dean College, Chichester, UK

SOLO EXHIBITIO

2019 War and Piec Fine Arts, Mo

2018–2019 War and Piec Museum of A 2018 Nieuw Amste

Mandos, Ams Sometimes I

Look West, O 2017–2018 UN-Damaged

Mondovi, Mo 2017 War and Piec Fractured Im

Gallery, Lond 2016–2017 War and Piec

Worksop, UK War and Piec

The Hague, N2016 War and Piec

Berrington, U Studying Hum

Recovery of M Galerie Ron M Netherlands

2015 War and Piec Hingene, Belg

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P A

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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

1981–83 with Stephen Jones Millinery1983–85 with John Galliano, Fashion Designer1985–89 with Zandra Rhodes, Fashion Designer1992–present independent ceramics conservator2009–present practicing artist

Bouke de Vries began his career as a textiledesigner before becoming a ceramics conservator,and more recently, a contemporary artist. He nowuses his skills as a restorer to take broken ceramicsand present them in a new context. He has calledhis process “the beauty of destruction.” Instead of reconstructing pieces, he deconstructs them.Instead of hiding the evidence of “this mostdramatic episode in the life of a ceramic object,” he gives it a new status, instilling new virtues, new values, and moving its stories forward.4

Every day in his practice as a private conservator de Vries was faced with issues and contradictionsaround perfection and worth. The artist wrote:“‘The Venus de Milo’ is venerated despite losing herarms, but when a Meissen muse loses a finger she isrendered virtually worthless; where even an almostinvisible hairline crack, a tiny rim chip or a brokenfinger render a once-valuable object practicallyworthless, literally not worth the cost of restoring.There’s something incongruous about the fact thatsuch an object, although still imbued with all theskills it took to make it—be it first-period Worcester[English, 1751–1783], Kang-Xi [Chinese, 1662–1722]or Sèvres [French, 1756 to the present]—can soeasily be consigned to the dustbin of history.”5

BOUKE DE VRIES

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Born 1960, Utrecht, NetherlandsLives and works in London

WORKS IN THE E

War and Pieces, 2012 20th-century porcela acrylic, steel, alumin media, 300 x 60 in. (v and Ferrin Contempo

All plates, mirrors, an of the Wadsworth Ath

War and Pieces detai superimposed onto im bombing. Printed viny site-specific installat

Plates, 18th century. 1/4, and 10 1/2 in. di 1905.459, .461, .469

Plate, 19th century. C diam. Gift of Dr. Hora

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2019 War and Pieces, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL

2018–2019 War and Pieces, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT*2018 Nieuw Amsterdams Peil, Galerie Ron

Mandos, Amsterdam, Netherlands Sometimes I Look East and Sometimes I

Look West, Officine Saffi, Milan, Italy2017–2018 UN-Damaged, Museo della Ceramica di

Mondovi, Mondovi, Italy2017 War and Pieces, Belton Hall, Nottingham, UK Fractured Images, Kristin Hjellegjerde

Gallery, London, UK2016–2017 War and Pieces, Harley Gallery,

Worksop, UK War and Pieces, Gemeentemuseum,

The Hague, Netherlands2016 War and Pieces, Berrington Hall,

Berrington, UK Studying Human Activity Through the

Recovery of Material Culture, Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam,Netherlands

2015 War and Pieces, Castle d’Ursel, Hingene, Belgium

2014-2015 War and Pieces, Château de Nyon,

Switzerland2014 Threads of My Life, Gloria Maria Gallery,

Milan, Italy2013 Art South: Collaborations, Southampton Art

Gallery, Southampton, UK War and Pieces, Outset Netherlands,

Amsterdam, Netherlands War and Pieces, Alnwick Castle, Alnwick, UK War and Pieces, Charlottenburg Palace,

Berlin, Germany2012–2014 Bow Selector, Pallant House, Chichester, UK2012 War and Pieces, The Holburne Museum,

Bath, UK2011 Signs (Metamorphosis), Gloria Maria

Gallery, Milan, Italy Precious, Art at Anoushka, London, UK Fire, Works, Vegas Gallery, London, UK2010 Pieces, Super Window Project, Kyoto, Japan A Grand Tour of My Mind, Gloria Maria

Gallery, Milan, Italy Deconstructions, Galerie Ron Mandos,

Amsterdam, Netherlands

*First American showing of War and Pieces, whichwill then be exhibited at the Montgomery Museumof Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama, February 2–May 12, 2019.

Bouke de Vries/MATRIX 180/War and Pieces ispresented in conjunction with Monsters & Myths:Surrealism and War in the 1930s an d 1940s,October 20, 2018 to January 13, 2019.

ENCE

illinery shion Designer ashion Designer

amics conservator

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he artist wrote: ed despite losing her e loses a finger she is

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Chinese, 1662–1722] present]—can so

bin of history.”5

IES

ARTIST GALLERY BOUKE DE VRIESThursday, October 4, Free with museum ad What’s on Your Dinne

RECEPTION AND Wednesday, October 5 pm reception and e 6 pm lectureListen to Sequoia Mil Gardiner Museum, To director at Ferrin Con discuss contemporar

CURATOR GALLE LINDA H. ROTHSunday, October 141:15 pm tour2 pm film Vanity FairFree tour with film adThursday, November Free with museum ad


600 Main StreetHartford, Connecticut 06103(860) 278-2670

thewadsworth.org

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION

War and Pieces, 2012. 18th-, 19th-, and20th-century porcelain, plastic, sprayed plaster,acrylic, steel, aluminum, gilded brass, and mixedmedia, 300 x 60 in. (variable). Courtesy the artistand Ferrin Contemporary

All plates, mirrors, and frames are in the collectionof the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art .

War and Pieces detail installation imagessuperimposed onto images of the Hiroshimabombing. Printed vinyl mounted to acrylic mirror,site-specific installation

Plates, 18th century. Chinese. Porcelain, 9, 9 1/8, 91/4, and 10 1/2 in. diam. Gift of Dr. Horace S. Fuller,1905.459, .461, .469, .472, .481, and .483

Plate, 19th century. Chinese. Porcelain, 9 1/8 in.diam. Gift of Dr. Horace S. Fuller, 1905.480

Plate, c. 1750. Chinese. Porcelain, 9 in. diam. TheStephen Terry Collection, Gift of Mrs. Stephen Terry,1905.676

Plate, 18th century. Chinese. Porcelain, 9 in. diam.The Stephen Terry Collection, Gift of Mrs. StephenTerry, 1905.682

Plate, Chinese. Porcelain, 10 in. diam. Gift of SamuelP. Avery Jr., 1918.546

Plate, c. 1750. Chinese. Porcelain, 9 in. diam.Bequest of Mrs. Gurdon Trumbull, 1934.263

Plate, c. 1750. Chinese. Porcelain, 10 in. diam.Bequest of Miss Adele Kneeland, 1938.395

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3, 2019.The MATRIX program is generously supported by theWadsworth Atheneum’s Contemporary Coalition.

Additional support for MATRIX 180 has been provided byFerrin Contemporary.

Sustaining support for the Wadsworth Atheneum providedby Newman’s Own Foundation and the Greater HartfordArts Council’s United Arts Campaign.

ARTIST GALLERY TALK BOUKE DE VRIESThursday, October 4, 6 pmFree with museum admission to Art After Dark:What’s on Your Dinner Table?, 5 – 8 pm

RECEPTION AND LECTUREWednesday, October 10 5 pm reception and exhibition viewing6 pm lectureListen to Sequoia Miller, chief curator at theGardiner Museum, Toronto, and Leslie Ferrin,director at Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA,discuss contemporary ceramics. Free

CURATOR GALLERY TOURS AND FILM LINDA H. ROTHSunday, October 141:15 pm tour2 pm film Vanity Fair (2004)Free tour with film admissionThursday, November 8, 12 pm tourFree with museum admission


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