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de","id":"A13061"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"porcelain","id":"AAT10662"},{"text":"aluminium","id":"AAT11015"}],"techniques":[],"materialsAndTechniques":"Glazed porcelain and powder-coated aluminium","categories":[{"text":"Ceramics","id":"THES48982"},{"text":"Studio Pottery","id":"THES48889"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"CER","id":"THES48594"},"images":["2009CP8821","2009CP8044","2009CP8862","2009CP8858","2009CP8829","2009CP8754","2009CP8753","2009CP8053","2009CP8052","2009CP8051","2009CP8050","2009CP8049","2009CP8048","2009CP8047","2009CP8046","2009CP8045"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"141 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Booth-Clibborn","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"40","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Diameter","value":"11.64","unit":"m","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Circumference","value":"35.94","unit":"m","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"'Edmund de Waal Signs and Wonders 2009' ","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Surrounding the V&A logo, printed in blue and red, on transparent adhesive label affixed to each pot."}],"objectHistory":"Commissioned for the new V&A Ceramics Galleries, opened in September 2009. The work is site-specific, and is installed in the dome of gallery 141: Contemporary Ceramics.\r\n\r\nArtist Statement (for gallery panel):\r\n\r\nOn a red metal shelf high above you are 425 vessels. The shelf floats above the cornice, away from the dome, so that a mass of porcelain is held in space. The work is called 'Signs & Wonders'.\r\n\r\nThe vessels are my response to three parts of the V&A ceramics collection: Chinese porcelains, 18th-century European porcelains, and modern pieces from Vienna, Bauhaus and the Constructivists. I'd look hard at some part of the collection, then look away and then make the after-image. It was a kind of distillation.\r\n\r\nWhat is left of a garniture of Sèvres jars when you look away? The sense of formality and poise around the fulcrum of a central vessel, the feeling of variations of colour being carefully played out. I'd make one garniture, and then another, paring down a piece of Sèvres into a few changes of angle and volume.\r\n\r\nElsewhere, haphazard stacks of small bowls are an after-image of the stacks of kiln wasters. A dozen coffee cans and saucers, part of a dinner service and a whole episode of bowls on stands are all made from my recollection of seeing a Song Dynasty bowl held up high on its stand.\r\n\r\n'Signs & Wonders' is not an attic space, nor yet a store-room, but is another collection. Another to add to this collection of all collections.\r\n\r\nEdmund de Waal, 2009","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Installation, 425 porcelain pots on red aluminium shelf, 'Signs & Wonders', Edmund de Waal, 2009.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Glenn Adamson, Alun Graves and Edmund de Waal. <u>Signs & Wonders: Edmund de Waal and the V&A Ceramics Galleries</u>. London: V&A Publishing, 2009."}],"production":"Most of the pots were thrown and glazed in Edmund de Waal's studio in London. The flat dishes were made by Hartley Greens & Co. at the Leeds Pottery, Stoke-on-Trent, but were subsequently glazed at the artist's studio. The powder-coated aluminium shelf was fabricated by Aspinalls in Heysham, Lancashire.","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["C.277-2009"],"accessionNumberNum":"277","accessionNumberPrefix":"C","accessionYear":2009,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2024NV6109","2024NV1189"],"recordModificationDate":"2025-08-22","recordCreationDate":"2011-02-01","availableToBook":false}}