Pauline Wiertz (NL)
statement
By Colin Martin
Contemporary applied artists sometimes suppress any national or historic references in their work, perhaps to make it more universal and hence more appealing on the global fine-art market. Whatever the reason, much of the work exhibited at Collect, an international contemporary art fair held in London last month, was aesthetically unadventurous and almost ‘stateless’ in its lack of cultural interest. One outstanding exception was the covetable slip-cast porcelain and earthenware exhibited by Dutch ceramist Pauline Wiertz. Unashamedly relishing her national artistic heritage, her recent work evokes the sumptuous still-life canvases of heaped fish, meat, fruit and vegetables familiar from the seventeenth-century ‘golden age’ of Dutch painting. At first glance, Garnalen Cocktail (‘shrimp cocktail’) seems to be a typical assortment of marine species. Life-like pink prawns are heaped on lustrous black-glazed shells and starfish, and the piece is given height by an armature of what appears to be black coral prettily tipped with rose pink at the rear. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that Wiertz used severed chicken feet to cast the coral, although the shellfish were cast from real specimens. This playful hoax echoes the contents of a seventeenth-century Wunderkammer, or chamber of wonders, a cabinet filled with curiosities by a wealthy, private collector. Although a Wunderkammer typically housed preserved animals, skeletons, horns and tusks, it might also include man-made oddities that mixed fact with fiction. The cabinet of Ole Worm (1588–1654), who taught medicine at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, contained a woolly fern masquerading as a ‘Scythian lamb’, thought to be a hybrid of a plant and a sheep. In its verisimilitude, Wiertz’s work resembles the eighteenth-century rococo porcelain produced by the Meissen factory in Germany. By using chicken feet to cast moulds for her ceramic coral, Wiertz encourages us to think about the nature of perception: if we expect to see coral in the context of other marine species, then that is what we will discern. There is also the hint of a wry comment on our contemporary preoccupation with the spread of the H5N1 strain of avian flu. This point is made more clearly in her appositely named Kippenpootjes (‘chicken legs’ or ‘chicken fever’), a series of individualchicken feet slip-cast in porcelain and colourfully glazed. Wiertz’s ceramics can be seen at the Galerie Terra Delft in the Netherlands
Colin Martin is a writer based in London.
bio
PAULINE WIERTZ
Lives and works in Amsterdam/Limoges, France
EDUCATION
1972-1977 Gerrit Rietveld Academie Ceramic Design, Amsterdam, NL
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2006 Pauline Wiertz, Wunderkammer: Ceramic Jewelry and Sculpture, Frederieke Taylor Gallery, NYC
Terra Keramiek, Delft, NL
Galleri ROSTRUM, Malmo, SW
2005 Galerie Louise Smit, Amsterdam, NL
2002 'Tarabiscote', Art Kitchen Gallery, Amsterdam
'Biomorphique', Terra Keramiek, Delft
Terra Keramiek 'Biomorphique', Delft, NL
2001 'Pronkkamer', Art Kitchen Gallery, Amsterdam
2000 Galerie Louise Smit, Amsterdam, NL
1999 De Ndederlandsche Bank 'Nature Morte', Amsterdam, NL
1998 Final presentation work period ECWC, Den Bosch
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2006 COLLECT Artfair, Terra Keramiek, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
2004 ArtKitchen Gallery 'It's vespertime again', Amsterdam, NL
2003 Museum Princesshof 'Lekker Decadent', Leeuwarden, NL
ArtKitchen Gallery 'Le Trou', Amsterdam, NL
The Pottery Workshop 'To dream the impossible', Hong Kong
2002 'Emergo' art manifestation Atelier WG Amsterdam, Installation Police station Old-West
'Ceramics and Porcelain', Erasmus house, Djakarta
The Crafts Council 'Homemade Holland', London, UK
KunstRAI, ArtKitchen Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
2001 'Chamber pots', The Potter Workshop, HongKong
'Crown Jewels', Art Library, Leerdam
Gemeentemuseum 'Delfts onder de loep', The Hague, NL
Musee de Carouge 'Chandeliers', Carouge, CH
2000 'Eyewitness', Art Kitchen Gallery, Amsterdam
Atelier WG 'Le Genie de la Bastille', Paris, France
1999 'Superblue', Ceramic Millennium Art Kitchen Gallery, Amsterdam
1998 'Themes in Painting' (including Erik Andriesse), Handmade Prints, Amsterdam
1997-2001 'Rietveld to the Bourse', Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam
1997 'Kutani International Decorative Ceramics Fair', Komatsu, Japan.
1995 Pulitzer Galerie, Amsterdam
'5mal Keramik', Galerie Hilde Holstein, Bremen
1993-1996 'Facets of the same nature', National Museum of Ceramic Art, Baltimore; Everson Museum,
Syracuse, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston; Karsh-Masson Galelry, Ottawa; American Craft Museum, New York, traveling exhibition.
1992 'Imitation and inspiration', Suntory Museum, Tokio; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
1989 Showcase exhibition, Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem
1988-1993 'Contemporary Dutch Ceramics', (traveling exhibition The Netherlands Office for Fine Arts), Roanne,
Haarlem, Hannover, Ghent, Innsbruck, and Istanbul.
1986 'Ceramics 86', Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam Galerie de Fiets, Delft.
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, NL/Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, NL
Inax Corporation, Tokoname, JP
KobeCity Museum, Kobe, JP
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague, NL
Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, The Hague, NL
Museum Princessehof, Leeuwarden, NL
De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam, NL
Musee de Carouge, Carouge, CH
AWARDS & HONORS
2006 Mondriaan Foundation Grant
2001 Prix de la ville de Carouge, Carouge, CH
1990 Inax Design Prize, Tokoname, JP
COMMISSIONS
2006 Installation main entrance VU Hospital, Amsterdam, NL
2005 Design for a collection of table ware, Hui Yang City
2003 'Microben', monumental art WG plein, City of Amsterdam, NL
2001 Collection for Deux Poissons, Tokyo, Japan
1999 'Food and Farming', Conisborough, Sheffield, UK
1992 'Tile designs for INAX corp., Japan
