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INTRODUCTION This exhibition has been curated by the Eng- TO THE lish artist and writer Edmund de Waal. At the EXHIBITION invitation of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, de Waal made repeated visits to Vienna over a period of three years to spend time with its collections and curators, and to make a per- sonal selection of objects from among the many thousands assembled over centuries by the museum’s Habsburg founders. He has borrowed from seven different collec- tions of the Kunsthistorisches Museum: the Picture Gallery, Greek and Roman Antiqui- ties, the Kunstkammer, the Imperial Treasury, Historical Musical Instruments, the Library, and the collection of Ambras Castle, the for- mer residence of Archduke Ferdinand II in Innsbruck, Tyrol. Four additional objects, at least one of which was formerly in the Ambras collection, have been generously lent by the Natural History Museum, our twin build- ing across the Maria-Theresien-Platz. The ex- hibition is completed by a major new work created by de Waal himself, as a response to his selection. De Waal instinctively understood the oppor- tunities that the invitation afforded while rec- ognizing the trapdoors that came with it. His role was not to be that of the museum curator, whose task is to identify, study, present and This is the second exhibition in a series for contextualize works of art that represent the which internationally renowned artists are most accomplished of their type, period, or invited to work with the collections of the style. Nor was it that of the contemporary art- Kunsthistorisches Museum, following that ist who is invited into an historical museum curated by Ed Ruscha in 2012. to trace lines between the past and the pres- ent. His role was to be something else: to iden- tify and assemble objects, the majority of them little known, unburdened by the restrictions of the museum’s traditional conventions of display; to propose a new understanding of those objects by altering their placement and their context; and to trace new lines of thought within and around the past. Seen together, the objects that he has chosen represent a personal reinterpretation of the past. The challenge and pleasure for the visitor is to try to match our eye to his, to comprehend the reasons for his choices. In doing so, we deepen our understanding of de Waal’s own work and the decisions that lie behind it. The lives of objects, particular- ly those displaced from their original context or denied their original function, has long been a subject of great interest to him. We see it in his own ceramic work, we read it in his writing, and now we can perceive it in this exhibition. EDMUND Edmund de Waal, OBE, was born in 1964 in Buckinghamshire, England (2012); »On White: DE WAAL: Nottingham, England. He received his BA Porcelain Stories from the Fitzwilliam«, Uni- BIOGRAPHY Honours in 1983 from the University of Cam- versity of Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, bridge and his Postgraduate Diploma in 1992 England (2013); »Another Hour«, Southwark from the University of Sheffield. In 2002 he Cathedral, London (2014); »Atmosphere«, completed his postgraduate studies as Senior Turner Contemporary, England (2014); »Licht- Research Fellow in Ceramics at the Universi- zwang«, Theseus Temple, organized by the ty of Westminster, London. A potter since Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (2014); and childhood and an acclaimed writer, de Waal »The lost and the found: work from Orkney«, is best known for his large-scale installations New Art Centre, England (2015). Much of his of porcelain vessels, which have been ex- recent work has been concerned with ideas hibited in and collected by museums around of collecting and collections, and with how the world, including: Los Angeles County Mu- objects are kept together, lost, stolen and dis- seum of Art, California; Museum of Arts and persed. His work comes out of a dialogue be- Design, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, tween minimalism, architecture and sound, Houston; Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frank- and is informed by his passion for literature. furt; National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; His acclaimed memoir The Hare with Amber and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Eyes was the winner of the Costa Biography Recent solo museum exhibitions include: Award and the RSL (Royal Society of Litera- »Ceramic Rooms«, Geffrye Museum, London ture) Ondaatje Prize. In 2015, de Waal was (2001); New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salis- awarded a prestigious Windham-Campbell bury, England (2004); »Arcanum«, National prize for non-fiction by Yale University. His Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff latest book, The White Road: Journey into an (2005); »Vessel, perhaps«, Millgate Museum, Obsession, was published in November 2015. England (2006); Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, and De Waal lives and works in London. Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Eng- land (2007); »Signs & Wonders«, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2009); «Night Work«, New Art Centre, Roche Court (2010); »Edmund de Waal at Waddesdon«, Waddesdon Manor, 1 Sometime during the night of 7 June 1525, 2 This wooden box contains a perfect imita- Albrecht Dürer awoke from a frightening night- tion of a forest floor in moss that acts as the mare. The following morning, deeply agitated, »habitat« of countless small creatures made DREAM VISION he recorded what he had seen in a watercol- »SHAKE-BOX« of painted cardboard, including snails, snakes, our and added a detailed description. This tortoises, spiders, beetles, a scorpion and even South German (Tyrol?), Albrecht Dürer work is his popular Dream Vision: a massive a dragon-like winged creature of fable, some 1525 after 1550 deluge of rain is seen descending upon a wide gazing out from small niche-like caves. Bal- Watercolour on paper, Wood, cardboard, clay, inscribed and signed landscape in which we can make out the faint all painted, lead weights anced by lead counter-weights and loosely at- In the Albrecht Dürer outlines of tiny houses and trees. Dream with wire, moss, poppy tached to eyelets and small wooden pegs, these seeds, snail shells »Kunstbuch« Vision is part of the so-called Kunstbuch (»Art tiny cardboard creatures begin to shake and Vienna, Vienna, Book«), a collection of 216 woodcuts and prints jiggle whenever someone touches the box, cre- Kunsthistorisches Kunsthistorisches Museum, Kunstkammer from metal plates by Albrecht Dürer. It also Museum, Kunstkammer ating the impression that they are alive. A typ- contains thirteen drawings, eight of which are (Ambras Castle ical Kunstkammer object, the »shake-box« Innsbruck) by Dürer himself. (»Schüttelkasten«) combines the imitation of nature with outstanding artistry and technical Edmund de Waal: skill. You wake up and don’t know where you are. A plain, low hills and fields. Somewhere from Edmund de Waal: childhood. And the heavens have opened and When considering the Wunderkammer, the the waters are coming down, the waters are room of wonders, Francis Bacon talked of the coming towards you. It is the apocalypse. The possibility of having »in small compass a world is turned upside down. You can hard- model of universal nature made private«. ly breathe. During the night you are exposed. Everything, he says, is possible here. There In the Kunsthistorisches I feel exposed. These should be a »goodly huge cabinet, wherein are the last days of mankind. whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine hath made rare in stuff, form, or motion; whatsoever nature hath wrought in things that want life and may be kept; shall be sorted and included.« Here is the shuffle and shake of things. How much control do you really have? 3–7, 9–12 Initially the term »handstone« denoted an 8 »The journey is arduous but an inestimable unusually shaped or sized lump of ore that reward waits at the summit.« While this up- one could hold in one’s hand to study and lifting Latin inscription on the giant’s coat-of- HANDSTONES contemplate. In the course of the sixteenth ALLEGORY OF arms is primarily aimed at the representatives century such pieces were increasingly turned VIRTUE (»MOUNT of secular and ecclesiastical authority assem- Sankt Joachimsthal into Kunstkammer objects by being reworked, OF VIRTUES«) bled at the foot of the mountain, it is also (Jáchymov), second half of 16th century; mounted, and combined with other materials addressed to the viewer. The sheer cliffs in Slovakian/Hungarian, or goldsmith work – the earliest presumably Lucas Cranach the Cranach’s composition symbolize the travails th Younger mid-18 century at Sankt Joachimsthal (Jáchymov), Bohemia, of acting in a virtuous and God-fearing man- Silver, partially gilt, Dated 1548 in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains), where ner, the pursuit of which will ultimately be various minerals, glass, Limewood panel wood most of the examples on show here were also Vienna, rewarded. This allegorical call for persever- Vienna, produced. This juxtaposing of art and nature Kunsthistorisches ance painted in 1548 was almost certainly in- Museum, Picture Kunsthistorisches is typical of the second half of the sixteenth formed by the religious struggles of its time: Museum, Kunstkammer Gallery century, but we also encounter it in baroque the Catholics’ defeat of the Protestants in 1547 handstones such as the model of a mine set had brought on a profound crisis for the new on a manchette-shaped silver base, which was Christian faith. probably produced near Neusohl (Banská Bystrica) in present-day Slovakia. Edmund de Waal: How do you get up this fissured rock? There Edmund de Waal: is something billowing out from the tree, The mine is a place of great danger. There are something written on a banner. There is an spirits who draw you on, places that give way angel offering benediction. It promises well. under you, damp and noxious airs and gases But the gate is narrow and the path disap- that make you sleep.