Of Making and Material

Adam Buick, Helen Carnac, Alexander deVol, Florian Gadsby, David Gates, Harry Morgan, Rosa Nguyen, Mark Reddy

Hauser & Wirth is pleased to present the first US exhibition of the gallery’s UK-based initiative Make Hauser & Wirth, which was launched in Somerset, England, in 2018 to present exceptional contemporary handcrafted design by leading artist-makers from around the world. Of Making and Material comprises exceptional works informed by the respective creators’ intimate understanding of their chosen materials—from wood, ceramics, and metal to glass and concrete—and mastery of methods rooted in tradition or pioneering new techniques. Together, the objects on view celebrate dedication to knowledge, process, and experimentation.

This exhibition reflects a re-evaluation of the aesthetics of craft, highlighting the exceptional creativity and substance of the makers’ individual approaches and suggesting the true breadth of art.

Of Making and Material is located a short walk from Hauser & Wirth’s Southampton gallery space. Among the objects on view are ceramic forms by Buick made in response to landscape and geology; Reddy’s hand-crafted spoons rich with symbology; sculptures by Morgan exploring the fragility of glass combined with the brutality of concrete; and the vessels of deVol that spotlight the material properties of wood.

Curated by Jacqueline Moore, Director of Make Hauser & Wirth, the exhibition will be complemented by a two-week on-site residency in August with acclaimed London-based ceramicist Florian Gadsby. From August 1 - 15, visitors will have the opportunity to observe Gadsby’s working process and engage in conversation with him about his processes, practice and vision.

Jacqueline Moore joined Hauser & Wirth Somerset in July 2018 to establish the Make gallery in Bruton, Somerset, UK. She spent over twenty years as the director of a London photography agency, representing photographers across design, advertising and editorial, directing and producing global campaigns and curating photography exhibitions. Throughout this period, she was an ambassador and patron of The Photographers Gallery, London, UK. In 2014, she established the pop-up Moore Gallery to promote and support the work of artist-makers in London and Somerset, having been a passionate collector of the crafted object and contemporary craft for many years, with a special interest in British studio ceramics, wood sculpture and the evolution of material investigation in the applied arts.

Drawing upon his longstanding interest in and knowledge of geology, Adam Buick unearths not only the physical resources for his jars but inspiration for their aesthetic. The way he observes, experiences, and understands landscape is reflected in the embellishment of their surfaces and the materials within. Taking inspiration from the form of the Korean moon jar, Buick’s thrown and coiled interpretations play with scale and the introduction of clays and organic materials. The unpredictable character of each jar comes from these natural elements and their metamorphosis during the firing process.

At the core of Helen Carnac’s work sits unfired enamel disrupted by incisions and drawn lines into the surface and areas scraped away to reveal the steel below. The vitreous enamel, when fired, is fused to the surface of the steel and becomes a new surface. The expressions are largely abstract, yet nevertheless always imbued with something lively and vibrating. Carnac herself considers the bowl form as a three-dimensional surface on which to ‘draw.’

Alexander deVol examines the material properties of unseasoned, high-moisture wood from recently felled trees, taking care to preserve the features he feels are aesthetically synonymous with the material’s origin. His work focuses on co-operation with the material, allowing the characteristics and natural behavior of green wood to influence his design during the crafting process. As his work seasons, the wood continues to be active, naturally altering in form and colour, and rendering each piece truly unique. The outcome is an object sculpted in collaboration between maker and material.

Florian Gadsby creates hand-thrown stoneware, functional pottery, singular objects, and vessel collections. Alongside the practice of making pots, he also creates informative videos and documents his work online to an audience of 2.5 million people across several social media platforms. Sharing the techniques central to his creations, these videos discuss and delve more thoroughly into his ideas and making practice. Observed with a devotion to process, his work is characterized by simple forms, straight shapes, protruding lines, and sharp edges upon which his reduction-fired glazes can react.

Questioning form and function, David Gates combines studio-furniture making with formal research, creating three-dimensional pieces inspired by cabinet furniture. Structurally and visually his work reflects a fascination with the vernacular asymmetric forms of industrial architecture while working with a rich repertoire of traditional techniques. Drawing on the rightness and expediency of agricultural constructions such as silos, sheds, gantries, and barns, Gates interrogates rural structural and sculptural qualities to provide the basis for his ongoing exploration of the collecting cabinet as a furniture type.

Harry Morgan’s approach to making fluctuates between the use of intuition, geometry, and material expression. Morgan’s sculptural forms in glass and concrete are characterized by the unexpected marrying of these materials and his experimental approach to traditional processes. He challenges both the physical and cultural connotations of his chosen materials, reimagining the ancient craft of the Venetian glassblowing technique, ‘murrini.’

Rosa Nguyen works primarily in the field of ceramics and glass, making sculptural objects, vessels, drawings, and installations in the form of compositional tableaux. Taking inspiration from the natural world, Nguyen’s practice is characterized by the incorporation of living and dead botanical form and vegetal matter into her pieces. Assembled and manipulated through casting and preserving in both fired and clay gesso, given new life through dipping in liquid porcelain and sacrificial firing, her glazes in turn fuse the combusted vegetal matter into outwardly wild forms.

Mark Reddy takes the modest, humble form of the spoon and imbues it with symbolic expression. With its lip, bowl, shoulders, neck and stem, its corporeal form is endlessly demanding. Utilizing the innate character inherent within green wood he expresses a complex narrative which is borne out of a close relationship with material, process, and land. Reddy’s pieces possess a meditative memory of forgotten values and desires. He sees symbolism in the familiar utensil that has occupied a place in our everyday lives throughout our history and cultures. In creating sacred objects which explore the liminal divide between the functional and sculptural, subtle details and embellishments embody a deep connection to the seasons, place, and landscape.