Lucinda Jolly reviews Kraak!”Dis nie vokken Delft nie!”an exploration of Oriental export porcelain with work by Michael Chandler at the Chandler House till end of July.
Designer and ceramicist Michael Chandler, has been making- and smashing- ceramic plates. Fruitful acts of creativity followed by temper tantrum self-sabotage? Not at all.
Chandler’s prize winning artificial fibre rug decorated with the cobalt blue Willow Pattern design and his ink on Fabriano paper fragments of VOC porcelain along with Ella-Lou O’Meara’s ceramic mermaid charger were some of the contemporary pieces in “Patterns of Contact: Designs from the Indian Ocean World”, an exhibition curated by Carole Kaufman at the Iziko National Gallery last year. In that exhibition both ceramicists playfully subverted images associated with South Africa’s colonial history. And in keeping with the exhibitions ethos honoured the profound impact that the 1,000 year old influence of Asian design has had on the country’s aesthetic sensibilities. It brought to broader public attention the denial by the previous governments favouring of those cultures around the Atlantic ocean rather than recognising the major influence of slaves and artisans from the Indian ocean -because they were people of colour.
Chandler’s exhibition Kraak!”Dis nie vokken Delft nie!” may have been inspired initially by “Patterns of Contact: Designs from the Indian Ocean World” but it also marks an internal shift in the ceramicist. This shift which began in Chandler’s VOC paper fragments is further explored in the deliberate anarchic smashing of a ceramic plate which was then reconstructed in the Japanese “kintsugi” manner. Chandler’s use of “kintsugi” which look like the criss-cross lines of trade routes drawn in gold could be interpreted as shattering the past in order to reconstruct an even more valuable present. One which does not hide its scars or wounds but shows them with pride. The story goes that “kintsugi” originated when a Japanese shogun sent a valuable but damaged ceramic to China to be fixed. Horrified at the way the vessel arrived back crudely stapled together Japanese ceramicists were forced to find a way of joining the fragments. They chose seams of precious metals. Thus the “Kintsugi”piece becomes even more valuable than before and the damage is not shameful and hidden. Author of one of the essays in “The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics”, Christy Bartlett, suggests that there is an esoteric interpretation of the practical application of “kintsugi called “mushin” or a spiritual acceptance of change in a non- attached way.
Writer of the book “Everyday Sacred”, a New York Times best seller, Sue Bender uses the bowl as a metaphorical receptacle for her struggle for self-acceptance. She reminds us that on a personal level we all come from the pelvic “bowl” and on a cosmological one, physicists refer to the universe as a bowl. Bender writes about the daily begging bowl used by Buddhist monks which serves as both a vessel for bodily nutrition and on a spiritual level, a disciplined reminder to accept whatever lands on your plate.
In many ways the human being can be as fragile and as brittle as ceramic. Yet interestingly, as archaeologist Carol Kaufman pointed out, of all materials, bone and cloth and leather included, fired clay is the most lasting. Scratch below the very pavement outside the Chandler House or just below the earth of the forests South African’s love to walk and at your feet lie ceramic shards. We walk on the middens of the past in the present.
”Strong in the broken places” is a phrase that comes to mind. A statement used by the feminists of yesteryear to ward off the aflictions of a patriarchal society. One that ironically appears to have its roots in the misogynist Ernest Hemingway’s beautiful quote; “the world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places”. Although not as seamless as the state of the skin before, scar tissue is often stronger than the original tissue.
As the titles of the exhibition suggests nothing is quite what it seems. Chandler has juxtaposed a pair of 18th Century Chinese Cantonware Plate Warmers with a 19th/20th Century English Willow Pattern Plate, and related shards to show how the Willow Pattern was appropriated from the Chinese design. On display are examples of Kraak, Arita and actual Delft items to show the viewer the physical differences between the different wares.
The word Kraak in the name of the title is not the Afrikaans word for crack that Leonard Cohen sings about letting the light in, but rather the name of 16/17 century Chinese porcelain (also known as white gold) that was named after the Portuguese merchant ships called carraca which transported it. The word vokken which should have been written with an f was realised by Chandler after the fact. But if interpreted in the spirit of synchronicity, parallels the similarly flawed “kintsugi” vessel explored in the exhibition.
The auctioned cargoes of the carraca ships captured by the Dutch led to porcelain mania. Porcelain was a far finer product than their earthenware crockery and became a huge status symbol. The Dutch East India Company began to import porcelain from the east as a money making venture. Then as the Chinese Kraak porcelain waned so Japan started producing wares made in Atari, Imari and Kakiemon porcelain.
In a weird crossover, using the cheaper tin-glazed earthenware, the Dutch copied the Chinese –hence the title Delftware and in turn the Chinese copied Delft decorations.
And finally the English produced tranferware to meet the demand for blue and white porcelain .There is some controversy as to whether the Germans or the English were the first in Europe to figure out the recipe for porcelain in the 18th century.
Kraak! showcases 15 earthenware “chargers” or large display plates made by Chandler. They show the auspicious Fenghuang birds, (a Chinese version of the phoenix) pomegranates and camellias surrounding the central VOC monogram and the bamboo and peony border panels found in the original pieces. His approach is evocative of, rather than slavishly copied originals. The chargers are exhibited in 3 rows on shell pink walls in a “voorkamer” setting. In front of a replica painting of a still life by 17th Century Dutch Artist Balthasar van der Ast is an example of Kraak porcelain and a stapled porcelain piece. And on a far wall by itself is the reconstructed smashed or “kintsugi” charger with its simulated gold seams.
Since this body of work there has been yet another shift in Chandler’s approach. He has started replacing the Chinese Fenghuang birds with the South African crested Hoepoo bird and the peonies with fynbos and another project involving drawings of shards on torn paper is on the cards.
Check it out.
WHERE: Chandler House, 53 Church St, Cape Town, 8001
INFO: T 021 464 4810 facebook
This review by Lucinda Jolly first appeared in The Cape Times
