Barbara Nanning
Eternal Movement
Bar bar a N anni ng — eternal movement
Ce ra mics, In sta llat i o n s a n d G la ss A r t
4 1 Barbara Nanning, 1989
Barbara Nanning - Eternal movement C er a mics, In sta llati o n s a n d G la ss A r t
This year sees the fortieth anniversary of Barbara Nanning’s graduation in ceramics from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Over those forty years, Nanning has become an internationally respected artist with work in countless public and private collections in the Netherlands and around the world. Innumerable articles have been devoted to her in periodicals and other publications in a multitude of different countries.
The first monographic study of Nanning’s work, Barbara Nanning Ceramics,
was published in 1992 to accompany an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.1 At that time, Nanning’s reputation rested chiefly on her pioneering ceramics, which had completely abandoned the container form traditionally dominant in studio pottery. Another monographic study, Barbara Nanning_Evolution, was published in 2003 on the occasion of an exhibition at Museum Singer Laren.2 The title was significant, because in 1994 Nanning had taken the surprising step of adding glass to her repertoire – the material on which she would eventually come to focus exclusively. 5
Keramiek ’90 In 1990, when the Keramiek ’90 event was held with the aim of charting the progress of modern Dutch ceramics, Nanning was, of course, among the participants.8 Her work was exhibited at Museum Het Prinsenhof in Delft (The Netherlands), alongside that of other ceramists like Maggi Giles (b. 1938), Leen Quist (1942-2014) and Jan Snoeck (1927-2018) – all artists who had taken their own entirely individual directions within Dutch ceramics. Nanning showed her impressive Galaxy installation, composed of fifteen individual objects. (ill. 12) The brightly coloured, spiral-shaped ceramics were presented in a darkened gallery, each on its own black pedestal and dramatically spotlighted. Like waves breaking on the seashore, the pieces swirled on their tall plinths in a fascinated interplay of spiralling forms. Or perhaps we should see them rather as a few of the multitudinous stars in the Milky Way – the galaxy to which the title of the installation refers. The velvety skin of the objects was due to a new technique, in which Nanning used pigmented sand to seal the clay. To create the smoothest possible surface, that initial layer was equalized and a new layer of fine sand was applied, which was subsequently also leveled. The process might be repeated dozens of times to achieve the optimum result. To eyes accustomed to the usual surface of ceramics, glazed or otherwise, the effect of this labour-intensive finish is both thrilling and unusual. Nanning has endowed the surface of her objects with an extraordinary texture, as she did earlier by introducing coloured cotton threads into her work. The Galaxy installation brought Nanning not only the national Ceramics Prize for that year, but also – and perhaps far more importantly in relation to her future development – an invitation to participate in the prestigious International Exhibition of Contemporary Ceramics to be held in 1991 in the Japanese town of Shigaraki.9 She was one of only 25 exhibitors selected from around the world to represent the current state of modern ceramics. From the United States, ‘the leading 20
21 12 Installation Galaxy for the exhibition Keramiek ’90, stoneware/sand/pigment/ acrylic paint, 1990
23 13 Galaxy, stoneware/sand/pigment/ acrylic paint, 1990, collection Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki, Japan
14 Galaxy, stoneware/sand/pigment/ acrylic paint, 1990, collection Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki, Japan
80 50 Twist, crystal, 1995, executed by Royal Leerdam Crystal, Leerdam, The Netherlands, collection Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
81 51 Fleurs de verre, crystal, 1995, executed by Royal Leerdam Crystal, Leerdam, The Netherlands, private collection, Den Dolder, The Netherlands (left), collection artist, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (right)
104 65 Petrified Dynamic Flow, foam coating/stainless steel, ø 500 cm, 2007, designed in coll. with Paul van Leeuwen, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Gotemba City, Japan
105
108 67 Design for Earth, Water, Heaven, Fire, part of the Four Elements: Heaven, Earth, Water and Fire in coll. with Han Sinke, Amstelveen, The Netherlands for the Woongebouw, Huizen, The Netherlands, 2010
68 Earth, Water, Heaven, Fire, part of the Four Elements: Heaven, Earth, Water and Fire, 2010 CREA-LITE glass, Sas van Gent, The Netherlands, Woongebouw, Huizen, The Netherlands
116 73 Verre églomisé, glass/gilded, 2018, executed by LASVIT AJETO, Lindava/Aleš Zvěřina & AZ-Design, Nový Bor/Vacláv Novák, Doksy, Czech Republic, 2018, private collection
In 2010, on the way to the Czech Republic for one of her innumerable visits, Nanning stopped off in Meissen (Germany), where she saw the much-admired porcelain snowball vase that went into production at the renowned porcelain factory in the mid-eighteenth century. The immaculate white of the vase and the vast glass plants designed by Napoleone Martinuzzi (1892-1977) for celebrated Italian glass company Venini were to provide the inspiration for a new series of works first seen by the public in the 2011 Ewiger Frühling (‘Eternal Spring’) exhibition at the prestigious German Glasmuseum Lette in Coesfeld. Working in close collaboration with her team of Czech glassblowers, Nanning produced many hundreds of different porcelain-like opaque white glass flowers. Over two hundred irregularly shaped stems bearing unfolding flower buds were loosely arranged in blobby vases. (ill. 82) Giant pistils, buds and seed capsules were stuck into polyurethane and polester bases in the shape of pollard willows, while strands of seaweed emerged from coral reef pedestals. (ill. 83) In 2012, a sequel to the exhibition was held at the Design Museum Gent, where Nanning showed around sixty flower and plant-themed objects in glass made especially for the occasion. (ill. 84, 85) In addition to opaque white opal glass, Nanning was now using coloured and entirely gilded glass in lush bouquets arranged in gourdshaped vases. (ill. 86) Glass periodical Neues Glas New Glass saw these gilded objects as ‘also a comment on the desire for extreme luxury for the happy few. It is sometimes so over the top that the viewer is forced to rethink his or her position in relation to decadence.’32 A not implausible conclusion, because – although the natural world has always played a major role in Nanning’s work – it had never before done so quite as explicitly as in these two exhibitions, in which spring went completely mad and the baroque extravagance of the snowball vase was successfully translated into a contemporary form.
117 74 → Verre églomisé, glass/gilded, 2008, executed by AJETO, Lindava/Aleš Zvěřina & AZ-Design, Nový Bor/Vacláv Novák, Doksy, Czech Republic, collection Musée de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains, Lausanne, Switzerland
120 75 Verre églomisé, glass/gilded, 2017, executed by LASVIT AJETO, Lindava/Aleš Zvěřina & AZ-Design, Nový Bor/Vacláv Novák, Doksy, Czech Republic, collection artist, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
121 76 Verre églomisé, glass/gilded, 2018, executed by LASVIT AJETO, Lindava/Aleš Zvěřina & AZ-Design, Nový Bor/Vacláv Novák, Doksy, Czech Republic, collection artist, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
77 → Go with the Flow, verre églomisé, glass/gilded, 2018, executed by LASVIT AJETO, Lindava/ Aleš Zvěřina & AZ-Design, Nový Bor/ Vacláv Novák, Doksy, Czech Republic, collection artist, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
t h e c z ech r ep ub l ic as a gla ssm a ke r’s pa ra di se We have repeatedly seen how important the Czech Republic has been to Nanning as a centre of glassmaking. The country offers not only highly skilled craftsmen and a wide variety of glassmaking materials and techniques, but a rich infrastructure in relation to glass. An example of this is the triennial International Glass Symposium (IGS) that has been held there ever since 1982. The Crystalex glassworks and other glass-related institutions in Nový Bor invite artists and designers to gather in the town and execute their ideas with the assistance of local glassmakers. The event has attracted big names like American glass sculptor Dale Chihuly (b. 1941), Czech-born Dutch artist Bořek Šípek (1949-2016) and Dutch artist Hans van Bentem (b. 1965). In 2012 Nanning was among the participants and was hosted by the Sklárna Slavia glassworks. She was there again in 2018, this time working with Aleš Zvěřina & AZ-Design. The inspiration that Nanning takes away from every visit to the Czech Republic is of inestimable value to her multi-faceted oeuvre, which showcases the great technical skills of the Czech glassblowers.
133 86 Buds, glass/sand/gilded, 2016, executed by AJETO, Lindava/Aleš Zvěřina & AZ-Design, Nový Bor/ Vacláv Novák, Doksy, Czech Republic, collection artist, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
134 87 Firebird, glass, 2018, executed by Vrij Glas, Zaandam/Jiří Pačinek, Lindava/Aleš Zvěřina & AZ-Design, Nový Bor, Czech Republic, 2018, collection artist, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
A r r es t ed m ovement By now it will be clear to the reader that Nanning is unafraid to experiment and tireless in her exploration of the potential of glass as a material. Fascinated by the unexpected shadow effects created by the combination of red, green and blue light, she has been working since 2013 on a series called Coloured Shadows, which was presented in 2016 at Museum Rijswijk. (ill. 31, 33, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42, 46, 47)
Nanning invited Hans Galjaard, Professor Emeritus in human genetics,
to open the exhibition. The invitation was motivated by her interest in the Schoonheid in de Wetenschap (‘Beauty in Science’) exhibition that the geneticist had curated in 2011 at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Nanning saw that exhibition as an endorsement of her new work on the theme of cell division. For Coloured Shadows, she used a multitude of glass threads, varying in pattern, colour and thickness. She started by ‘drawing’ with them, then encased them in clear glass and blew them out to create an irregular interplay of colours spreading over the surface of the glass like blobs of oil on water. (ill. 87) Nanning’s Chimaera series represents a new departure in her oeuvre. Firstly, it is composed of dishes, vases and other objects issued in numbered limited editions. Secondly, it features the use of Alexandrite and Uranium glass: two materials that are now rarely used but have been revived by Nanning because of their mysterious, changeable visual qualities. The sawn and cut facets in the glass produce countless optical effects and give depth to the work. (ill. 89) As Nanning herself says, her aim is ‘to turn shape and colour into a still life. I use sections of coloured glass threads to draw movement – the emergence and continuing process of cell division. Life as an organization of living cells, with the cells growing under conditions of coloured shadow.’33 Major sources 135
136 88 Changeant, glass, 2018, executed by LASVIT AJETO, Lindava/Aleš Zvěřina & AZ-Design, Nový Bor, Czech Republic, private collection
137 89 Chimaera, uranium glass, 2018, executed by Lasvit, AJETO, Lindava/Aleš Zvěřina & AZ-Design, Nový Bor, Czech Republic, 2018, collection artist (left), Aleš Zvěřina, Nový Bor, Czech Republic (middle), Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, Czech Republic (right)