The Ghosts of Sunday Morning

nai010 publishers

50 Years of European Ceramic Work Centre (EKWC)

The Ghosts of Sunday Morning

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The Ghosts of Sunday Morning The European Ceramic Work Centre (EKWC) and Design Museum Den Bosch are from the same generation and have a long shared history. Both institutions have led a somewhat restless existence. The EKWC was founded in 1969 and was renamed Sundaymorning@EKWC in 2011.

The forerunner to our museum existed at the time as a study collection of ceramics and was housed in an official museum 15 years later. The EKWC began in Heusden, was long based in Den Bosch and made a new start, after winning a battle for funding, in a ­beautiful location in Oisterwijk.

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by Timo de Rijk

The Design Museum was first called Museum het Kruithuis and housed in the seventeenth-century military building of the same name, after which, following several temporary accommodations, it found a home in the present new-build premises in the Museum Quarter.

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In spite of their tumultuous history, both institutions were always in each other’s field of vision; at times things were quiet between them, at others their collaboration was intimate and inspired. Always there was an alliance based on an artistic vision of the production of ceramics. This alliance began in a period of liberation for ceramics. On the one hand, ceramics became distinct from applied art and lay claim, via the Studio Movement, to an artistic place of its own. On the other, free ceramics became emancipated within the visual arts, where painting came to be seen less and less as the highest art form. The EKWC and Design Museum Den Bosch belong side by side in this process and reinforce each other. Sundaymorning@EKWC makes; the museum collects and shows.

As such, the Design Museum Den Bosch seems the ideal place to show and understand the history of the 50-year-old EKWC. Yet this challenge is trickier than it seemed. For which history, which historical overview, which story does the museum want to show? That of the buildings and the people who worked there? Certainly, but better still that of the artists, the designers and the products. Even of these, however, no clearcut history exists. Any potential selection from the thousands of projects the EKWC produced is arbitrary and fails to do justice to the cultural significance of the EKWC and its relationship with the museum.

EKWC director Ranti Tjan and I quickly realized that this challenge could best be resolved by asking an outsider to tell the history of the EKWC from a new and refreshing point of view, with an eye to the interesting relationship between workshop and museum. It was immediately obvious to us who should do this: Glenn Adamson. Only his 13

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availability and his willingness were still up in the air. Adamson is the world’s most important craft curator, and he immediately agreed. He made his name with trendsetting publications on craft, and following appointments at the V&A Museum in London and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, he has become a curator of international authority who produces exhibitions and gives lectures all over the world.

We were even more enthusiastic when Glenn presented his plan for ‘The Ghosts of Sunday Morning’. The central idea of the exhibition and this publication is to recreate, at scale, a selection of works from 50 years of EKWC history. The final objects are not historical remnants; instead they function as reflections of this history. In an unexpected and ingenious way, the project plays with the question of what an original object is, which story the object tells in a museum and what the relationship between a place of making and a museum exhibition hall is. Initially, however, all of this existed only on paper. It is thanks to the incredible skill and effort of the people at the EKWC that the objects for this exhibition, the Ghosts, could actually be produced.

To make this project possible, highly appreciated contributions came from the North Brabant Prince Bernhard Culture Fund and the Creative Industries Fund NL, for which I wish to express my heartfelt thanks. I am also keen to thank, on behalf of Ranti Tjan and the entire EKWC as well, Glenn Adamson for his dedication and beautiful ideas. And finally, on behalf of the museum, I wish to congratulate the European Ceramic Work Centre on its anniversary.

Timo de Rijk Director, Design Museum Den Bosch

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The Ghosts of Sunday Morning When an artist submits an application for residency at the European Ceramic Work Centre, the first people to evaluate it are the advisors. This is a team of skilled makers, currently six in number: Sander Alblas, Froukje van Baren, Katrin Kรถnig, Peter Oltheten, Marianne Peijnenburg and Pierluigi Pompei. They carefully review the submissions, setting to one side the projects that seem wildly improbable, hard to understand or impossible to realize. They mark this pile: highest priority for acceptance.

by Glenn Adamson 19

enterprising director of the Design Museum Den Bosch.

The Centre’s greatest asset has always been its own extraordinary productive capabilities: Why not ask the current staff to remake past works? This would allow us to represent the achievements of Sundaymorning@EKWC while putting the spotlight on the advisors, right where I wanted it.

They agreed. With some assistance from a team of supporting technicians and interns, the six advisors would be asked to recreate more than 30 works, each one the original conception of a past artist resident.

But these would not be literal copies. That would be impossible, in purely practical terms. In many cases, we would not have the original work of art to refer to, and the advisors would instead have to base their own creation on a single photo, perhaps inferring its overall three-dimensional shape from an image showing only one side. In any case, none of us wanted to mimetically reproduce an artist’s work. That would trespass to a degree on their authorship, precisely the conclusion that Sundaymorning@EKWC aims to avoid at all costs. The advisors’ recreations would be new things in the world, portraits of past works, not duplicates.

As the conversation proceeded, we decided to further emphasize this quality of interpretive transformation by adopting two rules. First, the recreations would all be made in a single material: white stoneware clay. This would lend the display a visual coherence, and equally importantly, would convey the idea that these objects had only partially returned from the past. We began calling them ‘ghosts’. This approach seemed appropriate not only to the occasion of an anniversary, but also to the character of the medium. Fired ceramics have a somewhat haunted quality, in the way that they preserve for all time quick and incidental occurrences – a maker’s fingerprints, the inscribed line of a tool, the slump of the clay itself.

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The second rule had to do with scale. We were presented with a dilemma: the works to be re-created were highly various in size.

Some were very large. In some cases, we did not have precise dimensions. So how big should these ‘ghosts’ be? The advisors themselves came up with a brilliant solution: they would use exactly the same amount of clay, 50 pounds before drying and firing, to make each work. Though this regulated the task, it also introduced a fascinating wildcard. Objects made of solid clay would of course be smaller than ones that are hollow-cast. A small functional object, like a cup or a piece of jewellery, would become gargantuan; monumental sculptures would be reduced to table-top size. This solution also placed great emphasis on materiality, a principle subject of the show. The consistency in terms of quantity gave the project another interesting angle: it would be a physical demonstration of the myriad things one can accomplish with a given amount of clay.

With the two guidelines in place, the advisors set to work, displaying their customary energy and hyper-competency. They subjected the stoneware clay to a huge diversity of processes: wheel throwing, sculpting, mould making and casting, coiling, slab building, 3D printing, CNC carving. When each piece was completed, the white coat was applied, sheathing its surface particularities, making it a recognizable member of our spectral family. Then it was fired, rendering it – what? A sculpture of a sculpture? A reverse prototype? A miniature monument? A large-scale souvenir? It’s hard to say. Together, however they would constitute a memory-tour of Sundaymorning@ EKWC’s history: a show of absences, made present.

As a curator, I am delighted by the strangeness of these objects. Their status is unclear, as is their authorship, which seems to be shared by the original artists, the advisors and perhaps myself – putting me in the unusual position of a curator who has (perhaps inadvertently) behaved, just this once, like a conceptual artist. Perhaps this is the

a show of absences, made present.

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sort of response that Sundaymorning@EKWC brings out in people.

Come into contact with the place, and your sense of the possible enlarges, to the point where it starts to feel crazy not to take a risk.

The process of making the ghosts involves transformation on several registers. There is of course the original premise: the interpretive reinvention of an existing work of art. Each of the recreations is recognizably based on its original, but the differences are sometimes quite extreme, as great as the difference between a map and a territory. Then there is an associated shift in the advisors’ work. Typically their role involves an imaginative projection of what might be, in the near future. They work closely with the resident artists, who may arrive with only an indeterminate idea of what they want to achieve.

Even in cases where participants do have an extremely detailed plan, there are inevitably surprises, swerves along the creative pathway.

These may come about for technical reasons, or simply because of a realization of new avenues of exploration. In this project, by contrast, the advisors began from an endpoint and worked backward: an already established form, by virtue of the blankness and approximation of the ghosting process, would be devolved into a vaguer condition.

Like anything remembered, the ghosts are less definite than a primary experience. They summon a sense of distance. Indeed, the way that they have grown or diminished in scale seems a nice metaphor for the workings of psychology. For reasons that may well be hard to understand, certain past events or objects may dwell in the mind even though they initially seemed unimportant, attaining an outsized presence in our awareness. Conversely, an encounter that once seemed foundational may, in retrospect, shrink into a minor role in the narrative of the self.

In the making of our phantom objects, there was also, of course, a more fundamental transformation: the transmutation of raw clay into form. This is the bedrock reality of the discipline, and of Sundaymorning@EKWC. And boy oh boy, is it hard to master. Even given the most consistent clays, the best equipment, and the highest levels of skill, all of which exist at the Centre, ceramics are constantly surprising, and not necessarily in a good way. At the point when the work has been formed, its journey is just beginning. First it must be 27

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Collectively, they have made a very deep study of the creative process, and have what might be called ‘a great eye’. That’s the sort of thing one says about curators, of course. It interests me to consider the possibility that, as much as I had inadvertently positioned myself in a quasi-artistic role, the advisors might have assumed some of the curatorial role I am used to playing. To which all I can say is: fair enough. Ever since its founding, Sundaymorning@EKWC has been a group enterprise, and the secret to any successful group is an ability to see itself as more than the sum of its own parts. This ne­cessarily means that each participant must, from time to time, yield their authority. They’ll only do that if they have confidence that, eventually, they’ll be glad they did.

In a very short space of time – like most people who come into contact with the Centre – I have come to feel deeply a part of it, and touched by its very particular magic. To be totally honest, this project is something I tossed lightly into the air, not knowing where it would land. I feel that I did very little – certainly in comparison with the advisors, who are always so in demand, yet somehow found the time to take on this heroic and collective act of making. This was conceived as an exhibition of and for the advisors. Ultimately, it’s become an exhibition by the advisors, too. Whatever this project is, they are its true authors. I am willing to take credit for only one thing: I knew they had it in them.

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Interview with the advisors

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Glenn: Let’s begin with introductions. Can each of you tell me something of your background and how you came to Sundaymorning@EKWC? Peter, let’s start with you, as you’ve been here the longest.

Peter: I came in 1988, but actually I started as a little boy, digging in the earth. I figured clay out for myself: built my own wheels, then my own kilns. I made a lot of mistakes – very good mistakes, if you make them once. I worked for myself, too, in a little workshop – I didn’t make a living from it.

So I also worked at a factory, for four years.

Mobach, in Utrecht. It’s a little factory, but they make handbuilt pieces, everything is either wheel-thrown or slab-built.

Glenn: What was the Centre like when you arrived?

Peter: Then it was only the Ceramic Work Centre – no ‘European’ in the name – and it was in Heusden. I’d read about it. At that time I also worked at the art school in Breda, St. Joost, and I was in good contact with the leader of the Workshop. We bought things together, like pigments, clay or special tools.

We could exchange tools if we needed. Then there came an advertisement in the newspaper: we’re going to build the European Ceramic Work Centre. At that moment, at the art school, ceramics was really going down. I had only four students. That was no future for me, so I thought: ‘I have to take my chance.’ I went to the director and ‘put my foot between the door’, as we say in Dutch, and I said: ‘If you want to build this centre you cannot do it without me. You cannot go around me.’

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Glenn: In other words: ‘I have to be part of it.’ And later the Centre moved to Den Bosch, and in 2014, here to Oisterwijk. Can you briefly say what the transformation of the organization has been over that time?

Peter: So, I had my foot in the door and they accepted me, first for one afternoon a week, just to do maintenance, and then after three months they said: ‘Okay, can you come for four days a week?’ So I did that. At the end of the 1980s we started a different policy; he invited artists, not only the ceramicists from art school, but also artists, like sculptors or painters. And the work improved in quality, I think, by asking these artists in. So that was the first change, and then we moved to Den Bosch. Xavier Toubes, he was our artistic director at that time. It was a very nice facility there, very good. Then in 2012 the government cut our money supply. So we had to do something. Director Ranti Tjan came up with the strategy to move again, and he asked: ‘Do you want to continue with me?’ And we came to Oisterwijk.

Glenn: And here we are.

Peter: Here we are, yes.

Glenn: I understand you have a kind of leadership position on the team here, because of your seniority.

Peter: Officially I’m head of the workshop. But I try not to be. I try to decide together with the other staff members, because if you do that, you have a team. If you’re the head of the team and always make the decisions, then it could work against you. I believe very strongly in that process, and I know that they all appreciate it.

Glenn: Before we go any further with the story, perhaps the others could introduce themselves.

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Froukje: I came to the ceramic field at an advanced age (laughs). I was raised in France, and my first degree was as a ‘technicien supérieur en Mesures Physiques’.

I wouldn’t know the exact translation for that, but it involved technical and engineering methods for measuring things, in all kind of fields: electricity, mechanics, some chemistry as well. This turned out to be quite useful later for glazing theory. In my mid-thirties I followed a course at the SBB (Stichting ter Bevordering Beroepsopleidingen) in Gouda, learning how to throw, handbuild, and the fundamentals of glaze theory. I realized this wouldn’t give me enough training in the field, so alongside my regular job in social welfare, I applied for an internship at a ceramic enterprise called SteenGoed in Amsterdam. This had a dual purpose: giving psychiatric patients a professional working environment, and producing ceramics for several clients. After a few months this became my main job. I was employed as a production supervisor,

PETER OLTHETEN

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PIERLUIGI POMPEI

also working with the psychiatric

was to come to Sundaymorning@

clients/patients. I’ve been working

EKWC as an artist in residence

here at the Centre for twelve and

when I finished school; eventually

a half years now. I’m most often

I succeeded, in 2006. I did a three-

asked for assistance with glazing,

month residency and I must say

but I also tend to give advice on

I learned a lot, although I had a

making and drying.

good background in making – my education in Rome was pretty tra-

Pierluigi: I’m a sculptor. I studied

ditional, so I knew about making

in Rome, and after I graduated I

moulds and stuff like that, but not

came to the Netherlands to, let’s

specifically for ceramics. Then I

say, modernize my practice. I was

did a second residency for a pro-

very curious about changing the

ject called Brick, a collaboration

traditional background I had, so

among designers, architects and

I studied here in the Netherlands

artists initiated by Koos de Jong.

and then decided to stay, because

And slowly I developed a good

I found the artistic climate very

connection with the colleagues

interesting. I studied at the Royal

here. Somehow we had the feeling

Academy in the Hague, then

that we could work together. So

started my career. My ambition

I was asked in to replace people 48

FROUKJE VAN BAREN

when they were ill, or were on maternity leave. Slowly I became part of the team, almost on a regular basis.

And then in 2015 Ranti asked me to become a permanent member of the team. Parallel to all this, I also teach at the Design Academy in Eindhoven and do some guest teaching at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, the Royal Academy in The Hague and the St. Lucas Academy of Fine Arts, Ghent.

Glenn: And you’re still active as a sculptor.

Pierluigi: Yes. I must say that lately, I’ve spent a lot of time on education and Sundaymorning@EKWC, so I’m a little bit less active as an artist. But I think it’s a kind of flow, because already my hands are itching. I need to make new work. So I had a kind of creative rest this past year, and now I’ll find a balance between the two again.

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Timeline 50 years EKWC

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Establishment of

Subsidies are received

Opening of exhibition

Official opening of the

Keramiek Werkcentrum

from the Ministry of

ceramics collection

KWC Heusden by

(KWC) Heusden,

Public Works, the

KWC, organized

Mr. J. Willems,

postal address at

Heusden Municipality

in Commiezenhuis,

representative of the

Museum Boijmans

and the province of

Heusden.

province of North

Van Beuningen,

North Brabant for the

Rotterdam. From the

purchase and restora-

Memorandum of

tion of three monu-

Association: ‘Promoting

mental townhouses in

the integration of the

Heusden.

Brabant.

artist and his art in social life by opening a research and experimental ceramic work centre for the entire art world. Means: make available a modern well-equipped ceramics workspace; perform public relations work; make living and living space available.’

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Short note about the

Exhibition Jan

Exhibition on the

‘Heusden (the

future of the KWC:

Oosterman, founder

occasion of ten years

Netherlands) meets

‘Taking on develop-

of the KWC. First

of participants in the

Heusden (Belgium)’;

ments’ by Marja Hooft,

venue: KWC Heusden;

KWC in Heusden.

work from the KWC

Elly van den Bomen

second venue:

First venue: Kultureel

meets work by painters

and Theo Laurentius.

Museum Princessehof,

Sentrum Tilburg;

from Heusden, Belgium.

Leeuwarden.

second venue: Stedelijk

Concept by Director

Museum Schiedam;

Hans van Wijck for

third venue: Museum

new setup of sym-

Waterland, Purmerend.

posiums: ‘We’re not

Between 1973 and

looking for ceramicists

1983, 120 participants

with a holy awe for

completed a work

the material and

period at the KWC.

hysterical ideas about economical firing or going back to nature.

We will be inviting people with innovative ideas and qualities.

Who speak out and do not shy away from technical and aesthetic challenges that are clever. The emphasis is on ground-breaking and art-innovative principles.’

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Move from Den Bosch

Official opening of the

Start of collaboration

‘Cool Ceramic Hunt’:

to Oisterwijk. The

Almystraat 10 building,

with the eight most

international trend

Oisterwijk venue

Oisterwijk, by Minister

important ceramics

research by Carl

offers 5,000 m2,

Jet Bussemaker.

residencies in China,

Rohde on the devel-

Japan, Korea, Taiwan

opment of tableware.

including 16 studio’s, 17 guestrooms, two

The minister grants the

and England. Exchange

Commissioned by

galleries for visitors to

Centre a four-year sub-

of participants and staff

Sundaymorning@

see the results of the

sidy. Sundaymorning@

members.

EKWC.

residencies and space

EKWC is the only insti-

to engage in student

tute in the Netherlands

Province of North

projects. Fontys Tilburg,

to not receive subsidy

Brabant includes the

HKU Utrecht, Design

in 2013 and then, one

centre in the Basic

Academy Eindhoven

term later, to receive

Infrastructure of the

and St. Lucas Boxtel

funds from the Cultural

province.

regularly use the

Basic Infrastructure of

facilities.

the state.

Publication of Nick Renshaw’s book: DEMYSTIFIED The European Ceramic Workcentre as Centre of Excellence Exhibition ‘Urnen’, with GICB, Korea.

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Sundaymorning@ EKWC acquires the building in Oisterwijk from the province of North Brabant.

Start of jubilee year 2019, to commemorate Sundaymorning@ EKWC’s fiftieth anniversary with exhibitions in Den Bosch, The Hague, Amsterdam, Heusden and Tilburg, a residency programme in Jingdezhen, China, and a traveling exhibition in China.

Opening of EKWC store in Jingdezhen.

‘Ghosts of Sunday Morning’: exhibition in Design Museum Den Bosch on the occasion of 50 years EKWC.

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HELLA JONGERIUS, LONG NECK AND GROOVE BOTTLES, 2000

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BABS HAENEN, GÖNGSHI-THE SILK ROAD, 2015-16

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Colophon This book was published on the occasion of the 50 years anniversary of Sundaymorning@EKWC and the forthcoming exhibition ‘The Ghosts of Sunday Morning’ in Design Museum Den Bosch (2 March -19 May 2019).

Text: Glenn Adamson

Thanks to: Creative Industries Fund NL, Timo de Rijk,

Copy editing: D’Laine Camp

Fredric Baas, Marte Rodenburg, Sundaymorning@EKWC

Design: Trapped in Suburbia

workshop team: Sander Alblas, Froukje van Baren,

Photography: Rudi Klumpkens,

Rinke Joosten, Katrin Konig, Tjalling Mulder,

Leonie Oomen (p. 40, bottom; p.78)

Pierluigi Pompei, Peter Oltheten, Marianne Peijnenburg.

Printing: UNICUM | By Gianotten, Tilburg Paper: Magno Matt 135 gr Publisher: Milou van Lieshout, nai010 publishers, Rotterdam

© 2019 nai010 publishers, Rotterdam.

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In 2019, the storied European Ceramic Work Centre (EKWC) celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. Sculptors, architects, designers and others have realized their (sometimes crazy) dreams at EKWC, relying on the expert technicians and world-class facility there. Today, rebranded as Sundaymorning@EKWC, it remains one of the most exciting places in the world for the encounter between workmanship, art, engineering and the imagination. To take a measure of this history and capture its spirit, nearly 30 ‘ghosts’ from EKWC’s past, each the creation of different alumni, are recreated by the current team of workshop specialists.

The Ghosts of Sunday Morning accompanies the exhibition of the same name in Design Museum Den Bosch and is a beguiling overlay of present and past, with an essay by curator Glenn Adamson and an interview with the team of experts. It voices the various artists and technicians whose lives and work have been impacted, past and present. The book also includes a timeline and commissioned photography of the white stoneware ghosts and the current facility in Oisterwijk.

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