I visited the Design Museum on 9 June with the class. It was by far one of the most interesting and thought provoking exhibits that I have visited in this year. I truly enjoyed all the pieces that were in the exhibit and the range of media that was presented in Ai Wei Wei’s work

"This field is made up of more than 250,000 porcelain spouts from teapots and wine ewers, crafted by hand during the Song dynasty (960-1279CE). If a pot was not perfect when it was made, the spout was broken off. The quantity here attests to the scale of porcelain production in China even a thousand years ago. Ai is also offering a commentary on freedom of speech, with the spouts-or mouths-having been removed" 

It was extremely interesting to see the scale of this piece compared to the smaller objects in the exhibit. Especially made up of such a small object like a teapot spout, it truly reflected the description that Ai made for this piece. I wondered what would become of this piece once it leaves the exhibition.

This goes hand in hand with the other piece above and was really interesting to see how the spouts looked like individually vs. all piled up together like the previous piece.

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"The largest Lego work Ai has ever created, this is a recreation of one of the most famous paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet... To the right of Ai's version is a dark portal which is the door to the underground dugout in Xinjiang province where Ai and his father, Ai Qing, lived in forced exile in the 1960s. Their hellish desert home punctures the watery paradise. The image has been constructed out of Lego bricks to strip away Monet's brushstrokes in favor of a depersonalized language of industrial parts and colors".

This was my favorite piece in this exhibition, especially being a close comparison to Monet’s own style and work. It made for a much more personal and emotional composition considering the fact that this piece is made entirely out of legos. I loved how large the piece was and how it covered the entire wall of the exhibit, maybe even larger than an original Monet piece. It made me feel small next to the piece, made me feel really small next to the wall of emotions.

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After exploring the Ai Wei Wei exhibit, I explored the rest of the Design Museum and noticed a timeline that mentioned William Morris for 1861. It made me remember the previous museum visit that I made to his gallery and all the pieces that were exhibited as evidence to his contribution to design. This was all tied to the first episode of Genius of Design and how all three of these museums and media are tied together and refer to William Morris.

Right after establishing my idea for Unit 3, I did some more research on Trees of Life, and thanks to my classmate, I also found out that the British Museum had a few trees of life in their collection under the name candelabrums (candelabras in Spanish).

After visiting and looking at their online collection, I discovered that the British Museum has a few candelabras from the most renown Mexican potters in Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, and Metepec. The Castillo family and the Soteno family are most known for their candelabrums that have earned much recognition around the world, not just in Mexico. Both families have been creating their own versions for generations and have passed down the craft to the next generation.

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There are also pieces from Francisco Flores and other pieces that are made by unknown artists but their region is consistently from Puebla and from Metepec. When searching the term candelabrum in the online collection, only 45 results appear, 32 of which are made of ceramic (and are actual Mexican candelabrums).

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https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/search?object=candelabrum

My visit to the William Morris Gallery on the 28/4/23 was shortly after watching ep. 1 of Genius of design.

Both the episode and the museum mentioned and showed examples of Morris’ expertise in wallpapers and his skilled and detailed craftsmanship

“He took patterns from nature and made them into these wonderful, imaginative, white formalised but very simple patterns, very unlikely anything that was around at that particular period in Victorian design”

Genius of Design: Objects of Desire

I was drawn to how detailed these designs were, but was unable to make a copy of my own onto my sketchbook to replicate one of the pieces from the museum. The woodpecker tapestry is one of my favourites with all of its colourful details and depictions of animals, but interestingly enough, the gallery’s website mentions that “by the mid -1880s (around the time of this tapestry) tapestry designs at Morris & Co. were a collaborative effort”, with the exception of this one. The Chrysanthemum piece is also an interesting piece, as you can see that at the bottom, there is a lower portion of the drawing that reveals how Morris drew in pencil over a grid before adding watercolour, which is much different than the other pieces that are fully finished.

My visit to the V&A on 21/4/23 was mostly concentrated on the fourth floor where their large ceramic collection was in. I took evidence of several pieces that I found interesting and recorded what I thought would be influential to my practice during unit 3 and unit 4.

Sketchwork

Influential Piece: Listening to the waves

A piece I found interesting in the contemporary artist collection was this piece called Listening to the Waves by Takayuki Sakiyama in 2022, Japan. This stoneware piece with sand glaze was really beautiful and elegant at the same time, and it was moving to me since it was supposed to mimic the movement of oceanic waves.

"His swirling stoneware vessels evoke the unending rhythm of the waves. The intricately carved exterior and interior are seamlessly joined and finished with a unique sand glaze that he has developed using local materials"

I truly found inspiration in this piece because the artist ties his work to his home and brings such an emotional connection and personal connection to this piece. Without showing and saying too much, he successfully portrays his idea of rhythmic waves to the eyes of the viewer with just the movement and design of his piece.