Visiting the Home
The Forum for Contemporary Ceramics in Halle/Saale, Germany (www.forum-fuer-zeitgenoessische-keramik.de), is located in an early renais- sance building with a barrel-vaulted hall as the main space. Timelessness meets zeitgeist. The gallery’s most recent exhibition “Visiting the Home” features two major works by Marie-Luise Meyer. Upon entering the gallery, the visitor faces a tower of small compartments that could at first appear to be an abstract three-dimensional collage of wallpaper, laminate, and other home furnishing samples. As one approaches, an intricate world of furniture, household items and miscellaneous objects becomes visible, all made of a monochromatic clay. It is a tall dollhouse whose upper floors can only be discovered by using the step stool that is provided. Each compartment seems to have a quite specific function—starting with the basement, loosely filled with broken furniture, a stack of storage jars, a pile of sand; up through the kitchen that strangely has five sinks and a treadmill; to the room with an important collection of hubcaps; and, finally the attic that is the habitat of a herd of wild boars. It is obviously not home to the conventional, yet the question of who might be the owner seems unimportant. Despite all the wealth of inventions, it is not the narrative that is predominant in Dollhouse, but an overall conceptual ambience that questions our designed reality; specifically that the language of objects, rather than their actual necessity or “truth,” makes us believe in their function.
In the second installation, the encounter between the historic space and contemporary creation is a perfect contrast. Aftertaste is a long table loaded with fancy food, installed in the vaulted hall. All the dishes are made of clay and glaze and, at first, look quite tasty. As one discovers the details of the feast, the perfect illusion is interrupted. It is less of an historic tableau than a discussion of food culture. The work refers to the 18th century tradition of display dishes that were meant to be a show of wealth and highlight culinary sophistication on the table of the aristocratic host. Meyer’s dishes show a high degree of technical sophistication and a wealth of humor. Plates are filled with colored clay scrap that looks like a perfect salad or dessert crumble; juice is running off the rim of a tray but turns out to be a drop of glaze and, somehow, the turkey doesn’t feel right. The bird’s wings stick out in a perfect angle, the skin is too smooth, the body too slick. It is more the idea of a turkey than a copy of the real—the genetically modified future of human nutrition?
Meyer has worked on that edge of illusive beauty and perfection throughout her career. Things are never quite what they seem to be. An installation from 2007, a set of flower stalks and buds and dropping glasses suggests an innocent biology lab. It tempts the observer to start to play—to combine these pink petals with those yellow stamens—to create one’s own compound flower and wait to see it bloom. One enters the stage of the bio- engineer without being aware of it. The observer is suddenly caught between the playfulness of creating and the ethical conflict of manipulating life.
Meyer graduated from the University of Art and Design Burg Giebichen- stein in Halle in 1999. Her graduate show, titled “Workshop,” presented a number of objects in a state of metamorphosis between tool and creature, organized on the walls of a sterile white cube with cold artificial light. Even though all the objects were perfectly finished clay sculptures, the installation had a dominant two-dimensional effect, a chart of transformation.
Dollhouse, her most recent work, seems connected with that early instal- lation. The use of a single clay color and the perfect finish intellectualize the sculptural form. Unlike the ongoing metamorphosis in the earlier work, there is a static feeling in the state of affairs of the dollhouse, a status quo. Meyer’s reference is the appearance of miniature interiors in the 18th century when dollhouses were a medium of presentation rather than a playground for children. The scenery was to be discovered or touched only in one’s mind.
Aftertaste is a sensual feast with an explosion of color. Dollhouse, in contrast requires more of an analysis. Each room seems to be specifically designed and purposeful but the intended use of the furnishings and imple- ments go beyond our immediate experience. Some objects can be identified, while others are left to a wandering fantasy. There is no single solution to the purpose and story of this home but temporary insights as one roams the halls. Ultimately it is the language of the making that absorbs and that raises an ironic question about the illusive character of its own perfection. Meyer produces a calculated ambience rather than sensual gestures or spontaneous experiments. Her work marks an important position and tendency in the search for a contemporary language using an old material that is loaded with historic references. It is a pleasure to immerse oneself in her inventiveness.
by Johannes Nagel in Ceramics monthly, March 2010