Edmund de Waal - Irrkunst

Porcelain is the passion of English artist Edmund de Waal (*1964). He creates delicate vessels and shards that he places in vitrines intricately designed for the purpose. The porcelain pieces are charged with the sensibility of their making, hard as stone yet extremely fragile. Alone or in groups, they become protagonists in a dialog between remembrance and archived history. For his exhibition at both venues of Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin, de Waal followed the spirit of Walter Benjamin, whose writings had rst introduced the artist to the city. The title, Irrkunst, goes back to Benjamin's concept of an art of getting lost. In the exhibition spaces in Bleibtreustrasse - you can see Benjamin's former school from the winter garden - de Waal's works refer to the author's childhood and his passion for collecting and archiving things as a form of remembrance. Meanwhile the spaces in Goethestrasse - a former post office - are suffused with both a sense of loss and departure. Here the work that lends the exhibition its title looms like a dark barrier cutting through the room, a powerful behemoth overshadowing the lives of the porcelain objects. A luminous library with writings by and about Benjamin, a large table, stationery, and a historic map of Berlin offers a space for writing down the experience and drawing up plans. This publication brings together all works from the exhibition and thus itself becomes an archival object for the exchange of different experiences.