Hubert Kittel

My comment on the  Special Judges Award for Gabriele Hain (Austria)

at The 7th International Ceramics Competition Mino:

“VARIATIONS” 12 VARIATIONS ON ONE FORM

Only after having an exact and intensive view and holding each cup to the light, these twelve small sized cups reveal unusual working treatment and techniques and therefore more or less qualitative changes after the process of firing. The possibilities of interpretation of this work remain deliberated open: they could be containers for the delight of delicacies, or objects of the light, or just esthetical ceramic objects, or miniature sculptures.

The way I see “Twelve variations on one form” is an outstanding, sensitive and at the same time a systematical exploration of the fascination of porcelain, seen as material and medium. Those experimental studies on porcelain show a high developed, refined repertoire of possibilities of manipulation. The mechanical reduction of the wall thickness, the partial perforation up to radical cuts (what means a reduction up to a skeleton of the cup) as well as the specific linear and two-dimensional coating with colourful paste or glaze brings a fine additional, provocative play of the force of tensions during the process of firing and shrinkage. The already thin casted cups (Limoges porcelain) are transformed by those skilful operations into vessels with a new identity, with a special subtlety and they play with the textures of lightness, transparency, translucence… vulnerability and fragility.

This series of cups show a very high independent conception of studio porcelain, an intimate knowledge of the material, which means a high sensitive perception of the interaction of operation and effect.

Prof. em. Dept. Ceramic and Glass Design

Kunsthochschule Burg Giebichenstein Halle