metamorphosen, I
12 porcelain vessels, 3 tin boxes, 5 Cor-Ten steel pieces and 1 porcelain shard in an aluminium, wood and plexiglass vitrine
2017-
About the work
- Location
-
Country: Austria
City: Vienna
Place: British Embassy
The title of de Waal’s sculpture references Metamorphosen, a score for 23 strings composed by Richard Strauss at the close of the Second World War. Strauss was inspired by Goethe’s work, On the Metamorphosis of Plants (1790), celebrating rebirth and transformation. Alluding to music, the sculpture’s blocks of non-ceramic materials create rhythmic intervals in the work, described by de Waal as, '… moments of pause or recollections of loss'.
In 2019, over 80 years after the Ephrussi family fled Vienna, the Austrian government announced that descendants of those victimised by the Nazis, could reclaim their citizenship. For de Waal’s father, this was a moment of great poignancy. - Explore
-
Details
- Artist
-
Edmund de Waal (1964 - )
- Title
- metamorphosen, I
- Date
- 2017
- Medium
- 12 porcelain vessels, 3 tin boxes, 5 Cor-Ten steel pieces and 1 porcelain shard in an aluminium, wood and plexiglass vitrine
- Dimensions
- height: 170 cm, width: 100 cm, depth: 13.5 cm
- Acquisition
- Presented by the artist, June 2021
- GAC number
- 19013