Emmanuel Boos (DE/FR)

In his exhibition Impromptus, which is held in two different exhibition venues, Emmanuel Boos works with porcelain, a material which has a particular status due to its whiteness and refinement. It’s as if porcelain had undergone an alchemic process by which mud had been turned into white gold, and therefore it didn’t really belong to anything earth-related anymore. This is a vain and nonsensical claim. Porcelain is indeed white mud and porcelain studios are just as dirty as those of stoneware potters. Everything is covered in splashes and dust. Everything – the tools, the kilns – becomes a shade of yellow, of red even. Iron is always there, too, and this proximity with porcelain which seemed to have banished it astonishes me. So I use it. My porcelain is sometimes stained with ochre and the glazes I have developed for this exhibition are all iron-based: tenmoku, kaki and celadon. But my alchemy also happens in reverse. I throw my stones up in the air, but I also attempt to magnify their fall and crush in the hope of obtaining a delicate and wonderful balance between the sky and earth.

16. Peter Kammermann

Rue Saint-Victor 21
1227 Carouge
022 300 17 27
www.peterkammermann.ch