blue heaven

New

One piece he asked me to choose from thousands: bowls, vases, plates, teapots, installations, wall objects...that had been created under his hands over the past half century. Repetition is a recurring theme, while the material remains the same, porcelain. Within it we see forms determined by their function, but also a play with the material that evokes a world of fantasy with small interventions or color accents in blue.

In the exhibition Uniek en Meervoudig, which we organized in 1991 at the Stedelijk Museum with work by three ceramists who all worked for industry, but also produced unique pieces in their studios, Piet Stockmans showed a small selection of the tableware he made as an industrial designer for Mosa. Most of his presentation, however, consisted of small mass-produced utensils from his own company, which he founded in 1987. One of the most beautiful examples of this for me is the Expression dinnerware, especially the set of interlocking bowls, seven times a perfect hemisphere. Visually and functionally, they form a perfect, playful unity that is further enhanced by the pure white of the porcelain.

In one of the autonomous works, our eyes are led past fragile, character-described sheets that seem to attach themselves to the wall in their flight.

After their story has ended, they can be returned to their boxes and taken to a new location. By painting the porcelain, Stockmans here refers to its history in a very different way.

This allows him as an artist to work freely and autonomously and, in harmony with it, to produce utilitarian ceramics that make original use of their own limitations.

Liesbeth Crommelin Former curator Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam