Edmund de Waal - Letters to Camondo

Description

Built in 1911 by Moïse de Camondo and then bequeathed to the French state in memory of his son Nissim who died in combat in 1917, the Nissim de Camondo Museum welcomes for the first time the intervention of a contemporary artist in its spaces. The English artist, ceramist and writer Edmund de Waal has created a series of extremely sensitive and delicate porcelain works for the museum, which are discreetly integrated into this place full of history. A descendant of the Ephrussi dynasty, who had settled in a private mansion in the rue de Monceau a few numbers from that of Moïse de Camondo, Edmund de Waal has created a dialogue between his works and the former occupants of the premises. This exhibition catalog proposes to discover Edmund de Waal's works through photographs of their installation in situ, in order to perceive how they inhabit the space with all their restraint, slipped into the nooks and crannies of the house and even into places inaccessible to the public. The photographs leave plenty of room for the natural light that magnifies the muffled interior of the Camondo Hotel, and allow us to grasp all the mystery that surrounds the vases and these fragile porcelain letters, inspired by China of the Song period or Japan of the Edo era. Sometimes chipped or augmented with gilding in the spirit of kintsugi, which traditionally allows broken porcelain to be repaired with gold leaf or lacquer, Edmund de Waal's ceramics are like discreet steles that accompany the memory of the Camondos and weave unbreakable links between the past and the present. This catalog is a work with a refined layout, which restores the atmosphere of the place and allows us to grasp all the delicacy of Edmund de Waal's intervention at the Nissim de Camondo Museum. The author : Edmund de Waal is an English artist, ceramist and writer. His book La Mémoire retrouvée (Albin Michel, 2010; published in paperback as Le Lièvre aux yeux d'ambre, Flammarion, 2015), which has received numerous literary awards, made him known to the general public. Lettres à Camondo (Les Arts Décoratifs, 2021) collects 58 letters he wrote to Moïse de Camondo. Edmund de Waal is the first contemporary artist invited by the Nissim de Camondo Museum to hold a solo exhibition there.