Timelapse video of the decoration of room 18, the Delft blue room, and installation of my ceramic scale model of Delft in 1649 at Museum Prinsenhof, Delft. You can see me work on the installation from 2:07 till 2.26 (the finishing touch).
This week the last parts of my Ceramic scale Model of the city centre of Delft came out of the kiln.
I have just installed it in the museum.
The scale model was commisioned by Museum Het Prinsenhof and is based on the 1649 map of Delft by Joan Blaeu. It is made from ceramics with Engobe and the size is approximately 2 x 3 meters, and 5 cm height. Interesting details: It is made in 61 parts, and I used about 500 kilo of clay to make the piece.
When you look in the binoculars you see beautiful animated short movies on the history of Delft as a ceramic city, about potters and the ceramic proces of making Delftware.
The scale model is going on display in the newly renovated Museum.
The grand reopening of the Museum is on May 23rd by His Majesty the King Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands.
http://prinsenhof-delft.nl/
I did not have much time to paint the last few months because of my Monumental city of Delft (1649) 2 x 3 meter ceramic scale model commission and the exhibition in Dongguan China. But I managed to finish the painting. In collaboration with Studio Buitenhof in The Hague I am producing a high quality print from this new painting, in an edition of 20.
Soon they will be available.
More information will follow.
I just returned from a two weeks visit to Dongguan, China. There I worked on the design and display for the exhibition The Blue Revolution in the Yuan Chonghuan Memorial Park Museum.
I had a great time working together with projectleader Adriaan Rees and the lovely staff of the museum. The first week we mainly worked at the setup of the exhibition, to make photographs that we wanted to use in the catalogue. We finished the design of the catalogue not even a week before the opening of the exhibition. Then it went to the printer and binder to make the first 200 copies. In only one week, incredible fast, that's China.
Some extra information about the exhibition:
The Blue Revolution
This exhibition shows more than 130 pieces of exquisite ceramics, from the collections of Jingdezhen Imperial Porcelain Museum, Museum Prinsenhof Delft, The Archaeological Department Delft, The San Bao Ceramic Museum Jingdezhen and from private collections.
All these pieces, old and new, tell their own intimate story about blue and white porcelain and Delftware and the relationship between the East and the West.
This third edition of The Blue Revolution in Dongguan is divided into 3 parts:
The Hall of Heroes, the transport room and the underwater room.
Specially for this show in Dongguan we developed The Hall of Heroes.
In this room you will find the three heroes of each town.
Yuan Chonghuan from Dongguan is the patriotic hero and famous general from the late Ming Dynasty.
Tong Bin from Jingdezhen, famous potter and master of wind and fire, who gave his life for a special porcelain pot for the emperor .
William of Orange from Delft, who is the founder of The Netherlands and great grandfather of the present King of The Netherlands.
You can also see a world map, with the location of the three cities and the Maritime porcelain connections between the East and the West.
Dongguan, Jingdezhen and Delft are all three world famous cities for trading. Jingdezhen and Delft for their ceramics. Dongguan in recent years because it was one of the first cities that developed as a modern industrial area and production zone for China and the world.
The second room is the transport room
This room gives you an impression about how the ceramics were transported by merchant ships over sea.
It also gives some brief information about the VOC (the Dutch East Indian Company who transported the Chinese porcelain to The Netherlands) and it shows an old map of Delft, with the main excavation sites where old Chinese porcelain and Delftware was found.
The video screen in this room shows short videos about Jingdezhen and Delft and gives short impressions how ceramics are made.
The third room is the underwater room
This is an exciting room where visitors have the feeling to walk around into an underwater world. In ancient times, some of the wooden merchant ships shipwrecked and sank to the bottom of the sea.
These shipwrecks and their expensive cargo are often discovered. The porcelain from these ships are a real treasure. In this room you will find, amongst others, eight shards from the VOC ship ‘Witte Leeuw’ (White Lion), a ship that sank in 1613. These shards are just laying in the sand, next to ceramics made by modern artists from Delft and Jingdezhen and the exquisite porcelain pieces from Jingdezhen Imperial Porcelain Museum.
The Blue Revolution in Dongguan: A witness of the maritime porcelain route.
I am still working on the design for this exhibition at Dongguan Yuan Chonghuan Memorial Park Museum in Dongguan, China.
Very large collages that will be printed and put against the walls as a background for the showcases.
The images depict an underwater world with shipwrecks and ancient and new porcelain.
One of the museum rooms will be the "transport room" about the trade of Chinese porcelain and the influence on Dutch Delfware.
The entrance room of the museum will be the "Hall of heroes". With stories about historical heroes from Delft, Dongguan and Jindezhen.
The exhibition will open at April 24, 2014.
More information:
http://china.nlembassy.org/news/2014/03/blue-revolution.html
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