ADI TOCH - The Scottish Gallery

ADI TO CH
PRESS REVIEW 2012 - 2014
ADI TOCH
PRESS REVIEW
FRONT COVER:
COLLECT 2012 CATALOGUE
PAGE 2 - 5:
CORINNE JULIUS ‘A BOWL IN THE HAND’
CRAFT ARTS INTERNATIONAL 2013
PAGE 7 - 12:
SIR GOODISON & EDMUND DE WAAL ‘THE ART OF CRAFT’
ART QUARTERLY 2013
PAGE 13:
GOLDSMITHS FAIR REVIEW 2012, CRAFT ARTS INTERNATIONAL
PAGE 14:
COLLECT REVIEW, 2013, EVENING STANDARD
PHOTO: SUSSIE AHLBURG
PHOTO: SUSSIE AHLBURG
‘Sound Vessel’, 2009, 18 ct gold solder, stainless steel ball bearings,
Britannia silver, diam. 9 x 7 cm. Goldsmiths’ Company Collection
‘Oil Drizzlers’, 2010, Britannia silver, 8 x 9.5 x 9 cm and 5 x 7.5 x
8 cm. Tallest drizzler in the Goldsmiths’ Company Collection, 2010
A BOWL IN THE HAND
THE TACTILE WORK OF ADI TOCH
Although Adi Toch can seem almost obsessive in her
meticulous finishing of metallic vessels, fluidity, pattern and
sound play a crucial role in her intriguing double-skinned
“Tactile Series”. Profile by Corinne Julius.
impels the viewer to pick it up. Unlike some contemporary silver which is angular and challenging, Toch’s
work is sensuous and sinuous, warm and somehow comforting. It is compellingly tactile. ‘I like to provoke interactions. My work needs to be handled to come to life,’ she
says. Her pieces express a very personal voice, distinct from
the current wave of hammered and rippled forms beloved
by many silversmiths. Tactility is a major preoccupation
that she explores not only through form but by filling her
‘Passage’, 2012,
patina on silver-plated
brass, diam. 23 x 11 cm
Craft Arts International No.89, 2013
rounded, smooth vessels, that somewhat resemble rather
elegant donuts with bases, with sand, tiny gemstones, pearls
or oil. The contents can be seen, felt and heard, but never
emptied or spilt. This is mesmerising and contemplative,
whilst at the same time intriguing and provoking. ‘I enjoy
the process of creating vessels and containers because it
allows me to work both with metal and space as materials,
redefining borders between inside and outside. My work
invites the observer to touch, play and discover hidden
spaces and unexpected motion. I try to create contemplative
PHOTO: SUSSIE AHLBURG
T
HERE is something about Adi Toch’s metalwork that
63
THE
ART OF
CRAFT
Britain’s leading ceramic
artist Edmund de Waal talks
craft and connoisseurship
with philanthropist Nicholas
Goodison, to celebrate the
Nicholas and Judith Goodison
collection at the Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge, and
to mark this year’s Collect
fair. Portrait by Phil Sayer
Sitting with Sir Nicholas Goodison in the pale
winter light of a December afternoon I keep being distracted by the arms of my chair. We are in
his drawing-room, either side of a handsome
desk on which three sculptures in glass are
placed in conversation, and he is telling me how
these chairs were made and why they were
made. And he is fired up. I must look at the proportions of the chair, the way in which the joints
work, the choice of wood, the quality of the
grain. And then look at the influence of Chinese and Korean furniture on these English
chairs, their unusual balance. I must get up and
sit down again to realise just how remarkable
they are. They are the work of Alan Peters, a cabinet-maker whose career spanned the post-war
period, and I am in the company of an evangelical collector, patron and public supporter of the
arts. I do as I am told.
This is the essential Nicholas. He may have
been involved with almost every cultural body
of any consequence – inter alia the Courtauld,
The Burlington Magazine, the Fitzwilliam,
ENO, the National Heritage Memorial Fund
and, of course, the Art Fund – written reports
for government on the funding of museums, on
archives, on heritage; but he is a straightforward
and down-to-earth believer in contact with the
arts he loves. Institutions matter because they
safeguard values, but they are only the vehicle:
he wants you to see, to hear or to pick up and
handle the things that he cares about.
A tremendous example of this is his advocacy
for the crafts. Nicholas is a familiar figure in
studios and at exhibitions, a tall form stooping
40 Spring 2013 Art Quarterly
Above: Nicholas Goodison (left)
and Edmund de Waal in conversation.
The chairs are designed by
Alan Peters, and the glass work
on the table by Colin Reid
Art Quarterly Spring 2013 41