PDF - The Clay Studio

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - MEISSEN, Jan. 10, 2012
LUCHFORD APM, Phone: +44 (0)20 7631 1000
Contact: Lindsay Bancroft and Nigel Rubinstein, London / Great Britain
Email: [email protected] and [email protected]
Chris Antemann’s Forbidden Fruit
MEISSEN® artCAMPUS Hosts the American Artist and A New,
Ambitious Installation Takes Shape
Chris Antemann, Feast of Impropriety 2010
MEISSEN, GERMANY - In May 2010, American artist Chris Antemann received an invitation
from the MEISSEN® artCAMPUS to spend time in the Porcelain Manufactory to explore the
possibilities and develop a project to build in collaboration with the experienced and highly skilled
colleagues at MEISSEN®. It is a dream come true for Antemann, who is known for her fevered
dedication to the material which she uses to build elaborate, multi-figure scenes that celebrate and
pay homage to the cultural intrigues of the 18th Century; she exploits all of the period’s salacious
revelry while simultaneously pulling from the deep history of the oldest and most revered porcelain
house in Europe: MEISSEN®. To say MEISSEN® is to say porcelain, but for Antemann it does not
end there. Her passion goes beyond porcelain as a sculpting material into a specific obsession for
the porcelain figurine, with all its attendant history and untapped narrative potential.
MEISSEN® artCAMPUS
The most important aspect of the MEISSEN Porcelain Manufactory is their uncompromising
loyalty to their tradition, combining the best materials with the extraordinary and indeed unique
craftsmanship, which has made MEISSEN® famous throughout the world for the past 300 years.
-more-
Under the leadership of CEO Dr. Christian
Kurtzke, the MEISSEN® artCAMPUS has
revived the pioneering spirit of its former
Director Max Aldolf Pfeiffer (1920s) and
has so far provided more than 30
contemporary international artists with a
platform for working with MEISSEN®
porcelain and in the process creating
outstanding works of art. The aim is to
establish MEISSEN® as a Mecca of modern
sculptural art in porcelain.
MEISSEN® is well suited for Antemann as
it is the birthplace of the porcelain figurine
that has fuelled her work for more than a
decade. The first MEISSEN® figurines were
developed by Johann Kaendler the most
prolific and renowned of the Porcelain
Manufactory’s sculptors. Realizing that the American artist Chris Antemann working on “Good Help is
charming sugar figures adorning the Hard to Find” at MEISSEN’s artCAMPUS in 2011.
decadent banquets were
discarded as part of the meal’s detritus,
Kaendler began to create figures of porcelain, which could be collected and used repeatedly for
various dining themes.
Chris Antemann & Her Forbidden Fruit: A Porcelain Paradise
After spending three months experimenting and planning her most arduous work to date, Antemann
has begun to tackle her first installation with the MEISSEN® artCAMPUS. Forbidden Fruit will be
a contemporary twist on a period room with a celebration of the 18th Century banqueting craze in
the middle of it. A banquet was not simply a dinner, it was a necessary social construct abundant
with rare delicacies, thematic sugared centrepieces, powered wigs above painted faces and of
course, porcelain. In Antemann’s version, mirrored walls will reflect a new narrative told through
the humour and grace of her one-of-a-kind figurines in a setting that quotes the curvature of
porcelain ornaments and delicately painted details from the heyday of banquets and decadence.
With a team of master craftspeople at her side to assist her in any way she needs, Antemann
anticipates this new project will take at 9-10 months to bring to completion. The first installation
of Forbidden Fruit will be unveiled in the Museum of MEISSEN® Art in September 2012.
Further information and photographs (free of charge) available from: LUCHFORD APM
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7631 1000, Contact: Lindsay Bancroft and Nigel Rubinstein, London / Great
Britain, Email: [email protected] and [email protected]
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