La Maladie – 2019
Sailing on a ship in the form of the Swan Service Centerpiece, these figures carefully carry their porcelain treasures in hand. Perched atop crates filled with more porcelain, the figures partake on a journey from a place that creates porcelains to a place whose admiration of porcelain fringes on obsession. If August the Strong, founder of MEISSEN, the first Porcelain Manufactory in Europe, could have hand carried his beloved porcelain vases and platters, I believe he would have done so. La Maladie is a musing on this love for porcelain as well as a parable of the care it takes to transport the objects created from this delicate material.
In his own words, August the Strong suffered from “la maladie de porcelaine,” the porcelain sickness, therefore the ship carries this name.