The New Art Centre has secured another stellar trio of names to lure us to its Wiltshire gallery. Sculptor Anthony Caro is showing a series of mechanical jewellery, ceramicist Edmund de Waal is unveiling a new collection of framed vessels, while artist Camilla Løw is exhibiting her playfully abstract sculptures - all in the Centre’s lofty Roche Court setting.
Caro’s move to jewellery was born from a collaboration with Madrid-based Joyerias Grassy, which began in 2006. The English artist, who has had exhibitions at all the majors - from MoMA to Tate Britain - has long explored the dialogue between sculpture and architecture with his work, and his jewellery collection continues this conversation, albeit on a much more delicate scale. Expect gold and silver pieces with interlocking planes, nuts, bolts and hinges - even a spiral staircase.
Like Caro’s jewellery, de Waal’s creations are small, intricate and initially formed by hand. But the ceramicist’s works are as much about the display as the individual vessels - as seen from his striking installation in the cupola of the ceramics gallery at the V&A, titled ’Signs and Wonders’ (worth a visit in itself).
His new work at the New Art Centre continues his preoccupation with vitrines, which both frame the vessels and mysteriously blur them from the viewer with their panels of glass. Apertures in the vitrines allow in rays of light, which give an occasional glimpse of gold leaf and change the tones of the ceramics throughout the day.
Meanwhile, Norwegian-born Løw’s new collection of sculptures is instilled with her characteristic theatricism. Though grounded by a pole and base, you almost expect each piece to start moving, flexing and dancing, like characters in a play.
Created specifically for the New Art Centre, these are joined by existing sculptures, of the type for which Løw is well known: geometric structures loosely balanced on concrete blocks - a whimsical response to the rigours of Russian Constructivism and American Minimalism.
’Costume’ by Camilla Løw, 2010
