Exhibition "Ceramics, sensitive bodies"

The neck of a vase, its belly, its heel, its base, its shoulders, its body are used to describe a shape moulded by the hands of potters, as if talking about a human body. Starting from almost nothing – the earth beneath our feet – ceramics meet our immediate needs.  Like skin, it tells a story and reacts to the slightest variations: the epidermis of the person handling it, the atmosphere of their workshop, the composition of the clay, the temperature of their kiln, its oxygen level, the strength of the flames... 
Omnipresent, malleable by all and virtually inexhaustible, ceramics play a role in our most spiritual beliefs and practices. Painted or engraved, they were decorated from very early on as a way of appropriating useful forms and honouring their contents through the care taken in the motifs. The colours, cracks, glazes and many other effects, whether intentional or accidental, retain an element of the unexpected. When it aims for accuracy, precision and detail, the art of ceramics involves alchemy: knowledge, continuously nourished by observation, repetition of gestures, precision and understanding of tools, lessons learned from failures, but also a form of sensitive intuition. Copper oxide in particular can produce almost any colour, from the palest blue to the blackest red, but only the combination of glaze and fire can create effects with evocative names: hare's fur, partridge's eye, snakeskin, orange peel, mullet's liver or ox's blood...

The exhibition brings together 80 pieces produced on different continents, from the third millennium BCE to the present day, by more than 40 artists. It juxtaposes ancestral practices with contemporary productions, highlighting the permanence of forms, the possibilities of the material and its eminently cultural character. In dialogue with the objects, audio and video archives allow visitors to immerse themselves in the world of these artists and artisans, in their workshops, at their kilns and in close contact with the material.

Curatorship and scenography 
Etienne Tornier and Bérengère Bussioz

Artists represented 
Miquel Barceló; Pierre Bayle; Andrea Branzi; Gisèle Buthod-Garçon; Ernest Chaplet; Claude Champy; Hans Copper; Robert Deblander; Bernard Dejonghe; Xavier Duroselle; Lucio Fontana; Jean Girel; Hella Jongerius; Elisabeth Joulia; Jin Eui Kim; Gabriele Koch; Isabelle Leclerq; Jacqueline and Jean Lerat; Morten Lobner Espersen; Hattori Makiko; Kristin McKirdy; Jonas Moenne; Daniel de Montmollin; Ursula Morley Price; Setsuko Nagasawa; Magdalene Odundo; Suzuki Osamu; Réjean Peytavin; Lucie Rie; Julian Stair; Takayuki Sakiyama; Valentine Schlegel; Colin Chudyk; Ettore Sottsass; Marie Talbot; Studio ThusThat; Matsui Toshio; Guy van Leemput; Seungho Yang

Lenders
National Ceramics Museum, Sèvres - Adrien Dubouché National Museum, Limoges - Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon – Musée Ariana, Geneva – Musée de la Borne, Henrichemont – Design Museum Den Bosh, Netherlands – Musée des Confluences, Lyon – Musée du Louvre, Paris – Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet, Paris – EKWC, Netherlands – Musée national d’art moderne-Centre Pompidou, Paris 

This exhibition has been organised with the support of the Hermès Corporate Foundation.

The museum would want to thank

Hermès Corporate Foundation and partner lenders and institutions