A Garden of Earthly Delights
2024, clay, porcelain, ceramics glaze, fiberboard, graphite
A Garden of Earthly Delights was made for the third edition of the group exhibition Paths of Glory at B74 — Raum für Kunst, in Lucerne. In the two previous exhibitions the artists Hansjürg Buchmeier, Marcel Glanzmann, and Charles Moser were inspired by Stanley Kubrick's legendary anti-war film Paths of Glory (1957). They invited Miranda Fierz, Pearlie Frisch and Guy Markowitsch to participate in this edition. The artists shed light from different perspectives through painting, sculpture, object, video, and installation as they illuminate different facets of glory and violence.
A Garden of Earthly Delights are ceramic objects placed on a dark wooden structure. The ambivalent objects of this contemporary garden of pleasure can be gently comforting sitting in one’s hands, yet serve as deadly weapons — paradise and hell. The metallic-looking surfaces are in a similar state of uncertainty: The glaze consists of crushed stones that the artist collected at the Dead Sea. The objects are reminiscent of archaeological finds. They also look like creatures that have emerged out of the strange building, either swarming out from it or gathering inside.
The artist has painted the wooden construction with graphite by hand, which makes the surface of the structure shiny.