Fragile

Digital vulnerability 

Noor Nuyten experiments with melting tablet screens and mobile phones. Mapping the resources and raw materials needed to manufacture such devices, Nuyten reminds us of their origins and how dependent we have become on these everyday tools – and hence on the attendant raw materials they require. Presented in the exhibition is a hand-blown ball made from melted iPhones: an ‘offline timer’ that can burst at any moment due to the accumulated internal tension. Artist Rafaël Rozendaal also examines the relationship between the digital and analog worlds with his website-installation Stereo. In an immense projection space he employs elements such as broken mirrors to confront the viewer with controlled algorithms via aspects of our daily lives. 

Political insecurity 

The work of Susanne Khalil Yusef addresses issues of identity, displacement, power dynamics and the political situation in her homeland. Her colourful installation of ceramic heads and glass firearms is set playfully atop a rug patterned after a Palestinian scarf. Behind the whimsy, however, lie gripping references to a moving personal history. With her artworks made of ceramic, glass and neon, Yusef seeks to raise awareness about the suffering of Palestinian people. Illuminated best perhaps, by pink neon lights in handwritten Arabic which read: “We want to live”. 

Resilience and transience 

Also the personal and mental aspects of fragility and vulnerability are explored in this exhibition. In his often humorous ceramic- and glasswork, Koos Buster tackles everyday issues, from trivial annoyances to the great joys of life; revealing his own fragility and daily struggles captioned on ceramic wall tiles. For this show, CODA Museum has assembled the largest collection of his series, decorative plaques of almost everything I don’t like. This series reflects not only on current political themes like arms trading and farmer protests, but also familiar annoyances like dealings with the tax office, the Dutch train services or cafés too hip for their own good. 

Humans and their limitations are the central focus of Chinese artist Geng Xue’s video installation The Name of Gold, on loan from Museum Princessehof. This grand, black and white film is an animated story which takes place in a kind of goldmine, and is made with clay. The black and white colours suggest the opposites of cruelty and humour, reality and illusion, and heaven and earth. The clay figures in this story are hard workers, scarred by trauma, struggle and temptation, but through the use of gold, the artist also lets hope and desire shimmer through. 

Maria Roosen and Gijs Assmann use blown glass or glazed ceramics for their sculptures. Their work plays on inherent contrasts, such as the contradiction between gravity and falling out of balance, the hardness yet fragility of glass, or the opposites of life and death. Included in the series are a number of works from Gijs Assmann’s Vanitas series, each of which is dedicated to a friend or acquaintance. The Vanitas series emerged from a need to capture and manifest the memory of particular people, and in doing so, serves to remind us that everything is transitory; underscoring the certainty that even the subject on whom the sculpture is modelled, will one day die. 

Tim Breukers confronts the viewer with transiency and a world of decomposition with his partially decayed structures and stage sets depicting an apocalyptic world without humans. He chooses to accentuate the fragility of porcelain and ceramic, pushing this to the point of near collapse, effectively building an extreme tension into his sculptures. Breukers has made a new work especially for Fragile in CODA Museum – one linked to his well-known works with red FRAGILE tape. Here it is not used as packaging tape, but to build a fascinating installation. 

In the process of curating Fragile, we considered how and where the visitor might engage in the topics presented. One such opportunity for contemplation is offered in the work of Emmie Liebregts, where visitors can sit absorbed in her egg-shaped installation, listening to the sounds of various people’s ‘frail’ heartbeats. Or the work of Elise ’t Hart invites visitors to reflect on the vulnerability of home life, as they are immersed in the sounds of rattling teacups, all recorded individually. For the artist, the sounds of teacups evoke nostalgic feelings and a comfortable embrace, though this is certainly not the case for everyone. One can bring a piece of music to life by dropping a coin into Jelle Mastenbroek’s porcelain cabinet, triggering the music as it rolls. In addition to the finished artworks on display, CODA is also presenting experiments: the ‘misfirings’ by some of the participating ceramic artists, which typically remain unseen. 

Experimenting with materials 

Apart from the installations and sculptures in Fragile, the show also features applied art and design works such as the famous porcelain and glass Groove Bottles & Long Neck Bottles by Hella Jongerius, made of the two ancient materials of porcelain and glass, which, based on their natural and chemical properties, can never be fused. But Jongerius joins them by way of packing tape printed with FRAGILE, showing us how design can mirror the human condition: which is often one of fragility. 

Programme 

The theme of fragility is also on display in other parts of CODA. In the Showroom of the CODA ExperienceLab there will be a selection of artworks that broach the topic of sustainability and biodegradability. In the Van Reekumzaal space visitors can see fragile or breakable jewellery from CODA’s jewellery collection (from 30 September). Artist and jewellery designer Judith Bloedjes created a new porcelain wall installation for this display. In the central library of CODA, a themed table will be set up to feature poetry and literature that involves the themes of fragility and vulnerability. More information on the programme can be found at www.coda-apeldoorn.nl/agenda. 

Participating artists 

Gijs Assmann (NL, 1966), Tim Breukers (NL, 1985), Koos Buster (NL, 1991), Ellen Deckwitz (NL,1982), Elise ’t Hart (NL, 1991), Olivier van Herpt (NL, 1989), Hella Jongerius (NL, 1963), Susanne Khalil Yusef (DE, 1984), Hans van Koolwijk (NL, 1952), Vytautas Kumža (LT, 1992), Emmie Liebregts (NL, 1996), Jelle Mastenbroek (NL, 1988), Tilmann Meyer-Faje (DE, 1971), Noor Nuyten (NL, 1986), Alexandra Phillips (USA, 1988), Maria Roosen (NL, 1957), Rafaël Rozendaal (NL , 1980), Sarah van Sonsbeeck (NL, 1976) and Geng Xue (CN, 1983). 

The exhibition has been made possible with financial support from the Cultuurfonds and Fonds 21.