The intrinsic laws of the ceramic body.
Fortunately, they are still being made; art objects that stimulate fantasy, excite the imagination and invite investigation. Norbèr van Herwaarden appears to have a patent on this. In his ceramic objects he unites extremes. His intriguing, secretive creations challenge the laws of logic. In the Librije, he demonstrated his primitive talent, originality and inventiveness with several life-sized ceramic designs. The word object falls short when typifying his unusual constructions, which manifest themselves as ceramic bodies.
Seemingly without effort, Van Herwaarden builds a bridge between disciplines. He connects classic furniture, timeless design ,untraceable ornaments with an instrumentarium. The discoveries are maddenly beautiful, unpredictable and never insistently present. In the midst of the temperate mechanical violence the esthetic qualities of the objects remain effortlessly intact. The sole objection attached to the ceramic bodies is that they make people want to possess them. Who doesn’t want a wind cabinet, water circulator or projection canon at home that conjures up the wildest associations? Memories of laboratories, autopsy tables, secret hiding places, time machines and unexplainable misleading of the senses can be called up at any time.
With the aid of temperature differences, light intensities and streams of water, Van Herwaarden has blown into his objects a life in which they respond to their own laws that turn a confrontation with the viewer into an unexpected adventure. An important role is played by the timeless design and ingenious combination of materials.
One of the interactive objects, the so-called Lung Chest, was specially designed by Norbèr van Herwaarden as a display case for his sister Caren’s watercolours. Not only do her transparent watercolours blow membrane-thin on the sultry wind in the cupboard, but are also exposed elsewhere in the Librije.
While Norbèr breathes life into soul-less things, Caren penetrates through to the bone of amorphous, formless human and animal bodies. In combination with the willful transplantation of an auto-reverse cassette deck, frequency/time mechanism, heating elements and an air compressor in ceramic, art forms the brief from which human masses make a warm plea to the power of fantasy.
WIM VAN DER BEEK