An Interview with Edmund de Waal

by Berlin Art Link // Dec. 3, 2024

In Kristiansand, Norway, a former grain silo has been converted into an architecturally impressive new art museum—Kunstsilo⁠—housing the world’s largest private collection of Nordic Modern Art. Its debut exhibition pairs contemporary works by British artist and writer Edmund de Waal with pieces by the late modernist ceramicist and sculptor Axel Salto.

De Waal’s works often revolve around themes of memory, diaspora and materiality, while Salto’s draw on the power of nature and metamorphoses. Curated by de Waal under the title ‘Playing with Fire,’ the show presents a selection of Salto’s ceramics from The Tangen Collection at Kunstsilo and the CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art in Denmark. Alongside these celebrated pieces are lesser-known and unseen works on paper, illustrations, writings and textiles, as well as de Waal’s major new installation that offers a contemporary reflection on Salto’s lasting influence.

‘Playing with Fire’ is a conversation between the two practices, highlighting contrasts and connections through clay and text⁠—materials they share in common. We spoke to de Waal about this unique encounter, where two distinct artistic voices resonate across time.

No 20 Illustration, Kunstsilo // Copyright Mestres Waage Arquitectes/Mendoza Partida

Berlin Art Link: What are some of the themes that underpin the works in ‘Playing with Fire’ and the sources of inspiration that helped shape them?

Edmund de Waal: The main point of connection and inspiration is this idea, across time, of talking and being in conversation with another artist who has parallel concerns and passions to me. Someone who died the year I was born, someone I haven’t met but whose work I’ve loved. The heart of this shared passion and concern is the idea of transformation, metamorphosis, of changing one material into another. Axel Salto was a wonderful artist in all kinds of media⁠: he was a painter, graphic artist, textile artist, poet, but also, of course, a great ceramicist, a great potter. That’s my connection with him⁠—metamorphosis and pottery.

‘Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto,’ 2024, installation view at Kunstsilo // © Tor Simen Ulstein

BAL: The exhibition at Kunstsilo is, in fact, a sort of retrospective for you. How did the idea of pairing a comprehensive overview of your work alongside Axel Salto’s come about?

EdW: This is my first exhibition ever in Norway in a museum. Given the scale of Axel Salto’s work⁠, which takes up most of the exhibition⁠, it seemed that it would be an occasion to show some of my own previous work. That’s how the exhibition begins: with an introduction and with this retrospective element, this looking back into my own practice.

‘Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto,’ 2024, installation view at Kunstsilo // © Tor Simen Ulstein

BAL: Could you elaborate on the points of connection and divergence between your body of work and Salto’s?

EdW: The connection is very much through ideas. The idea that any work, which has clay and fire coming together, is an act of danger, of anxiety, of letting something happen that is out of your control. That’s the connection that we explore. The difference is profound. There’s Salto, with all this colour and exuberance and his fantastic deep exploration of great dripping glazes. His forms are full of sprouting organic shapes. My work is much more minimalist. Visually, there couldn’t be two more different ceramic artists. But conceptually, there’s a lot going on between us, a lot of conversation. My hope is that it’s a surprising exhibition. It’s not a conventional museum exhibition where you have a big board up at the beginning saying, this is what you’re going to learn. It’s more of an intuitive, exploratory encounter.

‘Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto,’ 2024, installation view at Kunstsilo // © Tor Simen Ulstein

‘Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto,’ 2024, installation view at Kunstsilo // © Tor Simen Ulstein

BAL: How did you approach this exhibition as the curator? What were some of the guiding ideas and considerations?

EdW: The guiding principle was wanting people to experience the work of Salto⁠—not just read about it, or learn about it, but to experience it. We have all these different settings; first, this great darkened room, where Salto’s masterworks are on display with no glass in front of them. We’ve called it the kiln. It’s a darkened space where you can really get close to the experience of his work. In the other spaces where you find his work, you’re again not being led in a didactic or art historical way. It’s more about bringing together works that have a theme in common, and letting you experience them. The curatorial approach is very much driven by emotion.

BAL: Which specific aspects of Salto’s artistic journey did you aim to highlight or reframe for a contemporary audience?

EdW: The first point is that, excluding a very small circle of people, he is completely unknown within the contemporary world. Some potters will know his work, but very few people have read his poetry or seen his textiles and graphic art. So, in some sense, the reframing is about introducing this extraordinary, significant mid-century artist who has fallen off the map in terms of public recognition of his work. What I want to do is introduce someone who is completely cross-disciplinary, has no anxiety about working across every medium you can find, and is a literary artist as well as a visual artist, which is something that matters enormously to me. And thirdly, he is someone who explores ideas rather than stating them. He goes back, again and again, to themes, images and symbolism, and each time he goes back, he finds something different. This isn’t a one-statement artist; this is someone who deepens his journey into particular themes.

BAL: What role does the written word play in this exhibition?

EdW: The books Salto illustrated and published are there, and his language is on the walls. I wrote a text that also wraps around the exhibition, so you keep hearing me talking to him. The written word is present within the exhibition, but just not in a conventional way. It’s not lots and lots of wall texts. It comes and goes, and you find his words and my words meeting each other.

Exhibition Info

Kunstsilo

‘Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto’
Exhibition: Sept. 27, 2024–Mar. 2, 2025
kunstsilo.no
Sjølystveien 8, 4610 Kristiansand, Norway, click here for map