DEAR CLAY, by Stéphanie Baechler
with work on display
Thursday June 25, 1pm
“Fragile.
Handle with care.
(But do handle.
Touch the surface,
feel its weight pressing into the skin of your hands,
listen to the little noises it makes when scratching it,
holding it.
Traces are there to follow,
to finger,
to form.)”
You are warmly invited to the launch of ‘Dear Clay,’, a book by designer and artist Stéphanie Baechler. Rather than following the usual format of the launch as a great excuse to gather a large friendly crowd around a book, drinks, and conversation, we are proposing you an extended event taking place over the course of three days.
During its regular opening hours, San Serriffe will present ‘Dear Clay,’ along with an exhibition of the same name expanding and activating the content of the publication within the space of the shop. Recorded letters, ceramic works and sketchbooks by the artist will be put into a dialogue with texts by Zoë Dankert and Jan Verwoert.
‘Dear Clay,’ gathers a selection of spreads extracted from Stéphanie Baechler’s meticulous sketchbooks displayed in chronological order (2013–2019), as well as 35mm photographs documenting her working process. Providing an intimate insight into her artistic practice, it reveals what facilitates the work from its conception to its making, transportation, and installation. Rather than presenting it as a final staged object, we see the work as something unpolished, unfinished, in flux.
Parallel to this presentation at San Serriffe, the results of ‘Clay as Thread’, a workshop with kids conducted by Stéphanie will be on display in the windows of fanfare Amsterdam (Da Costakade 154) between the 28th and the 30th of June.
The publication and exhibition ‘Dear Clay,’ are initiated by artist Stéphanie Baechler in collaboration with designers Rudy Guedj and Laura Pappa. The book is published by Building Fictions.
