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ADI TO CH PRESS REVIEW 2012 - 2014

ADI TOCH PRESS REVIEW

FRONT COVER: COLLECT 2012 CATALOGUE PAGE 2 - 5: CORINNE JULIUS ‘A BOWL IN THE HAND’ CRAFT ARTS INTERNATIONAL 2013 PAGE 7 - 12: SIR GOODISON & EDMUND DE WAAL ‘THE ART OF CRAFT’ ART QUARTERLY 2013 PAGE 13: GOLDSMITHS FAIR REVIEW 2012, CRAFT ARTS INTERNATIONAL PAGE 14: COLLECT REVIEW, 2013, EVENING STANDARD

PHOTO: SUSSIE AHLBURG

PHOTO: SUSSIE AHLBURG

‘Sound Vessel’, 2009, 18 ct gold solder, stainless steel ball bearings, Britannia silver, diam. 9 x 7 cm. Goldsmiths’ Company Collection

‘Oil Drizzlers’, 2010, Britannia silver, 8 x 9.5 x 9 cm and 5 x 7.5 x 8 cm. Tallest drizzler in the Goldsmiths’ Company Collection, 2010

A BOWL IN THE HAND THE TACTILE WORK OF ADI TOCH Although Adi Toch can seem almost obsessive in her meticulous finishing of metallic vessels, fluidity, pattern and sound play a crucial role in her intriguing double-skinned “Tactile Series”. Profile by Corinne Julius. impels the viewer to pick it up. Unlike some contemporary silver which is angular and challenging, Toch’s work is sensuous and sinuous, warm and somehow comforting. It is compellingly tactile. ‘I like to provoke interactions. My work needs to be handled to come to life,’ she says. Her pieces express a very personal voice, distinct from the current wave of hammered and rippled forms beloved by many silversmiths. Tactility is a major preoccupation that she explores not only through form but by filling her

‘Passage’, 2012, patina on silver-plated brass, diam. 23 x 11 cm Craft Arts International No.89, 2013

rounded, smooth vessels, that somewhat resemble rather elegant donuts with bases, with sand, tiny gemstones, pearls or oil. The contents can be seen, felt and heard, but never emptied or spilt. This is mesmerising and contemplative, whilst at the same time intriguing and provoking. ‘I enjoy the process of creating vessels and containers because it allows me to work both with metal and space as materials, redefining borders between inside and outside. My work invites the observer to touch, play and discover hidden spaces and unexpected motion. I try to create contemplative

PHOTO: SUSSIE AHLBURG

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HERE is something about Adi Toch’s metalwork that

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THE ART OF CRAFT Britain’s leading ceramic artist Edmund de Waal talks craft and connoisseurship with philanthropist Nicholas Goodison, to celebrate the Nicholas and Judith Goodison collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and to mark this year’s Collect fair. Portrait by Phil Sayer

Sitting with Sir Nicholas Goodison in the pale winter light of a December afternoon I keep being distracted by the arms of my chair. We are in his drawing-room, either side of a handsome desk on which three sculptures in glass are placed in conversation, and he is telling me how these chairs were made and why they were made. And he is fired up. I must look at the proportions of the chair, the way in which the joints work, the choice of wood, the quality of the grain. And then look at the influence of Chinese and Korean furniture on these English chairs, their unusual balance. I must get up and sit down again to realise just how remarkable they are. They are the work of Alan Peters, a cabinet-maker whose career spanned the post-war period, and I am in the company of an evangelical collector, patron and public supporter of the arts. I do as I am told.

This is the essential Nicholas. He may have been involved with almost every cultural body of any consequence – inter alia the Courtauld, The Burlington Magazine, the Fitzwilliam, ENO, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and, of course, the Art Fund – written reports for government on the funding of museums, on archives, on heritage; but he is a straightforward and down-to-earth believer in contact with the arts he loves. Institutions matter because they safeguard values, but they are only the vehicle: he wants you to see, to hear or to pick up and handle the things that he cares about.

A tremendous example of this is his advocacy for the crafts. Nicholas is a familiar figure in studios and at exhibitions, a tall form stooping

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Above: Nicholas Goodison (left) and Edmund de Waal in conversation.

The chairs are designed by Alan Peters, and the glass work on the table by Colin Reid Art Quarterly Spring 2013 41