We congratulate Edmund de Waal on being awarded the Isamu Noguchi Award for 2023. Established in 2014 and presented annually, the award celebrates Noguchi’s legacy by acknowledging artistic excellence in highly accomplished individuals who share his spirit of innovation, imagination and commitment to creativity. 

Marking its landmark tenth year, the Noguchi Museum will host the presentation of the award on Tuesday, 12 September 2023, in recognition of artist and writer Edmund de Waal, artist Theaster Gates, and novelist and editor Hanya Yanagihara.

Isamu Noguchi

Edmund de Waal will be in conversation with Dorothy Cross, Manchán Magal, and Phillipe Sands at this year's Borris House Festival of Writing and Ideas. 2023 marks the eleventh edition of the festival, whose aspiration is to exchange ideas captured in writing of all kinds. Speakers include celebrated historians, activists, musicians, journalists, environmentalists and literary minds, to help navigate uncertain times in an era of misinformation. 

Festival of Writings and Ideas

Ai Weiwei’s first exhibition focusing on design will mix recent works with commissioned pieces, inviting visitors into a meditation on value and humanity, art and activism. This major exhibition at London’s Design Museum, developed in collaboration with the artist, will be the first to present his work as a commentary on design and what it reveals about our changing values. Drawing from material culture, historical Chinese artefacts, and the more recent history of demolition and urban development in China, Ai explores the tension between past and present, hand and machine, construction and destruction. The exhibition will include a number of site-specific installations, comprising hundreds of thousands of objects collected by the artist in the past year, from LEGO bricks to neolithic stone tools. The artist’s largest ever work made out of LEGO will also be on display.

Chief curator at the Design Museum Justin McGuirk expands: ‘[The show includes] things we think of as worthless in ordinary times, something as worthless as a toilet roll, which during the pandemic suddenly became precious… that for him was a real signal of how objects can gain and lose value depending on the context of our times [...] we are not presenting Ai Weiwei as a designer and architect... [but] using his work and his thinking to reflect on design and architecture.’

On Monday, 30 January 2023, the organisation SQUARE will host an in conversation event with Ai Weiwei alongside art market expert Laura Noll and Square director Philippe Narval to discuss his his thought-provoking, socially conscious artwork, and provide insight into his ideas on how art and activism can shape politics and business.Following the discussion attendees will have the opportunity to meet with and speak to Ai Weiwei.

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Ai Weiwei’s new LEGO work, Untitled (Saint George slaying the dragon), is now on view in the Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. Commissioned for the altar of the Benedictine cloister’s conclave chapel, the project reimagines Vittore Carpaccio’s renowned sixteenth century altarpiece Saint George Killing the Dragon, which is usually housed in the chapel but is out on loan until June 2023. Constructed entirely of LEGO bricks, Ai Weiwei’s replacement communicates with the historical and spiritual context in which it is temporarily inserted, drawing a dialogue between the Benedictine tradition and contemporary art. 

The project takes as its title a quote from the Gospel of John inscribed along the frieze of the Chapel: Ego vici mvndvm (In this world you have troubles, but take heart: I have overcome the world!) 16,33. The artist thus establishes a link with the biblical episode represented, a paradigm of a definitive victory of Good over Evil, which can also be considered as an emblem of political and social activism in defence of human rights – a central tenet of the artist’s practice.

Edmund de Waal and Norman McBeath will present their book Perdendosi at the Fitzwilliam Museum, as part of the Cambridge Literary Festival. Referring to the musical term for gradually fading away at the end of a piece, Perdendosi presents a study of leaves at the stage of their transformation when they have lost all colour. Encompassing extraordinary photographs taken by McBeath alongside de Waal’s text Twelve Leaves, the collaborative book provides a heightened awareness and increased sensitivity towards the natural world, offering a fresh perspective on the familiar.

The Fitzwilliam Museum

Edmund de Waal's Atmosphere, 2014, will be included in Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art. The exhibition presents recent work by 23 international artists, ranging from small abstract objects to large-scale installations. By probing the relationship between art and craft, these artists highlight the diverse possibilities of the ceramic medium. De Waal's Atmosphere, an installation consisting of nearly 300 porcelain vessels contained in 9 suspended plexiglass vitrines, is a noteworthy example.

Hayward Gallery

We congratulate Ai Weiwei on being awarded the Praemium Imperiale Prize 2022 by the Japan Art Association.

Praemium Imperiale Prize

In collaboration with the Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore – Benedicti Claustra Onlus, Berengo Studio and Fondazione Berengo, Ai Weiwei will present an array of never before seen glass sculptures as part of a new solo exhibition at the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. Alongside the presentation of works in porcelain, wood, and LEGO, the centrepiece of the exhibition is La Commedia Umana, an enormous hanging sculpture comprised of over 2,000 pieces of black glass handcrafted by the maestros of Berengo Studio in Murano. Measuring more than six metres wide and almost nine metres high, the twisted monument is the largest hanging sculpture ever made in Murano glass in living history. The work is an ‘attempt to talk about death in order to celebrate life’, the artist explains.

Berengo

Ai Weiwei's iconic Arch, 2017, has been installed outside the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm as part of the Brilliant Minds foundation’s public art series in the Swedish capital. The monumental, 40ft tall cage sculpture was first shown in Washington Square Park, New York in 2017. 

Ai Weiwei additionally features among the speakers at the annual Brilliant Minds forum later this year. 

Brilliant Minds

Edmund de Waal’s works are presented in the exhibition The Feuerle Collection Silk Room, on view at the Feuerle Collection in Berlin from 17 September 2022 until Easter 2023.

Curated by the collection’s founder, collector Désiré Feuerle, this exhibition will focus on a selection of recent works by Edmund de Waal, juxtaposed with unseen pieces from the collection.

The idea behind this exhibition is to juxtapose the poetic content of Edmund de Waal’s work and the timeless character of extraordinary Asian achievements from the 6th and 16th century. De Waal is a contemporary artist, but his soul I see in Rembrandt, in the beauty of Italian Renaissance painters, and in historic philosophy. De Waal is a storyteller, who transports you to dark grounds, but also into the beauty of light. For that reason, de Waal’s waves can be found both in ancient Asian art, and in the great achievements of European masters of Wunderkammern, as if these were seen through the eye of a Morandi.  de Waal creates magic imaginary boxes which contain beauty in the eyes of the spectator. Most people would see him linked to porcelain, but I think his creations using porcelain go much further and beyond the feeling porcelain creates in our eyes.

– Désiré Feuerle

Feuerle Collection

Returning to Waddesdon after his 2012 exhibition, Edmund de Waal CBE will present a selection of works at the Rothschild's famed manor. This solo exhibition brings together a curated selection of new and striking pieces, exploring the interconnected relations between faith, history, displacement, learning and archives. Featured prominently are two large scale works, psalm, IV and sukkah. Both of which are set to be exhibited in the National Library of Israel opening early 2023. 

Waddesdon Manor

We congratulate Edmund de Waal on being appointed a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for his outstanding services to the art as a potter and writer.

Edmund de Waal's sculpture stone for two hands and water, 2021 is on view at the Henry Moore Foundation Studio & Gardens from 31 March 2021. The sculpture has been made by the artist as part of the forthcoming exhibition The Living Hands: Edmund de Waal presents Henry Moore at the Henry Moore Foundation. This exhibition is curated by de Waal and is scheduled to open on 19 May 2021.

Henry Moore Foundation Studio & Gardens

Edmund de Waal's newest book, Letters to Camondo, has been published in France, UK and USA.

Count Moïse de Camondo lived a few doors away from Edmund de Waal's forebears, the Ephrussi, first encountered in his bestselling memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes. Like the Ephrussi, the Camondos were part of belle époque high society. They were also targets of anti-semitism.

Camondo created a spectacular house and filled it with the greatest private collection of French eighteenth-century art for his son to inherit. But when Nissim was killed in the First World War, it became a memorial and, on the Count's death, was bequeathed to France.

The Musée Nissim de Camondo has remained unchanged since 1936. Edmund de Waal has explored the lavish rooms, exquisite objects and detailed archives. In a haunting series of letters, he writes to the Count, and gets to know the boy who journeyed from Constantinople and became a model French citizen, before all that was gained was torn away.

Order a copy here.

The British Museum has published a catalogue on Edmund de Waal's work, centring around his "library of exile", currently shown at the museum.

"This beautifully produced book reflects upon the themes raised by de Waal’s thought-provoking work of art. A preface by Booker Prize-nominated author Elif Shakef considers the importance of literature and its capacity to transcend language and borders. The introduction from British Museum Director, Hartwig Fischer, positions the artwork within the wider context of the Museum’s collection, highlighting the dialogue between objects through time, from ancient history to the contemporary. Finally, de Waal concentrates on the work itself, its journey to the British Museum via Venice and Dresden, and its future role in the foundation of the new University of Mosul Library. 'Library of exile' is a contemplative read which celebrates language and the opportunity for dialogues with the displaced."

British Museum