this must be the place
this must be the place, a major exhibition of de Waal's vitrines and stone benches, was installed at Gagosian's West 24th Street space.
De Waal relates: “For the last two years my studio has been full of silver, steel, marble, and porcelain. This new body of work is about place—where things come from, where they belong, what we remember and pass on. The materials echo places. I use porcelain clay from Limoges but turn it black with oxides and inscribe it with remembered poetry. I use marble from Kilkenny and push folded sheets of silver into crevices like prayers into a wall. The work is full of fragments, scraps of silver on the rims of bowls, poems, music, echoes of people that matter to me and the places where they lived. These sculptures are new places.”
this must be the place was complemented by the presentation of to light, and then return— at Gagosian’s gallery at 976 Madison Avenue, New York, from September 14 to October 28, 2023. This exhibition featured sculptures by de Waal and platinum prints and tintypes by Sally Mann that each artist created in response to the other’s work.
Photography: Alzbeta Jaresova
