Atmosphere

We were in Margate recently and saw the new installation by Edmund de Waal, atmosphere.  As usual in his recent work, the vitrines and their arrangement in space are as important as the small porcelain vessels they contain.  The title comes from Turner's remark to Ruskin, "atmosphere is my style" and the vitrines floating in the gallery correspond to Thomas Forster's poetic cloud classifications (the lists above are part of an accompanying text piece).  One of these vitrines is fully transparent but the pots in the others are only partially visible as shadowy forms behind clouded glass.  "When thinking about the changing landscape of clouds," De Waal writes, "I remember Constable's beautiful letter about lying on his back and doing 'a great deal of skying.'" The gallery provides cushions to encourage you to look up at the vitrines from below and do some indoor skying, although for me this emphasised how unavoidably static these sculptures are compared to the real cloudscape outside.