Supreme x Meissen: why artists are recapturing the “exquisite transgressiveness” of porcelain

Porcelain figurines have gotten a bad rap, but recently things have been heating up in the kiln. Three hundred years ago, the medium was a high art form, lending itself to alchemy, obscenity and clever puns, but somewhere in the mid-20^th century porcelain became tame, surviving as a shadow of its former glory in the shape of knick knacks and tchotchkes on the mantelpieces of octogenarians. Still, the story of its fall from grace has paved the way for a new generation to subvert the dated medium – Supreme is even getting in the game with its Meissen collaboration that launches today. To regain an edge, however, porcelain artists are going back to the basics.

At first glance, the work of contemporary potter, Barnaby Barford, looks sweet – consider of a figurine of a rosy-cheeked boy with a shocked expression – but upon closer inspection you see that he is standing on a pile of dirty magazines. For design critic Tanya Harrod, this is a prime example of the medium returning to its European roots of the 1700s when the process was brought to Germany from China.

“There are so many people who have been inspired by the great 18^th century porcelain factories, which created whole imaginary worlds that were often disturbing and slightly sexual,” Harrod tells SLEEK. “Because porcelain was expensive, they were appealing to an elite culture that would appreciate exquisite transgressiveness. Young artists are playing with the memory of the great art form and the suburban safeness of the figurine.”

The porcelain we are used to seeing in everyday décor is pretty far from where it started. When the technique first came to Europe, you couldn’t mass-produce it into a thousand cat figurines, every piece was hand moulded and expensive, and Meissen – the German porcelain house – was the only one who made it.

“The equivalent for us would be if we saw sculptures in solid gold,” says Sebastian Kuhn, a European porcelain expert at Bonhams auction house. “It was a material that only princes had and it was exotic. They would say for example if you drank poison from a porcelain cup you would not be poisoned, it had sort of mystical properties.”

By the second half of the 18^th century, a number of other factories started to produce porcelain and pieces travelled down the social ladder – hopefully people stopped believing in its detoxifying properties also. This is when the upper classes figured out that porcelain was a great vehicle for subtle-yet-shocking sculpture, with Munich’s Nymphenburg as a leading producer in unexpectedly subversive porcelain.

“The Nymphenburg figures are very elegant as they were designed to go on the table. Initially you’d think they are just for decoration, but when you look more closely they are making gestures with their hands that are quite obscene,” Kuhn explains. The joke was that something so valuable was being used in an irreverent way – not too dissimilar from Maurizio Cattelan’s golden toilet.

But through the 19^th century, production ramped-up, with more factories opening and the cost went down. The new factories were not as concerned as Meissen or Nymphenburg with original artistry and copies were released onto the market. At the same time, lifestyles changed and by the mid- 20^th century it was less common for the upper classes in North America and Europe to live with help to polish all of their porcelain. Both experts point to the Second World War as the real turning point for porcelain. Harrod partially blames Hitler for ruining the medium.

“There was Nazi porcelain produced with the slave labour from Dachau, who were making mawkish figures from German history that Hitler admired, like Frederic the Great or Bambi and people in military uniform. That was the start of downgrading of what was kind of a great art form,” she says.

After the war, watered-down porcelain reproductions flooded mantelpieces, cupboards and shelves as the medium became more affordable. This is the type of porcelin most of us are familiar with today: inoffensively decorative at best and garish clutter at its worst. But in its sanitised form, porcelain has once again gained value that artists can play with — sentimental value. Where 18^th century artists played with the expensiveness of the material, today’s ceramicists are making jokes at the expense of your grandmother’s taste in kitsch design. Irene Nodril’s porcelain sculptures, for example, transform the tame Bambi sculptures into grotesque mutations, while Katsuyo Aoki twists flamboyant gothic curls into skulls finished with the spiked helmets of Kaiser Wilhelm’s army.

Today, cult streetwear brand Supreme joins the conversation, collaborating with Meissen on a 19^th century cupid wearing its famous box logo t-shirt. While the clothed cherub is more modest than its topless 19^th century counterpart, the sculpture makes a point about how we place value on objects as the skateborading brand meets the porcelain brand of kings.

“It is a strange mirror of exclusivity,” Harrod says. “The original Meissen creations were fantastically exclusive, some were made for just one person.” While the collaboration is set to sell a limited quantity, rather than auctioning off one personal item, it still marks one of the most expensive drops for the New York label —  the figurine is priced at an eyebrow-raising, €4,198. While it may be a splurge for streetwear fans, it’s actually a steal for porcelain collectors. “For a really exquisite piece of porcelain form the 18^th century, 4,000 euro would be kind of cheap,” Harrod says.

Still, we’re waiting to see if the Supreme resale value will be able to compete with the original antiques.