Press: Fireflies

From 7 December 2024 to 9 February 2025, the Art & History Museum - in partnership with the art school La Cambre - invites you to the Fireflies exhibition, a unique dialogue between ceramic works of art from the past and contemporary creations. An aesthetic and sensory experience, at a time when the art of ceramics, one of the oldest and most universal, has never been so much in vogue.

An original and surprising journey through three of the Museum’s collections - ancient Greek ceramics, pre-Columbian pottery and 18th-century European ceramics - the exhibition presents the work of 20 young artists from La Cambre, all of whom share a passion for clay and fire.

The museum has a very important ensemble of luxurious vessels with black figures and red figures from Attica, as well as other styles, forms and places of origin within the Ancient Greek world. Also in the collection of pre-Columbian America there are many wonderful works of ceramics, both recipients and sculptures. They come from different periods and areas. Terracotta, stoneware, faience and porcelain are the sorts of ceramics that were used in Europe and also led to artistic highlights there, especially in the 18th century.

For the event, the scenography has been designed using recycled materials by the Masters in Interior Architecture. They also worked with the immateriality of light and took an ironic approach regarding the mode of exhibition.

Alongside the young ceramists and architects, La Cambre's visual and graphic communications workshop developed the identity for the exhibition. This editorial design work extends from the logo to the labels, from the poster to the catalogue, from the museum to the networks.

More than ever, contemporary art is fascinated by the potential of clay and the age-old knowledge that surrounds it. This craze may be short-lived, but ceramics will continue to reinvent themselves. Like the fireflies that appear furtively, then disappear in an eternal cycle.

The project Fireflies is supported by The Friends of La Cambre and the Friends of the Royal Museums of Art and History. It is coordinated by Caroline Andrin, Head of the Ceramics workshop at ENSAV La Cambre; Serge Lemaître, Curator, Americas Collection at the RMAH; Natacha Massar, Curator, Greece Collection at the RMAH; Valérie Montens, Curator, European Ceramics Collection at the RMAH.