[Gallery Column] White Strata atop Black Clay, Now the Sea... 40 Years of Gabriel Koch

Gabriel Koch's First Korean Solo Exhibition, "Journeys In Clay"

From Smoke-Fired Ware to Stoneware and Porcelain, From Geology to the Sea

A Lifetime Devoted to Vessels Without Ever Remaining in the Same Form

Basement exhibition hall at Gallery LVS in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. White pedestals are sparsely arranged along the walls, each supporting a single vessel. The center of the room is almost empty. As a result, what stands out first is not the works themselves, but the space between them. When viewed from up close, the impression changes again. The surfaces of the bulging, rounded bodies resemble parched earth or cut rock rather than smooth ceramics. White lines snake through the black clay — more like geological strata than mere lines. Gabriel Koch's vessels are already landscapes in their own right even before they hold anything.

View of Gabriel Koch’s solo exhibition "Journeys In Clay" held at Gallery LVS in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Koch expresses sensations derived from earth, fire, geological layers, and landscapes through various forms of unglazed pottery. The exhibition runs until the 30th. Gallery LVS

The journey in landscape began in Spain. Born in 1948 in Loerrach, Germany, Koch studied English literature, history, and political science at Heidelberg University before going on to study abroad in Zaragoza, Spain, where he traveled through the interior. He was fascinated by the land stretching from black to ocher and red, the long horizontal lines, and by unglazed pottery bearing visible traces of fire. He later moved to London, studied ceramics at Goldsmiths, and in 1982 opened his own studio. To this day, he works not with a potter’s wheel, but by stacking coils of clay one strip at a time.

Koch made his name over many years as a master of burnishing and smoke-firing. His technique involved rubbing the surface to achieve a sheen, and then letting the works develop deep, irregular patterns from the sawdust smoke. He became so adept at this technique that it was almost problematic. In 2013, critic Tony Birks titled his essay on Koch's transformation simply “Why Change?” noting that a well-established artist needs courage to part with their trademark methods. Koch moved away from smoke-firing at low temperatures and shifted toward fusing rough black stoneware clay with bright white porcelain, firing them together at temperatures up to 1,200 degrees Celsius.

Interestingly, this evolution did not negate his earlier works. In 2005, Koch explained that 'the seed of the next shape is already contained within the current one.' The white porcelain bands embedded in the black vessels at this exhibition are an example. At first, they appear like bold black-and-white graphics, but the starting point was actually the way different sediments layer within a rock. He combines rough stoneware clay with kaolin, layers porcelain slip, and integrates both sharp, porcelain lines and gentle grooves. The ornamental elements do not depict nature; rather, the materials themselves pile up in a way that becomes geological, transforming the very structure of the clay.

Gabriel Koch's new work, "Deep Ocean Bowls." He added deep navy and teal colors captured from the sea to the rough surface resembling geological strata. Instead of using a wheel, it was shaped using the coiling method by stacking coils of clay, and no glaze was applied. Gallery LVS

And in this Seoul exhibition, for the first time, the sea has entered between those layers. The new work, “Deep Ocean Bowls,” contains colors that flow from rich navy to cobalt, grey-blue, and pale teal, filling the interiors of the bowls. What is more fascinating in person than in photographs is not the blue itself, but the boundary where it meets the black clay. Koch does not paint the sea; instead, he has absorbed the ever-shifting blues and greens observed over time by the shore into his existing geological layering. This new series feels less like a sudden “color series” and more like a natural evolution, as the artist’s gaze shifts from earth to water.

This approach ties back to the form of the “vessel,” which Koch has explored throughout his life. For him, a vessel stands neither on the side of functional objects nor purely as sculpture; it is an ancient form that tests “balance and tension, stillness and movement, expansion and restraint” between its swelling body and narrow base, its inside and outside, its roughness and smoothness. The Fitzwilliam Museum explains that Koch’s early embrace of traditional, low-tech methods like coiling and smoke-firing reflects a desire to distance himself from the destructive processes of mass production. This is why his work does not end with a “quiet aesthetic” alone.

After more than forty years, it remains, in the end, a round vessel. Nevertheless, almost no two vessels are alike. From the arid Spanish land, to fire and smoke, through geological strata and the Atacama Desert, and now to the sea — in 2020, Koch even conducted a research project in the Chilean Atacama Desert itself. Thus, the “journey” in the exhibition title “Journeys In Clay” refers not so much to a list of places, but to the trajectory of an artist who has gradually let go of what became familiar to him.

The accomplishment of a master, perhaps, is not in repeating the same thing perfectly. It is in letting go of what one has already excelled at and still remaining true to oneself. That is the quiet question Gabriel Koch’s vessels pose. The exhibition runs until the 30th at Gallery LVS in Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.