Psalms, poetic compositions in Hebrew once sung to the accompaniment of stringed instruments. The music, rhythm and words of Psalms express the memory of those forced into exile, and are refined and essential components in the poetics of the writer and ceramic artist Edmund de Waal and in his new monumental project.

The project, presented in two parts, at two locations will open to the public on 7 May 2019 on the occasion of the 58th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale.

The first is the Scuola Canton, an Ashkenazi synagogue that was founded between 1531 and 1532 and is now part of the Jewish Museum in Venice, in the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo. Here de Waal introduces new installations based on the Psalms, the poetry of exile, in spaces that are housing a contemporary art project for the first time. De Waal has structured a path of work almost by following the natural light pervading the space – rising sinuously from the ground floor up the stairway, brushing the golden synagogue with its gaze and mounting to the top of the building, from where there is a view of the whole of the “New Ghetto” – the oldest part of the city’s Jewish quarter. His sculptures, laid out in a delicate rhythm, are made of three materials: porcelain, alabaster and gold leaf. They are grouped in frames which are themselves covered in porcelain, and which are repeated in different sizes, creating a rhythm that accompanies the gaze across hitherto unseen perspectives on the museum.

De Waal delicately adds to the surface of his materials the prose and poetry of writers who have suffered exile. This is the project that the British artist says he has always dreamt of doing: “It’s about exile: what it means to be forced to move to another country, to speak another language.”

The second part of Psalms is in the Ateneo Veneto, and here he continues his reflections on exile. With over 60,000 books, this is one of the most important libraries in the Veneto. It is here, set within the main space in the Ateneo, that de Waal has constructed a small pavilion to house 2,000 books by writers who have been forced exile.

This “library of exile” will present books in their original languages and in translation, reflecting the idea of language as migration. Four cases of porcelain vases, based on the famous Renaissance print in Daniel Bomberg’s Talmud, will be hung on the walls between the books. The structure itself will be clad in porcelain, with gold leaf picking out the names of the lost libraries of the world.    

Why did you choose the Jewish Museum and the Ateneo Veneto as your settings?

I have a long relationship with the Jewish Museum, which I have visited numerous times. I’m struck by the sense of growth, the multiplicity of the stories it houses, the numerous voices present within this building. The second part of the exhibition is in the Ateneo Veneto, a historic place for meeting and debate in the city’s intellectual life, a place of democratic exchange. For these reasons I thought it was the ideal setting for the construction of my library, somewhere that lends itself to reflection on the history of literature in exile.

The aim, for me, is to pursue a kind of archaeology, to discover voices and resonances that can be brought to the surface again. Psalms – the title of the exhibition – brings together songs, poetry, religious practices and memories – all beautiful things – and this is why I wanted to use them as the theme of my project.

Your work offers us a delicate melody with different facets: literature, the call of music, touch and sculpture.

I wanted to respond to these spaces, which include multiple levels of expression and, above all, of movement: how it is possible to move in space and discover hidden –  newly revealed – perspectives. I am interested in the language of movement, in space or in encounters. This is what my life is like. I am continually moving, walking towards something.

The relationship between exile and language: language can be both a bridge for communication and an obstacle.

Language can be an enormous obstacle. It’s very interesting, a sort of otherness, like being someone else. You take your language with you wherever you go and the way in which someone approaches language when going into exile has always been a very powerful element in culture. There’s an extraordinary relationship between an exile and what it means to take a language with you into exile. What I’m looking to do is trace this extraordinary migration of languages – one that has often been painful – and the incredible value that goes with someone in that linguistic migration. In this historical moment we find ourselves living through – this terrible nativist era of borders – we have this extraordinary story of exiled writers. In the library of exile, you’ll be able to find books translated out of their original languages and books that exist only in their mother tongues. I hope that these latter works will, one day, be translated.

Your works are characterised by their minimalism of form, and the milky white colour you use. How did you reach this aesthetic?

I’m always trying to create with the least possible. In these works, I use two materials, three at most, and I feel that this is the right path for me. I don’t seek purity – that’s a terrible idea and one freighted with anxiety – but it’s an attempt to see how you can simply sit in the world, with one or two things, and see how far you can go with them.