Colby Parsons

Anders Ruhwald

Anders Ruhwald was born in Denmark and graduated from the Royal College of Art in London in 2005 (source: Lind Gallery).  He makes unsettling and strange objects.  Edmund de Waal, described them as "a sort of domestic bad dream".  Ezra Shales wrote that these works "cumulate in a sensation of anti-comfort."  Louise Mazanti puts forth an interpretation of this work as bridging some gap between purely aesthetic objects meant to be separated from everyday life, and placed in the clean interior of a museum, and the realm of domestic and utilitarian objects that we all live with directly as tools or decorative objects.  She claims that, "they show us that it is possible to rediscover a kind of authenticity amidst the monolithic consumer culture by coupling the suggestion of utility with reflection at a level that is not intellectual but associative and sensual."(source: ruhwald.net)

This is the kind of work that can be so irritatingly defiant of interpretation, that some give up on it because of annoyance.  Again and again in the history of art, it is just that kind of work that ends up showing us something new, which is why I think Anders is someone worth keeping an eye on.

His site http://ruhwald.net/?page_id=328
His page as artist in residence at Cranbrook: http://www.cranbrookart.edu/Pages/CeramicsDept.html (you have to click the Artist in Residence button on the left when you get there)