Edmund de Waal is at the Frick Collection in New York from May 30. Henry Frick was a steel magnate and low and behold de Waal has included little sheets of steel leaning on his black pots in a set of black vitrines entitled Sub Silentio. De Waal is so erudite both visually and verbally—his exhibits help viewers see an ornate 18th century table—“one of the greatest pieces of gilded sculpture in the world,” a Chinese porcelain pot or a clock that might have been bypassed without the nearness of a de Waal pot. His work Elective Affinities appears to be hidden in the library—he hopes that it stays hidden till the exhibition ends on November 17.
Edmund de Waal Sub Silentio