Make Hauser & Wirth has opened in Southampton to an eager and receptive audience for handcrafted objects made by contemporary artisans and designers. In a row of storefronts more associated with food purveyors, it stands out on the block on many levels, but mostly for the intensely beautiful and engaging objects within the gallery's plywood-lined walls.
Its inaugural show was organized by Jacqueline Moore, the founding director of the original Make gallery in Somerset, England. The artists she chose for the exhibition, titled "Of Making and Material," have an "intimate understanding of their chosen materials -- from wood, ceramics, and metal to glass and concrete -- and a mastery of methods rooted in tradition or pioneering new techniques," according to the gallery.
Speaking in the space the day before it opened to members of the public (many of whom poked their heads in for a curious early peek), Ms. Moore noted that the exhibition was organized to link to the concepts guiding the original gallery. The selected artists, all from the United Kingdom, have sold to American clients through the gallery or have a direct relationship with an American audience.
More important, the "artist makers" exemplify the same concerns with "materiality and texture, the fundamentals of what the gallery is about," she said, along with a palpable narrative focus.
Most take classical or readily identifiable natural or man-made forms or materials and transform them in their work into specific objects unto themselves. In the window facing the street, the Welsh artist Adam Buick's moon jars, inspired by a classical Korean form, beckon. Working in porcelain and stoneware, he takes elements from his coastal home in Pembrokeshire -- sand, grasses, pebbles, rocks, soil, seaweed -- and incorporates them into his surfaces, creating dramatic finishes and outright ruptures in some cases. The pieces, inspired by the other side of the Atlantic, become a welcoming parallel to artists finding inspiration in this area.
Nearby, David Gates's raised cabinets reference English agricultural and industrial buildings that frequently stand on pylons. They work on multiple levels, providing functional doors, drawers, and niches for their owners, while also conjuring 18th-century chests and chairs with their minimal yet anthropomorphic legs.
Helen Carnac's steel and enamel bowls are recognizable as vessels but become something much more precious in her treatment. According to Ms. Moore, the artist looks at the form and questions its function, choosing instead to use it as a support for the scratches and etchings she makes on the enamel, turning them into de facto drawings. In these smaller objects, she puts a lot on the line, such as the qualities of the material, her process in working with it, and the evidence of her hand in the design.
One of Ms. Carnac's bowls is part of a cabinet by Mr. Gates, serving as evidence of their artistic and personal partnership. She also provided panels of enameled steel in the same piece.
Similarly working in vessel forms, Alexander de Vol takes found green wood and hollows it out into jar-like shapes on a lathe. Using wood that still has moisture in it involves risk of warping and cracking, but Mr. de Vol attempts to control it with the form he guides it into becoming. He, too, touches on the anthropomorphic, including small and pointed tripod feet on which the finished vessel stands. He works in a similar style in ceramics, playing with the stoneware and glazes to conjure up other possible materials such as metal.
Mark Reddy's carved spoons, in collections here that he calls "Rituals," feel referential to humans with their "heads and torsos." He takes the familiar shape, one associated with comfort and nourishment, and makes it totemistic and sometimes strange. The pieces are decorated with found objects, and all of his works are carved from sustainably sourced wood. An assemblage of table-scale sizes is joined across the room with much taller versions that stand on the floor, placed together in what looks like a gathering. His works, with their deceptively simple structures, are complexly evocative.
Playing with our notions of strength versus fragility, Harry Morgan's glass and concrete pieces defy expectations as the delicate glass elements support the heaviness of the concrete. Ms. Moore noted that at first his pieces don't make sense, but the glass threads in their multitudes provide strength in numbers to give the work the required ballast.
Another artist whose methods lean heavily on conceptual notions of strength and fragility, Rosa Nguyen, dips plants and flowers in porcelain, coating them, before firing them in a kiln. The organic material burns away, leaving the shell of the porcelain as its remnant or shroud. "It's alluring and unsettling at the same time," Ms. Moore said, adding that for the artist there is a sacrificial quality to the act of making them, underlining the transience of living things. At the same time, she gives those things an afterlife.
Off in a corner, Florian Gadsby's more functional pieces serve as a link to a fall show focused on functional design from both American and British makers. While many of the other objects in the gallery take on functional forms, they are not as well suited for utility as they are objects of sensory pleasure. Mr. Gadsby's canisters, teapot, and mug exist in the same space as his cylinders of no immediately obvious use, but all are as thoughtful in their shape, form, glaze, and design as any other. They make the beholder want to find a use for them.
With an Instagram account of more than half a million followers, Mr. Gadsby's sphere of influence stems from his generosity in imparting the methods of his practice. According to Ms. Moore, his followers could literally learn how to be a potter by viewing his account. The artist will take up residence in the gallery in the first two weeks of August, setting up a potter's wheel in the space and camera equipment to stream video of him at work.
"People are already asking when he'll be there," Ms. Moore said. The residency will put the new space on the map and provide one more reason for craft enthusiasts in the metro area to head east to the gallery.
All in all, it's easy to walk away in total agreement with the gallery's statement that "Together, the objects on view celebrate dedication to knowledge, process, and experimentation." But they offer even more. The show can be enjoyed through Sept. 10.
Due to a miscommunication by the gallery's representatives, this article has been modified from its print and previous versions to clarify that Jacqueline Moore is not the director of the Southampton branch of Make Hauser & Wirth. The director of the Southampton Make gallery is Christopher Senger.
