:00:08. > :00:15.This programme contains some strong language.
:00:16. > :00:25.Edmund de Waal is an artist, write writer. A potter telling stories out
:00:26. > :00:32.of porcelain and making objects out of words. Some weird spectrum where
:00:33. > :00:40.words and objects are very, very, very closely aligned. His remarkable
:00:41. > :00:44.memoir, The Hare With The Amber Eyes, unravelled the journey of
:00:45. > :00:50.these tiny netsuke, telling a story that touched the hearts of millions
:00:51. > :00:55.and made his name worldwide. But now he's taking his pots to America, in
:00:56. > :01:02.the hope that he can finally unite his life as a writer and as a maker.
:01:03. > :01:07.It is the middle of the night terror, because what is screwing up
:01:08. > :01:12.in New York is about as bad as it gets. Imagine follows Edmund during
:01:13. > :01:42.an extraordinary year. I was in on second January throwing
:01:43. > :01:48.my first pots of the year and it felt pretty good. It felt like this
:01:49. > :01:58.is a year of very exciting things happening. It felt bloody terrifying
:01:59. > :02:04.at the same time. Edmund's pots used to occupy kitchen shelves and be
:02:05. > :02:10.held in the hand, used every day. Over 20 years the pots have become
:02:11. > :02:17.abstracted. They now occupy a different space, installed in their
:02:18. > :02:24.thousands. I am making a quartet to go along this huge wall. Of course
:02:25. > :02:33.there are mornings when it is just shit. Whose idea was it, who do you
:02:34. > :02:41.blame, we had this idea of making a quartet with 3,000 porcelain pots.
:02:42. > :02:49.The quartet will be the centre piece of a huge exhibition at the Gagosian
:02:50. > :02:53.Gallery in New York. Edmund's first show in America. But this year will
:02:54. > :02:58.not only be about making, there is a new book to write, and the legacy of
:02:59. > :03:10.The Hare With The Amber Eyes to deal with. There is this after afterlife
:03:11. > :03:20.of my last book, which is more under control now, but still keeps on
:03:21. > :03:25.coming back. How objects are handed on is all about story telling. I am
:03:26. > :03:29.giving you this because I love you, or because it was given to me,
:03:30. > :03:33.because I bought it somewhere special because you will care for t
:03:34. > :03:42.because it will comply Kate your life. Edmund has been making pots
:03:43. > :03:48.since he was five, and ceramics became an obsession. He was
:03:49. > :03:51.apprenticed at 17 making simple earthenware pots in the style of
:03:52. > :03:58.Bernard Laech and the Japanese masters. Edmund travelled to Japan
:03:59. > :04:06.in 19 81 to further his studies, and it was here that he would encounter
:04:07. > :04:14.the net suk for the very first time. For 264 netsuke were handed down
:04:15. > :04:19.through Edmund's family, the Ephrussis, they lost everything as
:04:20. > :04:25.Europe teetered on the brink of the Second World War. But against all
:04:26. > :04:30.odds, the net suk survived. -- netsuke survived. Where did The Hare
:04:31. > :04:35.With The Amber Eyes start? I sense somehow that started for you as a
:04:36. > :04:41.17-year-old boy in Japan when you visited your uncle Iggy there? Yes,
:04:42. > :04:48.going into his apartment for the first time and being given my first
:04:49. > :04:53.whisky soda by this lovely elderly gentleman, there they were, this
:04:54. > :04:59.vitrine of objects. I hated them, I thought they were really fiddly,
:05:00. > :05:07.precious little objects that didn't anything, they were like bijoux
:05:08. > :05:11.little things. I was there to make earthy dynamic Japanese pots. What
:05:12. > :05:17.were these little fiddly things doing? Iggy took the net suk back to
:05:18. > :05:25.Japan in 1947 when he moved there after the war. He said he was taking
:05:26. > :05:30.them home. How did you come to love the netsuke? The fact they were so
:05:31. > :05:37.significant to him, of course changed my relationship with them.
:05:38. > :05:41.Later on, 13, 14 years later, I was back in Japan for another year, I
:05:42. > :05:45.used to go and see him all the time, he was pretty elderly, and stories
:05:46. > :05:51.used to start the whole time, and then trail off. Iggy would be
:05:52. > :05:53.reading in his arm chair by the window, I would bend down and he
:05:54. > :06:06.would give me a kiss. He used to open up the vitrine and
:06:07. > :06:11.get things out and that was very generative of his stories about
:06:12. > :06:15.childhood and Vienna and these things, with this extraordinary
:06:16. > :06:24.bridge, between this man and his stories. He would pass me one and we
:06:25. > :06:28.would look at it together and then I put it carefully back amongst the
:06:29. > :06:33.dozens of animals and figures on the shelves. I tell you, ehe would say,
:06:34. > :06:39.how much we loved these as children. How they were given to my mother and
:06:40. > :06:45.father by a cousin in Paris. Did I tell you the story of Anna's pocket.
:06:46. > :06:50.They do lead you through touch to lots of other experiences. They
:06:51. > :06:58.bring ideas and feelings together. Of course, these ones, these hold
:06:59. > :07:02.extraordinary amount of other people's touch within them. That's
:07:03. > :07:07.something that I really am very passionate about, the idea that you
:07:08. > :07:11.can read other people's lives through objects. It is interesting
:07:12. > :07:18.that Iggy has a story, but he only has so much of a story. He only has
:07:19. > :07:26.so much. I didn't interview him for God's sake. He gives me, in this
:07:27. > :07:30.wonderful fragmentary way, he tells me stories around them. And he
:07:31. > :07:35.doesn't know a huge amount about what happened before. All he knows
:07:36. > :07:42.is they came from Paris, from this extraordinary cousin.
:07:43. > :07:50.These were collected by Charles Ephrussi. He was a cousin of my
:07:51. > :07:58.great, great grandfather. Charles was a tremendously interesting art
:07:59. > :08:07.critic. Art collector. Lover of people. This is the boating party by
:08:08. > :08:14.Renoir, and there at the back is Charles Ephrussi, friend and patron
:08:15. > :08:20.to the impressionists. He collected paintings by Manet, Degas and Monet
:08:21. > :08:30.and became the model for Marcel proous's Charles Swann. They are
:08:31. > :08:35.huge hugely seductive things. You pick them up, you roll them in your
:08:36. > :08:40.hands, you pass them round. Pass them to your lover, you pass them to
:08:41. > :08:50.a dinner guest, you pass them to some poet who is there by chance.
:08:51. > :08:56.Because they are little eroticised things to start conversations.
:08:57. > :09:01.Charles actually gives it away to this very beloved cousin of his, a
:09:02. > :09:06.younger man who is getting married, who happens to be my great
:09:07. > :09:11.grandfather, victor. Then they go to Vienna. So these little things go to
:09:12. > :09:24.this very big place. That is the next part of the story.
:09:25. > :09:35.Tomorrow Edmund is off to ven NARCs he is giving a talk on the Achelous,
:09:36. > :09:47.the effects of restitution on the art world and what is happening in
:09:48. > :09:50.Austria now. 75 years since the Achelous, since Hitler walked into
:09:51. > :09:58.Austria and was met by cheering crowds. Austria capitulated in this
:09:59. > :10:04.extraordinary way. It was a cataclysm for Vienna and it couldn't
:10:05. > :10:09.be a more charged moment to do a talk about restitution and memory
:10:10. > :10:26.and what it all means. I haven't slept for a week.
:10:27. > :10:34.Actually here in the Belvedere, they have three contested pictures
:10:35. > :10:38.belonging to my father. Three pictures that were in the family
:10:39. > :10:50.collection in 1938, in that building there. Of which there is issues why
:10:51. > :10:59.they are not being rest tuted. Iify family were Jewish and staggeringly
:11:00. > :11:02.rich. I want to know what the relationship has been between this
:11:03. > :11:08.wooden object that I am rolling between my fingers, hard and tricky
:11:09. > :11:11.and Japanese, and where it has been. I want to know what it has
:11:12. > :11:29.witnessed. I kaem here, I was really scared and
:11:30. > :11:32.and there was an office here, and I was asking permission to come into
:11:33. > :11:41.the house and it felt so unreal to be actually in this place. The house
:11:42. > :11:45.is too big to absorb, taking up too much space in this part of the city,
:11:46. > :11:51.too much sky. It is more of a fortress or watch tower than a
:11:52. > :11:57.house. It is certainly not a house for a wandering Jew.
:11:58. > :12:04.How about this, I don't know when a last time a member of the family was
:12:05. > :12:06.on this balcony. You have to imagine 75 years ago what was happening on
:12:07. > :12:20.those nights. I had to go to places, I had to
:12:21. > :12:27.experience the places, I had to find out more and more. Not just through
:12:28. > :12:34.books, but through being in places and trying to find the traces of
:12:35. > :12:41.where the family were and what was left. In Paris, Vienna and all these
:12:42. > :12:48.other places. It became more and more complex, and of course much,
:12:49. > :12:53.much darker. It is on that first night that the sounds of the street
:12:54. > :12:57.become shouting in the Ephrussi courtyard, echoing around the walls
:12:58. > :13:02.and off the roof. Then there are feet pounding up the stairs, the 33
:13:03. > :13:11.shallow steps to the apartment on the second floor. They are inside
:13:12. > :13:18.now at last. This is how the Jews live. This is how the Jews used our
:13:19. > :13:27.money, room after room, stacked with stuff. And these are just a few
:13:28. > :13:37.souvenirs, a bit of redistribution. This is the start. They drag the
:13:38. > :13:42.desk out into the corridor, and they push Emmy and victor and Rudolf
:13:43. > :13:48.against the wall and three of them heave the desk and send it crashing
:13:49. > :13:53.over the hand rail until, with a sound of splintering wood and guilt
:13:54. > :14:06.and marquetry, it hits the stone flags of the courtyard below. This
:14:07. > :14:09.is the window they threw the desk. And the sounds ricochet off the
:14:10. > :14:17.glass roof and the broken drawers scatter letters across the
:14:18. > :14:23.courtyard. You think you onus, you'll be next, you fern shits. --
:14:24. > :14:34.foreign shits. Three years after being published,
:14:35. > :14:39.The Hare With The Amber Eyes with is still sense and has been translated
:14:40. > :14:48.into 22 languages. Edmund de Waal is no longer just a potter. He is also
:14:49. > :14:54.a world-famous writer. Immediately I am in conversation with lots of
:14:55. > :15:01.people. I wonder whether you would come to Zurich, where I live? I have
:15:02. > :15:13.Jewish friends, and it would be marvellous. It is not just elderly
:15:14. > :15:17.diasporic Jew ish Jewish community. My generation who have grown up
:15:18. > :15:22.knowing absolutely nothing and I have broken through that, so of
:15:23. > :15:26.course that's been kind of interesting for my generation, of
:15:27. > :15:32.people who simply don't know where they came from.
:15:33. > :15:41.What writing this did was to make me feel that there were, that I was
:15:42. > :15:45.able to occupy a space that bigger narratives were possible and there
:15:46. > :15:50.couldn't be a bigger narrative than this particular story, which comes
:15:51. > :15:59.from very small objects, but becomes this very complex inhabited space,
:16:00. > :16:03.series of spaces, in a book. That weirdly, being able to discover that
:16:04. > :16:05.I could do that, actually has also allowed me to work on a bigger
:16:06. > :16:20.scale. With what I make. In a couple of hours I will have
:16:21. > :16:28.made 200 of these. I suspect I need to makes 600 of them. My back is
:16:29. > :16:33.slightly counting those hours. As the pots for the exhibition begin to
:16:34. > :16:40.pile up, the need for more space has become critical. We are completely
:16:41. > :16:46.stuffed. This is why we are so desperate to move. I am working
:16:47. > :16:53.here, we have crates of things in, crates of things out. We have scale
:16:54. > :17:02.models, galleries in New York, we are just completely full. We just
:17:03. > :17:14.can't wait to move. Where do things get stored? I don't know.
:17:15. > :17:26.We have archive, this is the archive of all work going back to when I was
:17:27. > :17:43.apprenticed. Years and years and years ago, a pot that I made in 19-
:17:44. > :17:49.the National Gallery wants to borrow the photo album of this ball that my
:17:50. > :17:55.great grandmother went to in 19 00. I don't know where the fuck it is,
:17:56. > :17:59.it is somewhere here! I have got to a different place,
:18:00. > :18:04.where the work and scale of things, and the capacity of projects and to
:18:05. > :18:10.write and think and do all that stuff as well as make, very big
:18:11. > :18:19.installations in a garage down the road, I was completely screwed. I
:18:20. > :18:24.had to find a bigger space. The new space is a former gun factory in
:18:25. > :18:28.South London, a pleasingly destructive back story for a
:18:29. > :18:32.porcelain studio. We have moved into the new studio, it is really
:18:33. > :18:40.exciting. We have spent the last week unpacking.
:18:41. > :18:56.Over the last week I have got terribly excited by Paul Celan, the
:18:57. > :19:16.Romanian born German poet. There is an extraordinary thing
:19:17. > :19:23.about breathing and poetry and what it can and can't do. We have worked
:19:24. > :19:25.out the shape of the show in terms of words. So it's brilliant
:19:26. > :19:44.actually. Is it an accident that Paul Celan,
:19:45. > :19:47.the inspiration for this work, that Paul Celan also sounds like
:19:48. > :19:58.porcelain? It is beautiful, isn't it. We can claim that, I don't know.
:19:59. > :20:04.It's pure beautiful accident. Paul Celan, a Romanian Jew survived the
:20:05. > :20:08.Holocaust though his parents died in a labour camp. Celan's poetry can be
:20:09. > :20:10.seen as a response to the Holocaust but it is also a challenge to the
:20:11. > :20:30.poetic and to language itself. What is so extraordinary about these
:20:31. > :20:34.is that they are very short poems and lots and lots and white space,
:20:35. > :20:39.they are always moving towards the fragment or away from the fragment.
:20:40. > :20:43.So there is a sense of how do you shape anything in the world, how do
:20:44. > :20:49.you finish anything? Everything moves towards the fragmentary or
:20:50. > :20:56.jagged or uncompleted or lost. Quite a lot of the work in this
:20:57. > :21:02.exhibition, which I am really struggling with, is about you make
:21:03. > :21:07.something and you want it to be beautiful and lyrical. But you also
:21:08. > :21:20.want it to kind of have lots and lots of space for all the loss.
:21:21. > :21:29.That work over there, that's got a musical reference. I heard it said,
:21:30. > :21:36.it's called and it's 12 vitrines each with five very simple objects
:21:37. > :21:46.in it and it's like conversation with early music of Burg. When I
:21:47. > :21:52.walk along that in the morning, I hear it as a piece of music and
:21:53. > :22:01.other people are going to go for God's sake, it's just pots, but for
:22:02. > :22:09.me that's musical. I absolutely hear it and when I write something, it
:22:10. > :22:30.has a shape. Words and objects are very, very closely aligned.
:22:31. > :22:42.What do you think Isla? There's almost always muse music when I am
:22:43. > :22:51.making and sometimes when I am writing, too.
:22:52. > :22:59.It gives me more space. Repetition isn't about repeating the same
:23:00. > :23:06.thing, it is about minute differences. Between each moment,
:23:07. > :23:16.between each sound, tweech each object that you are making. It gives
:23:17. > :23:26.you a kind of much steadier way of thinking through ideas. Doesn't that
:23:27. > :23:34.make you want to make things. How can it not make you want to make
:23:35. > :23:39.things. The quartet isn't Edmund's only challenge this year. His
:23:40. > :23:47.publisher is expecting the Manu script of his new book in 18 months'
:23:48. > :23:52.time. The Hare took him seven years. Tell me about the book which is your
:23:53. > :23:59.other big project this year. Well, this year! And forward. It is a
:24:00. > :24:04.journey through white. It is a personal journey through the
:24:05. > :24:09.discovery of porcelain 1,000 years ago, China and this great
:24:10. > :24:13.reinvention of it. In the 18th century in Europe. It is really
:24:14. > :24:18.about obsession. Really about what white means, why people obsess about
:24:19. > :24:23.it, what white does to people. And what white displaces in the world
:24:24. > :24:27.when it pushes away from it. It is a strong pulse of going and looking in
:24:28. > :24:30.archives and going and talking to people, trying to excavate where
:24:31. > :24:46.white happens. While the pots are being glazed for
:24:47. > :24:54.the Gagosian show, Edmund is on a research trip for the new book, with
:24:55. > :24:59.his son Matthew. They are looking for the very first piece of pours
:25:00. > :25:07.lain that knead from east to west, brought to Venice by Marco Polo. We
:25:08. > :25:13.are in Venice because- for seven reasons, the real reason is to be
:25:14. > :25:23.here with him. With Matthew. He is reading Terry Pratchett. We are on a
:25:24. > :25:28.trip to try and see whether we can find this extraordinary bowl. It is
:25:29. > :25:35.a really good story, it is supposed to have been carried back by Marco
:25:36. > :25:43.Polo in 1175 or something like that. No-one admits to having it. Marco
:25:44. > :25:47.Polo was Matthew's age when he arrived in China with his father and
:25:48. > :25:51.saw porcelain being made for the very first time. Little did he know
:25:52. > :25:57.the impact the material was going to have when it arrived in Europe. You
:25:58. > :26:01.could say how could a bowl not fit into the new book because it is
:26:02. > :26:06.exactly about objects in transit, it is about the hidden stories of
:26:07. > :26:13.objects that have moved from one place to another. Marco Polo is the
:26:14. > :26:16.risk Road. Edmund has been try to go trace this porcelain for over a year
:26:17. > :26:27.and there's no certainty he will find it here in Venice. The question
:26:28. > :26:36.is whether or not it is a myth or whether there is some Reality to it.
:26:37. > :26:46.This is amazing. You have everything here, which is tremendous.
:26:47. > :26:52.It's one thing amongst many but it is very, very particular because it
:26:53. > :26:57.holds Marco Polo, it holds that story of travel within it. I really
:26:58. > :27:05.have to find it. This is the Treasury. This is it.
:27:06. > :27:27.It's there. I'm desperate to pick it up. This is Marco Polo and he brings
:27:28. > :27:35.it back all the way with camels and dock kiss and horses and -- donkeys,
:27:36. > :27:40.across the whole of the world, through Constantinople and takes a
:27:41. > :27:49.boat back down to Venice and unpacks his treasures which are
:27:50. > :27:59.extraordinary objects. This is kind of a crazy attempt to find where
:28:00. > :28:03.white comes from and so this is kind of iconic, this is one of the very,
:28:04. > :28:09.very special bits of white coming from one place and ending up
:28:10. > :28:16.somewhere else completely, utterly, amazingly different, that's got the
:28:17. > :28:21.story in it. There's no time to celebrate their discovery. Edmund
:28:22. > :28:26.has to get ready to give a talk about The Hare With The Amber Eyes.
:28:27. > :28:29.Tonight is the Venice Litary Festival. I have to go to the
:28:30. > :28:38.Palazzo Grassi and talk. I want to go and sit with a beer and
:28:39. > :28:51.that is not going to happen tonight. How do you start? You start by
:28:52. > :28:58.taking an object out of your pocket and you put it down in front of you
:28:59. > :29:04.and you begin to tell a story. And because of you I have brought two
:29:05. > :29:21.objects, and I want them back. But pass them round, this is 17 70.
:29:22. > :29:29.Like the Netsuke Edmund's own work is displayed in vitrines.
:29:30. > :29:35.Collections of objects held together in time and space. Back at the
:29:36. > :29:41.studio, he begins to install the quartet for the Gagosian show. We
:29:42. > :29:45.might need to have very loud Steve Reich on, just to move away from the
:29:46. > :29:59.thinking bit. Each of those tiny pots, seven
:30:00. > :30:05.movements. I picked up a knife and cut them five times, and then the
:30:06. > :30:13.single mark of my seal at the end, letting it go. Each of those is a
:30:14. > :30:18.number, but not the sort of ghastly code codified formulaic things at
:30:19. > :30:28.all. It is a pacing through the world. For reason at all there
:30:29. > :30:35.should be the same number or density of things on the same shelve.
:30:36. > :30:43.With those 3,000 pots, months and months of work, hours and hours,
:30:44. > :30:47.hundreds of hours of work, then I can retime myself in the work by
:30:48. > :30:57.making different kinds of spaces. But if I hadn't done that, if I had
:30:58. > :31:02.said, you know what I need to make 1476 pots and thags ae into four
:31:03. > :31:19.because there is a quartet, it's dead, it's dead before you begin.
:31:20. > :31:25.Not everything in Edmund's life is white. For the New York show he's
:31:26. > :31:32.been making a series of new works in black. These pots share their story
:31:33. > :31:37.with the very beginnings of white. And Edmund's new book. He is in
:31:38. > :31:42.Germany where the very first European porcelain was made. Solving
:31:43. > :31:49.what was considered to be one of a great mysteries of the age. Dresden,
:31:50. > :31:52.this extraordinary place, incredible place where black porcelain becomes
:31:53. > :32:10.white porcelain. You have to think back 300 years.
:32:11. > :32:16.And you are a collector. What is the thing that is the most esoteric and
:32:17. > :32:22.the most rare rarified, the thing that tells you that is most special,
:32:23. > :32:27.has this aura around it. It is porcelain. What do you do? You find
:32:28. > :32:36.people who can tell you all the time, I can make t I'm great, and
:32:37. > :32:46.they all fail. Then you come across an alchemist who tells you that he
:32:47. > :32:52.can do it. That is what this journey is about. It is in search of this
:32:53. > :33:00.particular man, this particular alchemist who said, do you know
:33:01. > :33:07.what, I can do it. He told Augustus the Strong he could do it and was
:33:08. > :33:12.locked up. He was locked up. With this enormous terrible threat
:33:13. > :33:21.hanging over him. The threat was make porcelain or die. That should
:33:22. > :33:29.be hanging above our own work shop actually!
:33:30. > :33:35.Augustus the Strong was the greatest patron of the arts in Europe during
:33:36. > :33:42.the early 18th century. He commissioned whole palaces to house
:33:43. > :33:47.his collections. For Edmund, the demands of obsessive collectors is
:33:48. > :33:52.familiar territory. You wouldn't think this had any relationship at
:33:53. > :33:58.all to what is going on in south lon doen but it kind of does. Porcelain
:33:59. > :34:05.doesn't begin in the West, with white things. It begins with this,
:34:06. > :34:09.it begins with someone who works out that if you fire high enough, with
:34:10. > :34:16.the right materials and put them together, you can produce something
:34:17. > :34:25.as hard adds a gem stone, but it's not white.
:34:26. > :34:32.Augustus the strong, this nightmare obsessional man, just screaming
:34:33. > :34:39.away, why isn't it white? This is the great case that you have got the
:34:40. > :34:43.first pieces of porcelain. When he starts to do his work, he can't get
:34:44. > :34:48.there, so the surfaces are pitted and there is a greyish sheen. What
:34:49. > :34:53.you see here is someone who is actually trying to work something
:34:54. > :35:00.out. Look at this fantastic covered bowl
:35:01. > :35:06.here, with this pierced decoration and it is completely screwed.
:35:07. > :35:11.Completely shot to pieces. It's got all the cracks where the making has
:35:12. > :35:15.happened, the glaze hasn't fitted the body and it has been presented
:35:16. > :35:18.to Augustus the Strong and he said fine, something that is completely
:35:19. > :35:29.wrong, he actually knows, it actually is going to work. By 1713
:35:30. > :35:38.he can make white porcelain, he can say to Augustus, I can do it, I can
:35:39. > :35:45.do this thing now. That is when it gets really, really complicated.
:35:46. > :35:53.This is the Disney moment for porcelain. This is just complete
:35:54. > :35:57.completely utterly ridiculous. This isn't about the collectors, it is
:35:58. > :36:02.about the collector's palace, it is not about the vitrine in the back
:36:03. > :36:12.corridor, this is about the whole world in porcelain, now. Here is
:36:13. > :36:16.this sad bear. This is about bringing one material from right the
:36:17. > :36:21.way across the world, reinventing it and then discovering what you are
:36:22. > :36:26.going to do with it. It is about completely about space, about how
:36:27. > :36:31.much space porcelain can take up and in this case, a lot of space, so of
:36:32. > :36:36.course how can I not be excited by that. That is what I am try to go
:36:37. > :36:42.do, occupy a lot of the world through porcelain and it happens
:36:43. > :36:46.here first. Every time you come away from a research trip you feel like
:36:47. > :36:50.you have found something and you realise beyond that thing you found
:36:51. > :37:05.are months and months and months of research. I pray my publishers
:37:06. > :37:07.aren't watching this because God knows how long I am going to take
:37:08. > :37:18.with this book. Research for the book has to be put
:37:19. > :37:25.to one side, as the studio prepares for a visit from some tiny potters.
:37:26. > :37:30.My daughter's primary school, 60-odd kids are going to be making pots
:37:31. > :37:39.here. The story we are going to tell is going to be a story about a
:37:40. > :37:48.journey. Here we've got images of journeys. Does anyone recognise any
:37:49. > :37:55.of them? Favouritism, Emma, start us off. James and the Giant Peach. The
:37:56. > :38:08.Gagosian works all around, we are making a big installation today.
:38:09. > :38:19.It is a big strawberry. As you can see, there are lots and lots of
:38:20. > :38:35.them, one of your jobs is to count my pots. 71, 72, 73... Thank you.
:38:36. > :38:46.Having survived the school trip, the quartet is packed away and shipped
:38:47. > :38:51.out. Once he has decided on how he wants the pots to be, we are marking
:38:52. > :38:55.each shelve A, b, c, d, with a number as well, so we know the
:38:56. > :39:01.number of pots, which shelve it should be on and on the shelve we
:39:02. > :39:05.have mark marked like an invisible ring which is transparent varnish,
:39:06. > :39:14.which will mark the exact position of the pot. I can't find the
:39:15. > :39:22.singlearity of something without looking at an awful lot of objects,
:39:23. > :39:28.so I can't under understand a Chinese bowl without walking up a
:39:29. > :39:37.hillside full of thousands and thousands of fragmentary shardz of
:39:38. > :39:44.pots. That idea of the abundance or the uncountability, of the world is
:39:45. > :40:01.also really poetic. Nowhere in the world is the historic
:40:02. > :40:06.porcelain in greater abundance than in the archives of the V in
:40:07. > :40:10.London. After the extravagance of Dresden, Edmund is looking for the
:40:11. > :40:17.hummable beginnings of white here in England. We are here because this is
:40:18. > :40:21.me searching for extraordinary man William Cookworthy. He goes on this
:40:22. > :40:26.journey and discovers how to make porcelain and this is the first true
:40:27. > :40:31.porcelain in England, and I have never had it in my hands, so this is
:40:32. > :40:42.my moment of what is it like, I just don't know. It's fantastic. We have
:40:43. > :40:45.others that are stained to a nicotined brown, they had such
:40:46. > :40:52.problems. I love this, I have only seen these in books, because I
:40:53. > :40:58.always imagined Cookworthy trying to make impeckible European porcelain
:40:59. > :41:04.objects and it isn't quite! We have a cow. It is an object of ambition
:41:05. > :41:10.but not of great beauty. If you think about Augustus the Strong
:41:11. > :41:13.surrounded by this music and life-sized porcelain figures and you
:41:14. > :41:21.have Cookworthy making his cow sitting amongst daysies.
:41:22. > :41:28.It is now just one month until the New York show, but William
:41:29. > :41:36.Cookworthy has inspired one last research trip. We are in Cornwall in
:41:37. > :41:43.search of the place where Cookworthy first found the materials that could
:41:44. > :41:50.make porcelain. Tregonning Hill. God knows where it is. I thought it was
:41:51. > :41:57.a proper hill. All I can see is suburbia.
:41:58. > :42:12.This is a proper Cornish map. Everything here says shafts (dis)
:42:13. > :42:16.and quarries. The whole landscape is shot through with the remnants of
:42:17. > :42:23.mining. This whole landscape up there is basically due to Cookworthy
:42:24. > :42:26.discovering China clay. We are at the end of the world here. So far
:42:27. > :42:31.from anything else. This is where the material is, you have to dig up
:42:32. > :42:39.to make these pots and you have to get it off this bloody hillside. The
:42:40. > :42:43.whole thing starts out in incredibly primitive way and you have to
:42:44. > :42:53.remember how incredibly poor Cornwall is. It was medieval mining,
:42:54. > :42:59.just with a shovel. Absolutely basic. Not content with just seeing
:43:00. > :43:06.Cookworthy porcelain in archives, Edmund has started his own
:43:07. > :43:12.collection. The moment of complete I had yosy, I brought this -- idiocy,
:43:13. > :43:17.I brought this, a bit of Cookworthy porcelain. I am repatriating it,
:43:18. > :43:25.speckly and full of bits that haven't burnt out properly. Sod it,
:43:26. > :43:30.it's beautiful. For Edmund, this little pot holds the story of white
:43:31. > :43:38.in England. It is important to hold and understand as the netsuke his
:43:39. > :43:44.uncle Iggy left him. What of William Cookworthy and his great break
:43:45. > :43:52.through? Porcelain didn't work for him. He made no money at all out of
:43:53. > :43:55.porcelain. I never managed to work out how to turn his intuition into
:43:56. > :44:08.industry. The show is imminent. Edmund is
:44:09. > :44:11.about to leave for New York. It is a different scale, it is a different
:44:12. > :44:21.audience. It is a very tough audience.
:44:22. > :44:30.I am doing work which is about the speechless speechlessness, silence,
:44:31. > :44:37.about the fragmentary, about Europeanness. People there who have
:44:38. > :44:46.read my book are going to be baffled by the fact that I am a maker, an
:44:47. > :44:50.artist. It's middle of the night terror to be honest, because, you
:44:51. > :44:54.know what, screwing up in New York is about as bad as it gets. Everyone
:44:55. > :45:14.knows. We are here, I am an artist and I
:45:15. > :45:20.have an exhibition. Hello Mark, I am in transit towards you and the
:45:21. > :45:27.exhibition. You plan and plan and plan, and then it becomes something
:45:28. > :45:35.else. It's out of your control, which is kind of good, difficult
:45:36. > :45:39.sometimes. Here we are, at Gagosian. I am on the bloody side walk, how
:45:40. > :45:46.fantastic. Atemwende. Hi, I am Edmund. I am so excited. Oh
:45:47. > :46:07.my God. Welcome to New York. Hello. You won't get much sense out of me
:46:08. > :46:30.for at least half an hour, I am afraid. That's OK!
:46:31. > :46:38.Gsdz What's the worst that can happen? You get a shitty review,
:46:39. > :46:43.people don't like it, nothing sells. None of those are terrible things to
:46:44. > :46:50.happen. The terrible thing to happen is for it not to leave the studio.
:46:51. > :47:00.This is me pretending that I am really busy trying to keep out of
:47:01. > :47:10.everyone's way. While mayhem descends. I have a cafe latte with
:47:11. > :47:17.four shorts of espresso in it to keep me going for the next hour!
:47:18. > :47:22.This show is by far the biggest show I have ever done. It is by far the
:47:23. > :47:29.most ambitious show I have done, but it is also the show where I have
:47:30. > :47:35.really gone public. It is very exposing for me, because I also
:47:36. > :47:40.write and it is this show is very much more open to the way in which I
:47:41. > :47:51.write things and the way in which I make sculpture.
:47:52. > :47:58.After all the months of work, the show is finally ready. Edmund's
:47:59. > :48:04.wife, Sue, has arrived in New York, just in time to steal a few quiet
:48:05. > :48:11.moments with her husband. Have they got a light well behind them as
:48:12. > :48:17.well. Perspex. In America, Plexiglas. I like Perspex better.
:48:18. > :48:30.No-one understands what Perspex s you have to say Plexiglas.
:48:31. > :48:41.I have tears in my eyes, my dear. It's beautiful.
:48:42. > :48:53.It's been quite a while. For me getting to this point.
:48:54. > :49:02.Completely beautiful. But also I love these because they are back to
:49:03. > :49:26.words and poetry and spaces. It is a poem, that one. It's a poem.
:49:27. > :49:36.September 12th, the day of the opening of the Gagosian on Madison
:49:37. > :49:42.Avenue. This is the most influential commercial gallery in the world. And
:49:43. > :49:54.yes, Larry Gagosian, the don of the New York arts scene is here to see
:49:55. > :50:04.how Edmund fares. Edmund de Waal. We expected you to have the netsuke.
:50:05. > :50:08.Thank you for writing such a beautiful book, I read it last week,
:50:09. > :50:14.I was devastated and loved it and it was gorgeous. Like many of the
:50:15. > :50:17.people here, curators, collectors, seriously wealthy, Larry Gagosian
:50:18. > :50:26.read the book and loved it so he took a gamble on a show by an
:50:27. > :50:36.English potter. Some of these works have already sold for hundreds of
:50:37. > :50:41.thousands of dollars. It is a little overwhelming. One of the things that
:50:42. > :50:47.interests me about this show is to try to figure out how we would react
:50:48. > :50:51.if we hadn't read The Hare With The Amber Eyes, what would these objects
:50:52. > :50:57.mean to us and in some way, what I find quite interesting is that you
:50:58. > :51:04.feel a a need, an urgency to touch them. Looking at these objects is
:51:05. > :51:10.sort of taking your breath away. This is where it all is. This is
:51:11. > :51:18.where it all... It is such a beautiful space. Looking at them
:51:19. > :51:30.earlier, there are so many ways you can look at this work. It is rather
:51:31. > :51:36.extraordinary. Congratulations to you. I am so thrilled for Edmund. It
:51:37. > :51:42.is the most beautiful show he's ever done. Atemwende is a real
:51:43. > :51:48.masterpiece and I feel so excited when I see it, because I know where
:51:49. > :51:56.it started. I feel very warmly welcomed to New York. How objects
:51:57. > :52:01.get handled, used and handed on is not just a mildly interesting
:52:02. > :52:08.question for me, but is my question, I have made many thousands of pots
:52:09. > :52:13.and very bad at names, but I am good on pots. I can read how an edge
:52:14. > :52:18.creates tension or loses it. I can feel if it has been made at speed or
:52:19. > :52:23.with diligence. If it has warmth. I can see how it works with the
:52:24. > :52:24.objects that sit nearby, how it displaces a small part of the world
:52:25. > :52:36.around it. You started making pots when you
:52:37. > :52:41.were five-years-old. And you are now in your 50th year this week. Thanks,
:52:42. > :52:47.you are the first person to put it in those terms. Yes. You have been
:52:48. > :52:52.making pots for 45 years. I have been making pots for 45 years, yes.
:52:53. > :53:01.I don't know, this year has been- one of the things about this year
:53:02. > :53:09.has been working out that I can, a sort of confidence to really just go
:53:10. > :53:15.for it. Just simply say this is what I do. This is what I do.