Opening and meeting with Dany Jung, of gypsy and Alsatian origin. Inspired by Alsace, the Maghreb and Persia, he evolves towards sculpture in glazed clay, creating balanced, light and dreamlike works.
Gypsy on his father's side and Alsatian by birth, Dany Jung grew up in a land of crossroads, where gypsy, Jewish, Northern Italian and Eastern influences found a home and brought with them one of the most immediate of arts, that of tableware.
Having become a collector of folk art, Jung searched, found, collected, restored and met the Friedmann pottery in Soufflenheim, which adopted him. He became a glazed earthenware potter. The Friedmanns introduced him to the barolet technique (a kind of bottle containing slip and ending in a goose feather), which enabled this graphic designer, a graduate of the arts décoratifs de Strasbourg, to develop a graphic vocabulary based on full and loose lines. Initially inspired by Alsatian folk art, his designs soon spread beyond their initial geographical boundaries, drawing on the richness and opulence of ceramics from the Maghreb (Kairouan) and ancient Persia. A world of ochres, copper greens, manganese browns and cobalt blues, glazed earthenware remains a warm, often pictorial pottery throughout the world, the product of a popular tradition, whether in the Palace of the Popes in Avignon or the mosque in Kairouan.
Settling in the Drôme region in the 1980s, Dany Jung began by installing a ridge tile on the roof of his house, and gradually turned to sculpture: turned and assembled elements are used to create figures and animals, some of which are partially glazed (horse saddle). The bulk of the pieces are then patinated with ochre and wax.
All are characterized by a breathtaking sense of balance and imbalance: a horse standing still on the edge of a precipice, a figure perched on one foot at the top of a column, ready to fall, a dialogue between man and bird.
The artist has a passion for challenges, an extremely sure technique, and above all a taste for lightness, for dreams, for a world as it should be, inhabited by huge, light figures, animals freed from all gravity, where life unfolds as it is embodied in this "motionless" movement.
Dany Jung or the art of escaping gravity.
Having become a collector of folk art, Jung searched, found, collected, restored and met the Friedmann pottery in Soufflenheim, which adopted him. He became a glazed earthenware potter. The Friedmanns introduced him to the barolet technique (a kind of bottle containing slip and ending in a goose feather), which enabled this graphic designer, a graduate of the arts décoratifs de Strasbourg, to develop a graphic vocabulary based on full and loose lines. Initially inspired by Alsatian folk art, his designs soon spread beyond their initial geographical boundaries, drawing on the richness and opulence of ceramics from the Maghreb (Kairouan) and ancient Persia. A world of ochres, copper greens, manganese browns and cobalt blues, glazed earthenware remains a warm, often pictorial pottery throughout the world, the product of a popular tradition, whether in the Palace of the Popes in Avignon or the mosque in Kairouan.
Settling in the Drôme region in the 1980s, Dany Jung began by installing a ridge tile on the roof of his house, and gradually turned to sculpture: turned and assembled elements are used to create figures and animals, some of which are partially glazed (horse saddle). The bulk of the pieces are then patinated with ochre and wax.
All are characterized by a breathtaking sense of balance and imbalance: a horse standing still on the edge of a precipice, a figure perched on one foot at the top of a column, ready to fall, a dialogue between man and bird.
The artist has a passion for challenges, an extremely sure technique, and above all a taste for lightness, for dreams, for a world as it should be, inhabited by huge, light figures, animals freed from all gravity, where life unfolds as it is embodied in this "motionless" movement.
Dany Jung or the art of escaping gravity.
