Current

Irina Razumovskaya: KORE

25.9.2026 - 10.01.2027

Current social debates are often shaped by experiences of loss. Social change and the lack of a central perspective on the many challenges of our time intensify the longing for a supposedly lost world, one in which roles and expectations seemed more clearly defined.

In contrast, Irina Razumovskaya points, in the very title of her exhibition, to the ambiguity that plays a central role in her work. The Greek goddess Kore embodied a double role, as ruler of the realm of the dead and as maiden of fertility. For Razumovskaya she is a symbol of the ambivalence that women are so often expected to fulfil, an ambivalence that cannot, however, be mastered without experiences of loss.

Her exhibition KORE begins with silence, a silence that is also deeply rooted in her personal experiences of loss. It tells of a stillborn child, of a lost homeland, of a language no one speaks any more. In doing so, Razumovskaya lays bare not only her own wounds but also those of the homeland she left behind.

Here the missing words become the load-bearing element. Fragments of ancient texts recall, for example, the writers of the Soviet Union in the 1930s who were denied a voice of their own. Translations of ancient works were their only means of expressing the unspeakable. They hid their criticism and their cries for help between the lines and in centuries-old texts.

The artist searches for a form of her own in which to preserve and hold on to the unspoken. She visualises it through gaps that say at least as much as what is visible. Broken ceramic forms make visible stories of pain, control and grief, stories that were meant to remain untold. In her ceramics, Razumovskaya gives the unheard a permanent material form.

Irina Razumovskaya (b. 1990, Leningrad) lives and works in London. She studied at the St. Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design and at the Royal College of Art in London, where she now teaches. She is a laureate of the 15th Westerwald Prize 2024.

Vibrant Joie de Vivre. Industrial Ceramics of the Post-War Era, 1950–1980

8.5.2026 – 4.4.2027

The Kannenbäckerland region is globally renowned for its salt-glazed, grey-blue ceramics. Yet for around 150 years, it has offered far more than just traditional stoneware. This exhibition turns the spotlight on an era that deserves greater recognition in the Westerwald: the serially produced ceramics of the post-war period.

The economic upswing from 1948 marked a profound transformation. On the one hand, a thriving consumer society emerged, characterised by optimism, a desire for prosperity, and a longing for stability. The colourful ceramics, proudly bearing the label “Made in West Germany,” embodied this new zest for life. On the other hand, this boom was often built on precarious working conditions and environmentally damaging production processes. The exhibition therefore not only showcases the distinctive aesthetics of the era but also engages with the ambiguities of this renewed golden age in Westerwald ceramic history.

The economic miracle of the ceramics industry, however, was not uniquely German but a Western European phenomenon. Denis Bousch and Jörn Garleff have compared the ceramic developments in France and Germany after 1950 in a joint project. Their findings were previously presented at the Musées d’Art et d’Industrie in Saint-Étienne. The Ceramics Museum now focuses particularly on the Westerwald and the people who shaped this era.

The exhibition and the comprehensive, bilingual accompanying catalogue (F / D) bring this extraordinary period into the spotlight at the Ceramics Museum for the first time.