Katrine Køster Holst | Lisbeth Voigt Durand

UnNgÅ rEgNeFell

15 August - 22 September 2019

This exhibition by Katrine Køster Holst combines a selection of installations, works and archives from 2000 to 2019. Seen together, they give us a glimpse of how she has worked with both traditional and experimental methods in her research on glaze materials. The show’s title, UnNgÅ rEgNeFeiL (‘Avoid Math Errors’) relates to Køster Holst’s reflections on how she has gained her knowledge of ceramics and how she continues to find new expressive possibilities in the raw materials of glazes. For her, the results emerge in the artistic process, seldom as defined goals, but more often as effects of processes in which she has focused on exploration and discovery.

Along with presenting her own works, Køster Holst invites Lisbeth Voigt Durand to show several thrown bowls and urn shapes with glazes. The two artists are from different generations, and their artistic expressions are also very different, but the linkage is not by chance. The exhibition is actually a stage in an ongoing professional dialog on glazes, traditions and the history of ceramics. If we are to point to one aspect the two artists share, it must be their will to search and find, and to repeat experiments many times in order to get to know their materials.

Køster Holst writes:
In the middle of summer vacation, I plan to visit Lisbeth in Denmark to talk about glazes. I’ve formulated several questions that mostly relate to what is called ‘the Seger formula’ and the man who developed it in the late 1800s. This was the German chemical engineer Herman Seger. The formula is a calculation method used to analyse and develop glazes. It was revolutionary and has been used worldwide, both in industry and by studio ceramists. Nowadays only a few people have the knowledge and will to develop glazes from scratch, and Lisbeth is one of the few I know of.

In addition to seeing the ceramic works, exhibition visitors can read excerpts from a conversation between the two artists. Three essays, Glasuravfallet (‘Waste Glaze’), Formlene (‘The Formulas’) and Keramikkovnen(‘The Kiln’), which Køster Holst wrote while working on her PhD project, will also figure into the exhibition.


Katrine Køster Holst (b. 1979) first studied at Designskolen Kolding DK (1999-2003) and then at Kunsthøgskolen i Bergen (2003-2006). In 2019 she defended her PhD project Mineraler og naturfenomener – Kunstnerisk uttrykk gjennom regelbasert utforskning (‘Minerals and Natural Phenomena – Artistic Expression through Rule-Based Exploration’) at Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo. She lives in Drammen and works experimentally within the field of ceramics. This is her third solo exhibition at Galleri Format.

Lisbeth Voigt Durand (b. 1946) is a ceramic artist. She lives and works north of Kolding in Denmark. She initially studied traditional pottery but followed it up by spending two years at Istituto per La Ceramica, Laboratorio Tecnologico, Faenza, Italy. She was a teacher and department head at Designskolen, Kolding, Ceramics Department, from 1971 to 2007.


On September 18th a finissage and a seminar day with lectures on glazes is planned. Information will follow.