Peter Bauhuis: Abecedarium. Jewel. Vessel. Implement

A subjective handbook of creative processes.

Peter Bauhuis is fascinated by the possibilities of founding. His jewellery pieces and vessels are formed by the process of casting and fusing metals. By playing with the oxidisation of gold, silver and copper, he achieves unexpected colours from matt white and fragile green-yellow through to deep orange and dark red.

The lost-wax casting process opens up to him a multitude of possibilities. The seemingly simplest forms are forever contrived anew. Would-be casting defects, such as fine lines or fissures and visible marks, which reveal the casting process, are incorporated into the object’s form. The runner is also left. As a result it gives a lightness unusual for metal and its materiality.

As a bibliophilic treasure – with cloth-bound cover and gold embossing – ARNOLDSCHE Art Publishers presents for the first time the complete volume of Bauhuis’s work: large format illustrations of the work are accompanied by an abecedarian, the essays of which encompass the works of Peter Bauhuis in alphabetical order. It is not, however, a reference work in the usual sense: its form is taken and opens up a labyrinthine game with meaning, associa-tions and annotations.

At times, the authors themselves – with whom Bauhuis exchanges creative ideas – appear with their work: a cultural scientist, a philosopher, the artist. The book records the exchange of experiences and interests of those involved on the most diverse aspects of seeing, finding, creating and knowing.

With contributions by Karl Bollmann, Helen Britton, Liesbeth den Besten, Michael Erlhoff, Karl Fritsch, Andi Gut, Heinz Schütz, et al.