MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique is very pleased to present Translated Vase a new work from Korean artist Yeesookyung’s eponymous series.

Begun in 2002, Yee’s "Translated Vases" are an ongoing body of work. These otherworldly ceramic sculptures are assembled “in the manner of three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles” as the artist explains, using discarded fragments of pots, teapots, plates and vases.

Embellishing the cracks between each fragment with gold leaf, Yee does not seek to hide the fractures, but rather to transform these imperfections. This technique focuses on the creation of a new morphology of discarded ceramic shards that is completely different from Kintsugi, a Japanese repair clinging to original shape and form of a vessel. Playing on the polysemy of the Korean term Geum, which means both gold and crack, Yee uses gold to embrace, to enhance the object’s wounds, to reveal them as valuable mementos of time, its passage and overcoming challenges gracefully. Broken ceramic pieces are thus given a new life in new compositions that are as boisterous as gracefully assembled.

As the artist explains, “from the moment of destruction, I obtain a chance to intervene and fabricate new narratives with my own translation”.

The sculpture presented at MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique is among the larger examples of Translated Vases. With its golden cracks ramifying across its surface like a network of veins, or roots keeping the surface of the sculpture together, the bulging, restless assembled pieces of Translated Vase come together in a graceful, fragile balance of damaged broken pieces that offer a new vocabulary for sculpture.