Porcelain Springtime
25 June, 2026 — No. 002
A Note From The Co-Editor:
Hello, reader. Today I want to propose a mantra you can adopt this summer. I came up with it myself just now. In true new age guru fashion, I hold no qualifications making me a valid spiritual leader and have done zero research on Indian religions. Still, I invite you to recite it out loud with me at this very moment. Repeat after me:
I wholeheartedly reject sitting atop the cold exterior of things.
Over the past months, I have been constantly pouring my jug into multiple porous pools I fear will never be filled. I am painfully writing a masters’ thesis guided only by dumb luck and a blind trust in my own intuition. When I find myself hunching over the blue light of text I only partially understand, despite being its sole author, I realise I am just like the ever-persistent primate of the infinite monkey cage It’s as if all my furious typing was trying to chip away at the corners of some worn-out idea, hoping that at least one valuable kernel of information sticks.
The same logic has ruled for my other pools. Job searching, meeting new people, carving out a place in a new city whose language still sounds like gibberish to me. I hurl myself into all these pools without it ever getting less exhausting. The whole process would be easier if the infinite monkey in me were unapologetic, if each failure did not feel like the whole weight of the world lowering upon my shoulders. With every bounce back, I end up convincing myself I am only allowed to watch everything from the outside, with my nose pressed against the cold window of all stately facades.
Spring in Amsterdam was freezing and unforgiving. About two weeks ago, after a wind-addled 30-minute cycle, I arrived at an Anna Volkova exhibition. Staring at the delicate porcelain flowers, I found myself growing frustrated. Of course, these sculptures are exquisite, and there is no discussion as to how technically impressive it is to mould such delicate details in porcelain. But aren’t these flowers simply too safe and pretty and prim? Don’t you want to tear them apart, petal by petal?
Today, summer stomps on, and with its heat, the glossy exterior of things suddenly seems to be melting away. One kick and all the windows of the façade will fall apart, letting all the scalding air rush in. Us Argentines have an idiomatic expression for being brass, impudent and cheeky. Caradura, meaning “hard-faced”. I’ve heard it all my life: “You’ve got to be more hard-faced”.
I want to thank all our hard-faced contributors who refused to sit on the porcelain glossy end of things. I, like them, wholeheartedly reject sitting atop the cold exterior of things.
– Co-Editor, Sofía Vidart
A look back on this past month’s articles:
Dolor Far Niente: On Doing Nothing (and Why It Feels So Unnatural)
There is a modern kind of anxiety that arrives when nothing is occurring. An unease between emails, places, plans, the time between one task ending and another not yet begun. It is the feeling: “I should be doing something”.
Venice: In Situ
The Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, when it comes to understanding and engaging with Venetian art, should not be top of your list for your next visit. Here’s why:
The King’s New Garden
This summer, visitors to Windsor Castle will be able to see the results of King Charles III’s latest horticultural intervention: the newly renamed Venus Garden, which opens to the public between July and September.
Shifting Patterns: Albarelli and Cognitive Traps, From Nasrid Lustre to Gothic Ornament.
Step into the visual culture of medieval Iberia to explore how a simple medicinal jar can become a “cognitive trap.” In this episode, we examine the “technology of enchantment” through a comparison of two 14th and 15th-century ceramic vessels, known as
Zofia Rydet: Sociological Record at The Photographer's Gallery, London.
In Zofia Rydet’s photographs, people and their homes seem to merge or switch places. A young woman sits beside a wall plastered with photos of 80s rock singer Sting; her gaze is brooding, and her hair is extravagantly pomaded, a mirror of her hero’s. Elsewhere, a man sits in a room that is so copiously decorated with pictures, some even hanging from his…
We Have No More Beginnings: The novels of Javier Marías
“We have no more beginnings,” states the critic George Steiner at the beginning of Grammars of Creation. All possible ways of telling stories have been exhausted and there are always those indebted to others, a tradition that weighs heavily on those who write. Even though all writing is rewriting and all stories have already been told, sometimes someone…
Beware The Glitterati: Fame as a Form of Government
When C. Wright Mills named celebrities as a pillar of the American ‘power elite’, he was dismissed as exaggerating. Today, 70 years after publication, no man personifies Mills’s book ‘The Power Elite’ more than the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
Just gave me a new business idea- rage rooms where we destroy art 😅