Chris Antemann Dessert Service Gotskowsky

Skimpily clad men and women coyly present their bodies to the world. Consummately arranged banquets, bedchambers and courtly gardens serve as a stage upon which stories unfold. Figures by the American porcelain artist Chris Antemann convey a sense of frivolous merriment at first glance. However, closer inspection reveals Ms Antemann to be using them to parody this world of ours, its social norms, etiquette and tabus - invariably with a knowing twinkle in her eye. Antemann has drawn inspiration from 18th-century figures and the porcelain art of Johann Joachim Kaendler in joining with the Manufactory to produce a comprehensive collection of one-offs and limited-edition artworks over the past decade. Their latest foray through the archives led them to the "Gotzkowsky déjeuner", a tableware service with a mass of relief-moulded flowers modelled by Johann Joachim Kaendler in 1741 for the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky. Antemann has toned down the opulence of the original and switched her focus to versions of her stock porcelain sculptures in soft pastel shades, framing them with single scattered flower-heads. Meissen's porcelain painters have helped infuse a fresh new-age touch into the traditional art of portrait painting on porcelain. Antemann's figures surreptitiously exchange kisses over a cup of tea or else steal a peep from behind their fans. Modern tableware materialises against a backdrop of over three centuries of European porcelain culture.