Exhibition Insight... Barossa Biedermeier
Holly Phillipson, Die Kanister series, 2023, reduction-fired stoneware with satin white glaze, 105 x 235 x 235 mm; reduction-fired stoneware with shino glaze, 140 x 120 x 115 mm, photographer: Michael Haines
In celebration of the South Australian Living Artist (SALA) Festival, JamFactory Seppeltsfield annually presents an exhibition focusing on an aspect of the history, food and wine culture and natural landscape of the Barossa. This year, the exhibition Barossa Biedermeier explores Biedermeier (1815-1848), a style of painting, furniture and decorative arts that was brought to the Barossa by German craftspeople and artisans when they settled in the region during the mid-nineteenth century. The introduction of Biedermeier to the Barossa significantly influenced the design and production of domestic objects and is one of the most lasting cultural and material legacies of German settlement in South Australia.
Barossa Biedermeier is showing at JamFactory Barossa until 2 October 2023
Words by Caitlin Eyre
Originating in Europe during a period of political stability and growing urbanisation, Biedermeier was retrospectively regarded as a golden age of simple, handcrafted design before the advent of widespread industrialisation. The term Biedermeier is derived from ‘Bieder’, meaning upright, plain or virtuous, and ‘Maier’, a common German surname. The style was emblematic of the burgeoning middle class desire for practical, comfortable furniture and homewares that rejected ostentatious decoration for utilitarian simplicity and modesty. Isolated from its origins in Europe, the Biedermeier style flourished in the Barossa, with craftspeople both preserving traditional German aesthetics and methods of making and incorporating new materials and motifs from their Australian surroundings.
In homage to the talent and skill of the German craftspeople and artisans who settled in regional South Australia, Barossa Biedermeier presents new craft and design objects made by seven JamFactory Alumni and Associates working in furniture and ceramics. During the course of their research and making, each artist has delved deeply into the rich material history of the Barossa, reading widely about the Biedermeier style and viewing examples of related historical objects within local and state collections. The resulting artworks have been created in response to the traditions, aesthetics and design principles of Biedermeier and the experiences of early German settlers in the region. By focusing on Biedermeier, Barossa Biedermeier celebrates the significant contributions that German migrants made to the cultural and material heritage of the region through a distinctly contemporary lens. Curated by JamFactory Curator Caitlin Eyre, Barossa Biedermeier features work by Ashlee Hopkins, James Howe, Melvin Josy, Jordan Leeflang, Holly Phillipson, Hannah Vorrath-Pajak, Duncan Young.
Ashlee Hopkins’ New Ormolu (2023) series of vessels exemplifies the transition between Biedermeier’s origins as a simple, restrained style of the middle class that symbolised virtuous middle class values to an increasingly ornate and decorative style that demonstrated their growing affluence and success. These complexities are illustrated through the contrasting use of simple ceramic forms paired with lustrous gold glaze decorations and details. Gold has been a ubiquitous symbol of wealth and status for centuries, with the titular ‘ormolu’ referring to the gold-coloured alloy of copper, zinc and tin used to decorate furniture and ornaments well into the nineteenth century. The gold lustre featured on Hopkins’ vessels serves to highlight the symbolic preciousness of the marker’s mark. Gold drips from the thumb-pressed coils and plaques as a poignant commentary on the value of craftspeople throughout the Biedermeier and within modern craft and design.
Created in response to the religious persecution that prompted German immigration to Australia in the nineteenth century, James Howe’s Paper Throne stands as a protest against the wielding of fear to silence those we dislike or disagree with. The piece is inspired by the furniture of Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Zilm (1827–1906), a German furniture-maker who settled in South Australia after fleeing the religious persecution inflicted by King Frederick William III of Prussia (1770-1840). In our modern democracy, when we wield fear of being fired, de-platformed or incarcerated in an attempt to strong-arm our fellow humans into silence, we circumvent our democratic principles and revert to bullying others into acquiescing to our own personal opinions. In different guises, persecution always ensues when we adopt a tyrannical approach to responding to the words and thoughts of others. In Paper Throne, Howe takes the downturned carved hands of Zilm’s iconic Windsor chair and places them palm upwards in a symbolic plea to never forget the lessons of religious persecution.
Ashlee Hopkins, New Ormolu II, 2023, stoneware, glaze, gold lustre, 340 x 250 x 250mm
James Howe, Paper Throne, 2023, salvaged redgum, stainless steel, hand-dyed Danish cord, 450 x 1050 x 350, Photo: courtesy of the artist
Melvin Josy, Bahre, 2023, American Walnut, seagrass, 1600 x 550 x 660mm, Photograph: courtesy of the artist
The journey to the Promised Land, whether it be a literal or metaphorical one, is often represented as a hopeful quest for prosperity and abundance. In classical art, these themes were often represented by a cornucopia, a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers or nuts. Interestingly, the motif of the cornucopia can often be found carved into timber Biedermeier furniture. The story of the German settlement in the Barossa serves as a testament to the enduring human spirit and its ability to find hope and light, even in the face of hardship. In Cornucopia Lamp (2023), Melvin Josy recontextualises this classical motif to a symbol of the hopes and aspirations of the German migrants for their new home in the Barossa Valley. In this simplified version, the cornucopia is made from Walnut panels stitched together to create a diverging form, with the gilded gold interior reflecting the golden rays of wealth and prosperity.
Conversely to the dream of prosperity and abundance, the immigrant experience also encompasses stories of uncertainty, loss, hardship and a longing to reconnect with one’s distant native lands. The stories of the migrants who never reached the Promised Lands and who met untimely ends reveals the harsh realities of the long sea voyage from Europe to Australia, including illness, misfortune and death. Josy’s Bahre Chair (2023) references the form of the Totenbahre – the German word for a funeral bier (stand) used to transport the deceased from one location to another, such as from a church to a cemetery. Stripped of elaborate ornamentation, this religious artefact has a humble and utilitarian form that Josy has recontextualised as a symbol for the losses and hardships faced by early German migrants, as well as the religious persecution that often forced their migration. The intentional instability of the Bahre Chair captures the unsettling rocking motion of a vessel on the unforgiving sea and the discomfort of several months spent living in crowded conditions below deck.
“The story of the German settlement in the Barossa serves as a testament to the enduring human spirit and its ability to find hope and light, even in the face of hardship”
Jordan Leeflang’s Adorned cabinet (2023) was inspired by the progression of Biedermeier from the purely utilitarian furniture made by new German settlers to the more ornate furniture that appeared in the years following the establishment of the Barossa region. The key to this progression was the population’s increasing ability to devote time and resources to creating objects of aesthetic beauty as well as function. The Zilm family furniture collection, which was made by German migrant Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Zilm (1827-1906) throughout the 1890s, captures this progression through the maker’s slow addition of decorative details and playful elements as his family became established in their new surroundings. In designing the Adorned cabinet, Leeflang was also influenced by Biedermeier paintings of comforting domestic interiors filled with drapery and soft furnishings. Taking cues from these interiors, Leeflang has abstracted the cabinet’s form to include purely decorative elements such as the ornamental fins inspired by the fluidity of fabric.
Jordan Leeflang, Adorn, 2023, American Walnut, 1400 x 800 x 420mm, Photograph: courtesy of the artist
Hannah Vorrath-Pajak’s Kaffeeklatsch (2023) is a collection of domestic objects is inspired by the folk craft traditions brought to the Barossa Valley by German immigrants, with a particular focus on the ceramic works of master potter Samuel Hoffmann (1818–1900). A skilled maker and the first notable potter in the Barossa, Hoffman immigrated to South Australia from the Prussian Province of Brandenburg in 1845. In making this series, Vorrath-Pajak was inspired by Hoffmann’s Gugelhupf cake pans and their symbolism of the long-standing German ritual of afternoon Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake). The German word Kaffeeklatsch, or ‘coffee chatter’, refers to the meeting of friends for coffee, cake and gossip, an activity made popular by women in nineteenth century Germany. Marrying these ideas with the influence of potter Hoffmann, Vorrath-Pajak has created a collection of pieces that celebrate and facilitate Kaffee und Kuchen, German culture and domestic comfort – the latter a key feature in the Biedermeier period.
Holly Phillipson, Die Kanister series, 2023, reduction-fired stoneware with iron and shino glaze, dimensions variable, Photographer: Michael Haines
Made in homage to the Barossa’s rich cultural heritage, Holly Phillipson’s Die Kanister is a collection of lidded ceramic vessels that draws on the timeless elegance of colonial German craft and design in South Australia. The coiled accents on the faceted, hexagonal and cylindrical forms featured in the series reflect the austere style and skilled craftsmanship prevalent in Biedermeier timber furniture and storage vessels – specifically wooden tea caddies. The slab-built and wheel-thrown vessels were crafted using various Australian stoneware clay bodies that Phillipson decorated with unique combinations of layered glazes. Each piece has been reduction-fired in a gas kiln to expose the iron in the clay, adding a depth and richness to the glazed surfaces. The intricate simplicity of these vessels invites the viewer to appreciate the everlasting charm and continued influence of Biedermeier on contemporary craft and design.
Hannah Vorrath-Pajak, Kaffeeklatsch series, 2023, wheel thrown porcelain with an oil spot tenmoku glaze, oxidation fired, dimensions variable, Photographer: Michael Haines
Duncan Young’s Onward Bound (2023) is a handcrafted totem that expresses the German roots of the pioneers of the Barossa, while also keeping space for the new lives they created for themselves in Australia. The form of the totem is suggestive of the German homeland, while the native Australian Ironbark timber speaks to the future of the migrants and their need to embrace their new surroundings. The piece is a reflection on migration and the strength that is required to move across the world in search of a new life, as well as all that they bring with them. As a person moves through life, their past experiences travel with them, even as they set up life in a new land. This is exemplified by the German migrants who brought the Biedermeier aesthetic to the Barossa and allowed it to flourish.