In collaboration with the historic Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg, the Swiss artist and designer Rolf Sachs has created an exclusive collection of candlesticks called ‘Berührung’, which translates as ‘touch’ in English.

The Berührung collection strikes a balance between faire and laissez-faire. It highlights Sachs’ empathetic and sensual approach to creativity. It encapsulates his vision of producing ‘arts emotionels instead of arts décoratifs,’ with each candlestick being moulded with verve, shaped with intuition, and bent and pressed with impulse.

The candlesticks express Sachs’ endless fascination with the concept of imperfection. He says, “Perfection often seems a little sterile. I have a love of flaws. By nature, humans are not perfect, and if we are, we are probably boring.”

Rolf Sachs has been collaborating with Nymphenburg for many years, and working with porcelain is always something special for the artist. He finds it a moving experience to feel the fine material in his hands, shape it and deal with it, as it allows him to engage all his senses.

The ‘Berührung’ collection is a stark contrast from what today’s predominantly perfectionist society craves; it breaks the link and reintroduces emotions and much-needed imagination into a world where straight lines, efficiency, and order seemingly take precedence.

The ‘Berührung’ collection is intended to encourage us to acknowledge imperfections and celebrate them.

For the artist, the focus of his work has always been the examination of people, “The more truthful we are, the more we show of our character.” Sachs calls on us to stop hiding our flaws and instead live and even enjoy them.

‘Berührung’, in keeping with the tradition of Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg, can act as a centrepiece on a dining table and, without doubt, would become a focal point of conversations and exchanges. It also invites us to reconsider and discover the soul of porcelain.

The ‘Berührung’ candlesticks are a testament to Sachs’ unconventional use of the material, inviting the manufacturer to approach it in new ways. With Sachs’ intervention, they become original, poetic one-offs that come in all shapes and sizes: small and large, high and low, in pure white bisque porcelain or stained with coloured glazes.

Contrary to its usual transparency and delicacy, the bisque porcelain is full of fractures, fingerprints, and seemingly arbitrary shapes, offering a new language than its usual finesse.

Sachs approaches the medium more spontaneously, moulding, turning, embossing, painting, and firing it with great freedom.

Retail Prices for the ‘Berührung’ series start from €800. More information on the collection and other products from Nymphenburg can be found at www.nymphenburg.com.

About Rolf Sachs
Rolf Sachs is a multi-disciplinary artist and designer currently based in Rome. He applies a distinctive humane and conceptual approach across many mediums, ranging from sculpture, painting, photography and design to architectural projects and set designs for opera and ballet. His move to Rome inspired him to finally dedicate himself seriously to painting.

Since the 1990s, Sachs has challenged preconceived applications of materials, processes, and everyday objects, imbuing them with novel meaning. Deftly employing humour and wit, his work seeks to elicit emotional, sensory reactions.

However, his work has nothing of the dryness that is often associated with conceptual art. Rather, it is full of humanity, sensibility, and respect towards the materials he uses. It is poetic, humorous, tongue-in-cheek, but never irreverent. His work explores the human psyche, people’s character, relationships, soul and spirit.

Sachs was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1955 to a German father and a French mother. After studying in the US and the UK in the late 1980s, Sachs moved to London in 1994 to focus on his artistic practice. In 2018, he moved to Rome, where he opened a new studio in 2020.

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