Enzo Mari: A Proposal for Handmade
Porcelain by Ettore Sottsass
Excerpted from a Danese Milano catalog, 1975
And now we have the porcelains...I believe these porcelains are, instead diagrams for meticulous gestures of the hands, and for the attentive focussing of eyes that have perhaps found an answer to their questing. I believe they are diagrams (like Buddha rosaries) for cathartic exercises; I believe they are signs for reading medieval Sutras in the correct order; I believe that they are simple geometris for the silent repetition of ancient therapeutic formulas; I believe they are moulds of bandages that have healed difficult wouunds; I believe they are instruments of consolation rather that instruments of presumption. I believe that these porcelains must me treated with care, as one treats a memory of the past. I believe that one should honor them as one honours the instruments of a rite; I believe that one should put them down carefully on the wood table-top, as one lays down the fragile sheet of a letter that tells of melancholic adventures...