Ontwerp voor een compotelepel c. 1874 - 1932

Mathieu Lauweriks made this design for a compote spoon with pencil on paper. The spoon almost floats, there, on the page, a side view above a full view. The artist has clearly measured the object and its various sections and it is so precise and full of intent. I think of Lauweriks carefully considering the use and function of the spoon as they make the design. It feels quite intimate, in a way. The design is a ghost of a spoon, a guide for the creation of a spoon – a useful object, domestic and everyday. Maybe there is a quiet beauty here and even a little bit of humor, like when Sherrie Levine rephotographed Walker Evans's photographs of humble objects. We can also think of the sets of spoons by Claes Oldenburg, or the giant spoonbridge and cherry sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Artists have long been interested in the things we use.