Laurent Craste: Iconoclasts, An American Museum Debut
Excerpt from Art & Object
“When I hit a beautiful porcelain vase with a baseball bat, I provoke a visual shock. There is a contrast between the beauty and luxury of the objects and the violence that is submitted to. I want to make people conscious of the fragility of our world.”— Laurent Craste
The Everson Museum of Art presents Laurent Craste: Iconoclasts, marking the American museum debut of French-born Canadian ceramist Laurent Craste. On view now through May 24, 2026, the exhibition explores porcelain’s historic role as a symbol of wealth, refinement, and power, and disrupts it.
Throughout his career, Craste has transformed meticulously crafted porcelain vessels into charged objects of confrontation. His ornate vases are pierced by arrows, crushed with baseball bats, impaled with crowbars, and struck with nail-studded bars. The resulting works stage a jarring collision between beauty and violence.
