November 3, 2005, 6:00-7:30pm
More
than Jewelry: An Evening with Ruudt Peters at the Museum of
Arts & Design
Beginning in the 1970's, Ruudt Peters, a pioneering
Dutch conceptual jewelry artist, challenged traditional definitions
of adornment by pushing the boundaries of context, wearability,
materials and presentation. A leader in art jewelry in Holland,
Peters exemplifies a mode of expression that is unmistakably
Dutch, He has exerted a strong influence on the development
of contemporary jewelry as an artist and as a professor at two
of the most prestigious universities in Europe, the Gerrit Rietveld
Academie in Amsterdam and the University of Arts and Crafts
in Stockholm, where he now teaches.
The evening
will begin with a brief dialogue between the artist and MAD
curator Ursula Ilse-Neuman focusing on the current trends in
Dutch contemporary art jewelry. Accompanied by a series of slides,
the artist will then speak about the development of his work
over the past three decades from “Inflatable Suit”
(1973) to his current under-water installation of “Azoth”
and how it relates to the work of other Dutch and European artists.
With his signature wit, Peters plans to conclude his lecture
by explaining his aversion to (“I hate”) narrative
jewelry, and the challenge this poses since his latest works-in-progress
are narrations.
Contact:
Patrick
Keeffe
Museum of Arts & Design, Public Relations
40 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019
(212) 956-3535, x113
patrick.keeffe@madmuseum.org
www.madmuseum.org
Ruudt Peters' work can also be seen at:
Azoth,
solo exhibition Ruudt Peters at Ornamentum, Hudson, NY
October
15 - November 11, 2005
Small, amorphous
bodies cut in two and revealing an interior consisting of layer
upon layer of multicoloured polyester round a hollow prism of
black, oxidized silver. Ruudt Peters’ new works arouse
our curiosity. What are these strange brooches? Are they images
of the human body, cut in two and violated? Or are they symbols
of an unknown life of the interior, hidden within a thick, foreign
shell?
We receive
a first indication of the sort of process that has led up to
them in their name, Azoth. The word belongs to the vocabulary
of alchemy, the art of making gold that was keenly practised
by medieval mystics. Azoth is a word of many meanings that has
been used to denote a secret elixir, the universal life force
as well as fire, electricity and magnetism. It can denote the
philosopher’s stone and the water of life that rises from
a divine source. Like many esoteric concepts this one leads
a life of its own, cleverly avoiding attempts to establish a
definitive meaning. Its sense can be hidden, uncovered and re-interpreted
as though it had no core, as though it was a shifting projection.
The association
with alchemy leads us back to earlier work by Ruudt Peters.
He belongs to a generation of jewellery makers who received
their training during the 1970s and who, to a great extent,
rejected the goldsmith’s traditional materials. When gold
was finally introduced into his work it was in the form of an
interest in the world of alchemy rather than in the metal itself.
Azoth’s references to alchemical processes is a recognizable
feature from earlier thematic series by Ruudt Peters like Ouroboros
(1994), Lapis (1997) and Iosis (2002). Alchemy appears here
primarily as an investigation of the principle of changeability.
At the centre is the material’s shifting character, from
liquid to solid, soft to hard, porous to impermeable.
There are
links between the materials’ metamorphosis and the artist’s
own development. The creation and recreation of his identity
has been a recurring point of reference in Ruudt Peters’
work. Once again the threads lead to alchemy where the transmutation
of the material has the function of a portrayal or a projection
of the alchemist’s spiritual development. The objects
in the Azoth series comprise a closed geometrical form made
of silver and dipped in liquid polyester. We recognize the materials
from the metaphors of alchemy as stone and water, two extremes
that are, perhaps, merely different stages of a single process.
In Azoth the pieces have been cut in two. Everything lies open
to the beholder. But is this not really a rather deceitful openness?
We can look right in to the interior but we are not actually
able to discover any secrets. As the interior is hidden, covered
over and then brutally opened it assumes shifting identities
but it always lets something within it remain unseen.
Interpreted
in this way, the jewellery objects act as a defence for the
individual's right to move between different contexts. It is
a matter of being allowed to be contradictory and of uniting
influences from different directions – of being hard stone
and running water at one and the same time without having to
explain why.
Contact:
Love Jönsson
Ornamentum
Gallery
5061⁄2 Warren St.
Hudson, NY 12534
Tel 51-.671-6770
F ax 518-822-9819
info@ornamentumgallery.com
www.ornamentumgallery.com
