Depot Basel, space for contemporary design in Basel, Switzerland and Current Obsession, contemporary jewellery magazine, present a collaborative curatorial effort in the context of Depot Basel’s ongoing exhibition series ‘CRAFT &…’.
For CRAFT & BLING BLING ‘FAKE’ they commissioned work by twelve jewellery makers reflecting on the subject of ‘FAKE’ from standpoints of jewellery history, their own work mediums or contemporary art and society.
- “FAKE takes many forms, such as assimilation and disbelief. A FAKE cannot exist without an original – an object to compare it to as unauthentic, to manifest its existence as a replica, an imitation. FAKE takes place when a design object loses the purpose it is meant to serve. It thus becomes a prop, if it is still useful, or an object of art, if it is useless altogether. René Magritte dignified the FAKE eternally with an image of a pipe. FAKE may emerge as a failure of proof and this might turn FAKE into poetry. “[…] as long as nothing happens between them, the memory is cursed with what hasn’t happened.”* Considering the collaboration between Depot Basel (a place for contemporary design and haptic exhibitions) and Current Obsession Magazine (a publisher of images and non-haptic objects) I chose to dedicate my contribution to this particular dual life of the object – its existence and its picture. Thus, I have re-created objects that do not exist, despite appearing real in images. The large dimensions of these objects withdraws their purpose: A jump-ring becomes a bracelet; a shoelace becomes a jump rope; an eyeglass wipe cloth becomes a tablecloth; and a diamond remains the shiny rock that it is, regardless of its use or function. It is a collection that accentuates an implied illusion, it retains a context of jewellery and it depicts objects that flirt with my day-to-day experiences.” * “Blue Eyes, Black Hair”, Marguerite Duras