Wanna swap your ring? – ONE DAY PROJECT – Platina Gallery, Stockholm (SE) – SATURDAY 9 APRIL 2011

TED NOTEN
“Wanna swap your ring?” Stockholm
500 Miss Piggy rings presented in the shape of a gun?

ONE DAY PROJECT SATURDAY 9TH APRIL 2011, 16-20h

Bring a ring with you!
You will for exchange get a Miss Piggy ring and Pink drinks!
There will also be a chance to see some other work of Ted Noten’s

The shape of a gun on the wall, known as an icon of Ted Noten’s work, will gradually change into a jewel jungle as a result of the stories told by the rings that are left behind. Jewellery reflects the soul of a city! Atelier Ted Noten is going to present the same concept in different cities all over the world, like: Tokyo, Paris, Moscow, New York, Sao Paulo.

What does Noten do with the rings you left behind? “I surely find a way to deal with that!”

« Jewellery has incredibly many ways of communicating. It forms a direct link with what means to be human, with what is small, with the psychology of traditions that can be found in all nationalities and periods. »
The conceptual jewellery designer Ted Noten began his career in the early 1990s. His jewellery implicitly reflects on the discipline, using for that purpose the media, materials and techniques that we normally associate with timeless beauty and eternal value, such as gold, pearls and diamonds, but also inexpensive materials such as plastic and ephemeral media such as video and performances. For the presentations of his objects and installations he chooses both traditional jewellery shops and galleries and museums of modern art, as well as the public domain on occasion. Noten has had a profound influence on the discipline, for example by introducing the longing for beauty and ornament in the vanguard again and through his playing with high and low. He combines deadly serious research and critical ideas with an almost childlike humor, absurdity and sense of theatricality. « I find it equally interesting to design something for a museum or for a souvenir shop, for a stinking rich collector or for a whore in Amsterdam. I like to fool people with my work. » Many of his designs are small and tender, others are out to provoke and are very showy. Each one of them tells a story about jewellery, not in the last place because of the great attention that Noten has lavished on details.
There is no shortage of well-known designs. In the course of his career he has given many old piece of jewellery a new raison d’être by incorporating it in transparent acryl, such as the Lyppens Bag (2005). The project Chew your own Brooch (1999) gave people the opportunity to « design » a shape with the gum they were chewing, which Noten then cast in silver and fitted with a clasp. The Global Tactile Pieces II (2006) are impressions of a journey that Noten made with the Siberia Express from Tokyo to Moscow. Tianjin, for example, shows a drill with miniature human figures making love because Noten was struck by the almost sexual energy of the city of Tanjin which, unlike many of Russian cities, does not look back in anger but looks confidently towards future. Noten placed a ring dispenser in the Amsterdam Red Light District with the title Be Nice To A Girl, Buy Her A Ring (2009). Clients of the hookers were invited to buy a ring for the lady of their choice for a mere €2,50.
Ted Noten has received numerous awards for his creations, such as the Francoise van den Bosch Award for his oeuvre in 2008. On the occasion of the presentation of the award in Stedelijk Museum’s-Hertogenbosch he showed highlights from his oeuvre in a carefully orchestered catwalk show. An impression of the oeuvre of that catwalk can be seen in the MOT. Objects that combine to give an impression of the oeuvre of this recalcitrant jewellery designer are placed motionless beneath transparent cylinders. Besides this static presentation of the catwalk, the interactive installation Wanna Swap Rings? – can be seen on the wall.

 

PLATINA Gallery
Visiting address: Odengatan 68, Stockholm
Postal address: Box 6116,
S-102 32, Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: + 46 8 300 280
Mail: [e-mail]
Open Tu-Fri 11am-6pm Sat 11am-3pm