Color, type and materiality collide in a collaboration between Spanish label Loewe and American sculptor Lynda Benglis, collectively bringing a seductive fizz to jewelry design.
The brand new assortment includes seven ideas that reference Benglis’ work, in addition to the large- scale sculptures that commandeered Loewe’s S/S24 girls’s catwalk. A sensuous reinterpretation of Benglis’ ongoing collection Elephant Necklace (itself impressed by the blown-out tractor tyres strewn on the edges of numerous American highways), the good, hulking bronze formations appeared as if smoothed and manipulated by the artist’s hand, the dynamic marks of constructing nonetheless seen on the fabric.
Benglis builds on this temporality in her jewelry for Loewe, translating free-flowing types into overblown but useful jewelry. ‘Nature is at all times the reply,’ says Benglis on the uncooked and instinctive nature of her items. ‘I wished the items to embody states of metamorphosis. A way of development with time, change and rebirth. Mirroring life’s transformations inside artwork concepts, so we proceed to suppose past thought to the absurd, so as to discover materials extra.’
Just like the sculptures, the jewelry joyfully juxtaposes supplies and textures, a motif that runs all through her work. It joins an instinctive respect for the quirks of typically viscous supplies, making for a course of that lets the fabric outline the completed type, an eclectic nature that’s mirrored within the jewelry itself: ‘As people, we’re interested in treasured metals and issues that glitter,’ says Benglis. ‘Jewelry is an ideal place to discover these primal delights.’
‘Wow’ cuff in aluminium, by Lynda Benglis, for Loewe
(Picture credit score: Adrien Dubost)
In ‘Glitter Bug’, rainbows of crystals and sterling silver enable us to indulge our inside magpie. Marshmallow puffs of glittering color relaxation on or ripple between the fingers in single or double rings, or are teased into ear cuffs that drape casually over the whorls of the ear. In ‘Foam Drip’, Benglis’ preoccupation with the power of fabric to transcend between states is explored in items made from enamel and sterling silver. Of their misshapen types, they reference her experiments with spraying expandable foam throughout a workshop go to to Sante Fe with Loewe. Followers of aluminium flutter across the wrist and embrace the earlobes within the ‘Pleated Fan’ items, whereas in ‘Knotted’, the fabric is rolled into lengthy tubes, twisted and knotted, making for rings and brooches that embody offbeat, anfractuous shapes.
For Loewe’s artistic director Jonathan Anderson, the wearable sculptures are a succinct encapsulation of the model’s spirit. ‘There’s something about Lynda Benglis’ experiments of the Seventies – the liberation, friction and violence – that I’m drawn to. I feel there must be a pressure. This assortment of jewelry harnesses a few of that power, the dynamism of supplies in movement, captured in moments and fragments from her studio.’
Always, the collaboration stays devoted to Benglis’ course of, which celebrates the properties of fabric. Her fascination with supplies in transit – wax being poured, latex pooling into undulating puddles, pinched metals, effervescent foam – turns into jewelry that seems as if frozen in time. The sense of motion and convoluted types are as omnipresent in these jewelry items as they’re within the art work, however right here the position of the physique takes on a larger significance, changing into a sensual springboard for the potential of treasured metallic.
The jewelry, changing into small-scale translations of her work, respects each her artistic methodology and the useful necessities of jewelry design, as demonstrated within the ‘Wow’ items. They instantly reference the paper sculptures that Loewe’s jewelry designer got here throughout in Benglis’ studio, which have been created from shrinkable moist paper pressed over wire or bamboo, to type tough skeletons. As soon as dried, the sinuous silhouettes resemble writhing dwelling types, and have now change into cuffs that seem to have been smoothed nonchalantly across the contours of the wrist. ‘Elephant’, too, is a direct translation of this uncooked palpability in her work, in a rethinking of the proportions of the Elephant Necklace collection, leading to outsized cuffs and earrings that dance over the fragile proportions of the physique.
For Benglis, this interpretation of her types for Loewe has been a pleasure. ‘Loewe is an umbrella of sensual metaphors in style. And we share a love of glitter!’
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A model of this text seems within the February 2024 problem of Wallpaper* – devoted to the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2024 – obtainable in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple Information +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* immediately
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