Ruudt Peters' Jewelry: Artistic, Outlandish, Designed to Provoke
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Where does it all come from? What is the essence? These are the questions Ruudt Peters asks himself when he makes jewelry.So it is little wonder pieces by this Amsterdam-based artist are described as radically conceptual, nor that they provoke similarly puzzlRuudt Peters' Jewelry: Artistic, Outlandish, Designed to Provoke
Where does it all come from? What is the essence? These are the questions Ruudt Peters asks himself when he makes jewelry.So it is little wonder pieces by this Amsterdam-based artist are described as radically conceptual, nor that they provoke similarly puzzling questions from onlookers. While speaking to Peters on the occasion of a traveling retrospective of his work, called BRON at the Helsinki Design Museum January 25-March 17, he joyfully expounds about his creative process, and in doing so, reveals his force.Peters, born in 1950, thinks out-loud, unabashedly revealing doubts, struggles and ultimately, excitement. The conversation itself becomes a source of inspiration, which is what he wants his sculptural jewelry to do: spark dialogue and confront.“I created the space between the wearer and the person in front of them; that negative space. And for me that’s what jewelry is all about. You and me creating space,” he said in an interview with Marina Elenskaya about his latest Ma series.Peters’ work can be elemental, a combination of otherworldly compositions of minerals left raw entwined with geometric, handcrafted constructions. He has used toxic lead on pieces whose surface layers rub off on the wearer. He has crushed precious stones into powder to reshape them. Sometimes reminiscent of inner organs in fleshy, translucent stone, it is not hard to see the connection between his jewelry and Peters’ early work as a medical instrument maker. Both are worn on the body, and Peters would argue, both can heal. One via science, and the other through the strength generated from wearing an unexplainable, and yet strangely beautiful object.Here is Peters discussing his own work from an interview conducted on Skype video. It has been edited for length.What does it mean to have this major retrospective of your work?It’s 44 years of work, so it’s a huge thing. I’m very proud. It’s an honor. It’s also emotional to see all the work together and see what I’ve made. Each series looks different, but they all have a red line connecting them. It goes through life and death, development and alchemy. It’s also very interesting to see [my] different perspectives on life, represented in the work. I am very curious to see that even form-wise, and in the meaning of the pieces, there’s a link between the beginning and now.Can you elaborate on that?The work in the ’70s was a certain kind of formal way of designing. It was fighting against silver and gold and using new materials like aluminum and rubber, so it was a kind of revolt in the jewelry world. I wanted to show that jewelry is the whole body.And I have also worked on figurative works, but I really hate — I have said I never want to make figurative work, because I hate it — but I still did it. And now I’m coming back to the same form-relationship as in the ’70s, but with a deeper layer and meaning. Now the work has the experience of life. You can dig in it, and you can even lose yourself. Does that sound strange? Maybe it is the same thing, but with mystery in it. You can look at it from different perspectives.In February, I have a new exhibition [“Suctus,” showing at Galerie Rob Koudijs Feb. 23-March 30] and it is related in form [to the work of the ’70s], only there is a deeper meaning put into the work.You get older, you become wiser, and all these things start to fit together. I grind a facet and that facet will highlight a part of what life is.It’s also sometimes about fear. There may be something inside of you, that you have a fear of presenting. I’m very much interested in religion, because I feel religion is a kind of mirror of society. But when it comes to my own religion — I was brought up Christian —then it’s much more complicated. [Peters holds up a hand-sized, metallic gray body of Christ, vertically sliced and laid open so that the cut surface is exposed.]For the series “Corpus,” in the middle of the night, I realized I have to cut up this corpus. So it becomes an abstraction of a form. You don’t know exactly what you see, but slowly, when you peak through, you can see the head of Jesus Christ. And that makes sense for me.I’m not someone who wants to present things obviously, directly, like a punch in the face. It’s more that you see a mystery, or you see a glimpse of a thing, and you start to think.Also, when I buy art, I buy art that I don’t like. It sounds strange. I like to buy things that I have to learn from.Do you feel the same way about how you want your own work perceived?Yes, I want to be a little naughty. For instance, the series of huge lingams [sculptures of male genitals that are hung together on a string]. I made them while I was in Thailand.There are a lot of these huge penises hanging in houses there, and it’s about fertility and creation, and I thought: this is what jewelry is.So I made them, but huge, about 25 centimeters, and always seven of them together. They hang in front of a person’s own genitals, and when you walk with them, it’s really a huge statement.But I’m walking into a booby trap, because on the one hand I said I don’t want to punch people in the face, and these ones punch you in the face. Everyone sees that this is an oversexual thing, but for me it’s about the relationship underneath, where it talks about religion. The people in Thailand and in South East Asia carry lingams to a temple or a shrine. When they want a baby they offer a huge penis, and that makes me feel very humble, and also emotional. Compared to what we do when we go to hospital, and can get a baby with an injection, these people believe that when they pray and offer a penis, it will be possible.That brings me to ex-votos, [body parts formed in wax, for the purpose of religious offering]: they are also a jewel you can wear as a talisman. When you give an ex-voto to a saint or shrine, then you believe that you get power, or healthy, and this kind of power, when it’s in jewelry, makes me very happy that I can make jewelry.This dialogue instigated by the jewelry is central to its identity.Yes, for me jewelry is a communication piece. It’s like a coffee book on the table. It’s a conversation. When you wear a piece of contemporary jewelry, more than other jewelry, there is a meaning to it. As a maker, you are charging a piece of jewelry, but the wearer is charging it too. By wearing the piece, they are connected with your thoughts, and they walk out on the street, and other people connect with them.You are making participatory art in a way.I feel in jewelry, there is a shifting line between design and art. For me it is a slippery situation. It’s not so fixed. Art with a big A, is established for the elite. But jewelry, when you walk in the street with it, you’re making it more equal to all. I say that but I’m also thinking: stupid, that’s not true, only the elite walk around with your pieces. Most other people don’t want to be seen wearing something like that.Can you talk about the process of going from one series to another?After I feel I’ve expressed what I wanted in a series of work, I stop, and I have to slap my hands, because it’s easy to go on when you have a new idea. And after stopping with the whole movement of life, doing meditation, etc… then I start a new series of work. I get images from the internet and from photos I have, and I make a kind of mood board, sometimes a mind map, and then I want to sense whether there is something new.These [idea] walls can inform me. And then if I think it can go in a new direction, I start to make blind drawings. The blind drawings tell me the story I can’t realize when I open my eyes. It’s a certain kind of unconsciousness. And through that, things come up. And then it’s reading, trying to tune in. … I think it’s very important to have a certain kind of antenna, where you tune in to what is happening and what you have to do now. I can’t explain exactly why and what it is, because it’s a mystery. It’s kind of a mysterious wave. It sounds like a stupid esoteric thing, but it is not. I believe it is real, and exactly why things are happening at the moment. As a maker, you have to open all your senses to create.That sounds rather exhausting. [Laughs] I have to say, I’ve been married 40 years to the same man, and he knows when I start to create a new series. I head-bang, like, shit, shit, [grunts], because I don’t know where to catch it. Creation is not nice, it’s a very difficult thing. It’s painful. Because you don’t know how to get to it. You’re always fighting, fighting.Why do it at all?Because it’s exciting at the moment when you find it. And the moment when you get a glimpse of it, and you say, wow! That’s it. You get a really warm feeling. But the struggle is a very interesting thing.How did you go from designing medical instruments to jewelry?I was skilled at manually creating very fine, small things, so I studied medical instruments. I made hearts, lungs, things for implanting on your heart. It sounds a little strange, but I thought it was not creative when I was doing it. But actually, they were really creative. So I jumped to art school to get into jewelry creation, but the medical instruments were exactly the same, only I didn’t see it at that moment.Do you wear all your pieces?Yes, but sometimes I’m also shocked when I wear them. When I was wearing one of the Lingams, I came from one of the openings and I forgot I was wearing it, and I was sitting in a metro in Stockholm, wearing one of these big penises and everyone was watching me. That happens, but I like that too.You said there was a period you stopped making jewelry. What are you doing now?Now I only make jewelry, but it’s so sculptural, that you can say that I make small sculptures. I was able to put my soul into the jewelry, which I wasn’t able to do before [when making mostly sculptures]. I also do things I don’t like. For instance, I travel a lot, and I go to places I hate. Hating is the most important driver of my life. I hated China, and I traveled for 3 months in China, and I was really fed up. But finally in the end, I loved China.It is exactly those kinds of things that you don’t like, or hate, that are very inspiring and important messages to work on. This column appears in the February 2019 edition of BlouinShop. Subscribe at www.blouinsubscriptions.comhttps://www.blouinartinfo.com/ Founder: Louise Blouin Read more