'Have nothing on your body that you don’t know to be useful or believe to be beautiful or love,’ reads an inscription daubed on the walls of Louisa Guinness’ Mayfair gallery. It’s by Ron Arad, appropriated from a quote by William Morris where ‘on your body’ replaces ‘in your house’ and it refers to the jewellery Arad and Guinness have put on show together.
‘Rocks’ is a collection of necklaces, earrings and bracelets that look like they’re made from shards of hefty glass. In fact they’re feather-light hunks of silicone, embedded with shreds of silk scarves, carefully cut up by Arad and arranged in a specific order. ‘Ron has been experimenting with silicone for many years, and the challenge with Rocks was to ensure it doesn’t turn yellow with age,’ explains Guinness.
The pair first met in 2002 when Guinness ran a furniture showroom in Sloane Avenue showing design art from the likes of Arad, Donald Judd and Rolf Sachs. Preferring ‘small, easy to transport objects’, she shifted focus to artist-made jewellery and has commissioned the likes of Gavin Turk and Grayson Perry, Anish Kapoor and Claude Lalanne to create niche pieces.
Nor is 'Rocks' Arad’s first foray into jewellery design. In 2003, he created a range of spiral earrings entitled 'Hot Ingo', and inspired by the lighting of his great pal Ingo Maurer. The collection – which features black, white and red spirals that expand and contract along silver and gold stems – has been reissued using a 3D printer and 18 carat gold. Then there’s 'Naja', a series of magnifying glass pendants made of silver and guilded silver, which coil around smoky and scratchy quartz circles, or ‘lenses’.
‘To me Ron is one of the most versatile designers there is,’ says Guinness. ‘His range is huge; he can create everything from baths to spectacles to delicate jewellery.’ He’s also one of 15 artists with whom Guinness is collaborating this year, and in June the gallery undergoes its biggest transformation yet, with a show of jewellery, miniatures, clocks and bronzes by Claude Lalanne.
‘Rocks’ is a collection of necklaces, earrings and bracelets that look like they’re made from shards of hefty glass
In fact, they are lightweight hunks of silicone, embedded with shreds of silk scarves
Previous Ron Arad jewellery collections include 'Naja', a series of magnifying glass pendants made of silver and guilded silver, which coil around smoky and scratchy quartz circles, or ‘lenses’. Pictured: Free-hand Naja Amethyst
Guinness says of Arad's work: ‘To me Ron is one of the most versatile designers there is. His range is huge; he can create everything from baths to spectacles to delicate jewellery’
INFORMATION
Ron Arad Rocks! runs from 24 February until 8 April 2016, at Louisa Guinness’ London Mayfair Gallery. For more information, visit the website
Photography courtesy the artist and Louisa Guiness Gallery
ADDRESS
45 Conduit Street
Mayfair, London
-
Take an exclusive look inside Marc Newson and Ressence’s new watch collaborationA serendipitous collaboration between innovative watch brand Ressence and Marc Newson dials up on the industrial designer’s earlier cult offerings
-
The Christmas wishlist of an interiors-obsessed Wallpaper* writer2026 will be the year I finally finish furnishing my home – ideally with this selection of covetable furniture and accessories from studios and designers that inspire me endlessly
-
‘Seriously,’ says Sprüth Magers, art can be funny tooAt Sprüth Magers, London, group show ‘Seriously’ delves into humour in art, from the satirical to the slapstick
-
Each mundane object tells a story at Pace’s tribute to the everydayIn a group exhibition, ‘Monument to the Unimportant’, artists give the seemingly insignificant – from discarded clothes to weeds in cracks – a longer look
-
Out of office: The Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the weekThis week, the Wallpaper* team had its finger on the pulse of architecture, interiors and fashion – while also scooping the latest on the Radiohead reunion and London’s buzziest pizza
-
Out of office: The Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the weekIt’s been a week of escapism: daydreams of Ghana sparked by lively local projects, glimpses of Tokyo on nostalgic film rolls, and a charming foray into the heart of Christmas as the festive season kicks off in earnest
-
Wes Anderson at the Design Museum celebrates an obsessive attention to detail‘Wes Anderson: The Archives’ pays tribute to the American film director’s career – expect props and puppets aplenty in this comprehensive London retrospective
-
Meet Eva Helene Pade, the emerging artist redefining figurative paintingPade’s dreamlike figures in a crowd are currently on show at Thaddaeus Ropac London; she tells us about her need ‘to capture movements especially’
-
David Shrigley is quite literally asking for money for old rope (£1 million, to be precise)The Turner Prize-nominated artist has filled a London gallery with ten tonnes of discarded rope, priced at £1 million, slyly questioning the arbitrariness of artistic value
-
Out of office: The Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the weekThe rain is falling, the nights are closing in, and it’s still a bit too early to get excited for Christmas, but this week, the Wallpaper* team brought warmth to the gloom with cosy interiors, good books, and a Hebridean dram
-
A former leprosarium with a traumatic past makes a haunting backdrop for Jaime Welsh's photographsIn 'Convalescent,' an exhibition at Ginny on Frederick in London, Jaime Welsh is drawn to the shores of Lake Geneva and the troubled history of Villa Karma
