Stonehenge is constructed from raw rocks. Paintings are pigment on
canvas. Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water is metal and stone. Every
beautiful woman is made from bone and tissue, just like the rest of us.
And ordinary materials give the 'industry collection' of Nina Stotler's
Von Kottwitz jewelry line its extraordinary allure. The New York-based
designer and trend-tracker crafts deceptively opulent and authentically
elegant designs from zinc or bronze nuts, bolts and hardware chains.
Now, while Stotler crafts her hard-edged chic jewelry from rough and
ready hardware, a handful of artists have been inspired to create work
based on Stotler's designs.
Stotler and I have been close
friends since we graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 2000. She
generously gave me a gold version of her signature "bib" necklace for
my birthday and I have rarely been without it. After seeing me wear it
in New York, Berlin, and London, where it provoked a steady stream of
compliments, four of my artist friends told me that the necklace had
inspired independent pieces of work. Here the two photographers, a
sculptor and a performance art husband/wife team talk about how the
necklace and its modest materials has become a building block for their
own art. Ana Finel Honigman
ORLY GENGER
The elephant might be an incongruous inspiration for a slinky accessory, but the animal's astounding grace inspired Orly Genger's sculptural intervention with the Von Kottwitz necklace. The finger-knitted magenta form created from nylon rope in which Genger cradles the glittering accessory conveys a dialogue between humble, heavy materials and rough-hewn elegance.
Genger's own work expresses similar contradictions. For her museum and gallery installations, the Manhattan native used her fingers to knit thick nylon climbing rope into thousands of feet of fabric, which she formed into a map stretching across the lawn of Connecticut's Aldrich Museum and stacked into towering masses at the entrance of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. She has also converted this signature utilitarian medium into chic, sensual necklaces and cuffs with the aid of jewelry designer Jaclyn Mayer.
Genger recognizes a kinship between her work and Von Kottwitz jewelry, and she is attracted by its raw, sensual appeal. "What can I say about the Von Kottwitz necklace, besides that it's awesome?" she asks. "It is high and low. It is regal and gritty. It is aggressive and feminine. It's made by hand. It makes a little noise when you move around. When you put it on it feels like it should never come off. It jingles. It demands all the attention in the room. And it makes every woman look better naked."
Above: Orly Genger's Untitled, 2009
CLAYTON CUBITT
"I was trying to capture the two sides of the divide I feel her work straddles," explains Clayton Cubitt. "On one side the pieces have a sculptural, art piece rarity to them, and on the other hand they feel perfectly at home in the luxury jewelry tradition, despite her unconventional use of materials."
Cubitt's art, porn and editorial work expresses a similar set of high voltage tensions. The New Orleans–born photographer's appeal turns on the paradoxical relationship between his meticulously pristine and precise aesthetic and his often dirty subject matter.
Although these images are tame for an artist whose contribution sparked controversy in "Talk Dirty to Me," a show spanning the spectrum of blue art, they represent the ideal and earthy elements of his and Stotler's work. "The black-and-white image, blurred and edgy, I shot as if for art exhibition, an anthropological, almost tribal tone poem, as graphically bold as possible. The colour image is its luxe commercial counterpart, as at home in a fashion magazine as on a billboard. Using the same model, and the same Von Kottwitz piece, I wanted to show the range that
her work encompasses."
Above: Photography Clayton Cubitt
MANON AWST & BENJAMIN WALTHER
Berlin-based husband and wife team Manon Awst and Benjamin Walther are sculptural performance artists who incorporate material such as gelatin, ice, gold, glass, and feathers into their investigations of power dynamics and the divisions between our bodies and our consciousness.
Yet the Von Kottwitz necklace inspired them to create a series of drawings redolent of the dynamic and imaginative fashion illustrations found in daring indie art-fashion tomes. Awst, who was born in Wales and studied at Cambridge before moving to Berlin with her German-born husband, explains that their use of the necklace has broader socio-political symbolic value. "These drawings reveal our interest in fashion en masse as modern armour. We are attracted by this image of the fragile body, possessed by the style and submissive to adornment."
"If it comes down to it," adds German-born Walther, "Von Kottwitz somehow exemplifies this idea of being heavy and ruthlessly raw. So although the drawings are not at all illustrations or celebrations of the jewelry, we can't deny the fact that we muse upon Von Kottwitz's industrial collection. It is indecently desirable!
Above: Manon Awst & Benjamin Walther's Playing the Angel, 2009
MAXIME BALLESTEROS
"I love big engines and small boobs," declares Maxime Ballesteros, whose feral fashion photography has started motors purring for many of Berlin's top designers, critics, and curators. The Lyon-born and Berlin-based photographer's sharp, high-contrast photographs depict the hordes of scrappy, scruffy, and sexy young people who gravitate to international cities and form ad-hoc art communities. His images have the swagger of Larry Clark and the grit of Corrine Day, but also share the rare moments of pathos and genuine intimacy which happen when a talented insider embraced by a world of outsiders chooses to document his peers. Ballesteros's rough aesthetic, combined with his own acutely thoughtful sensitivity, turns tender shots of critic and scholar Alix Rule wearing the Von Kottwitz necklace into fashion images in the style of Juergen Teller or Ryan McGinley.
For Ballesteros, the necklace's charm arose from its erotic tactility. "I love a fine neck and bones which stand out. But I also love gold. And the Von Kottwitz necklace creates a sharp and brutal femininity. It is heavy and cold when you put it on, but it is quick to turn warm on the skin. Slide a finger, or the whole hand, delicately between the metal and the skin," he instructs, "and you will understand."
