Atomización de un Anillo exhibition 2018
Exhibition design at Angulo Cero Galería, Mexico City
For Rodete Estudio
Collaborators: Paulina López, Ángulo Cero
Atomización de un Anillo is a piece by jewellery artist Paulina Lopez. The exhibition presented at Angulo Cero Galería, divided into 4 thematic axes –material, mountain, atomisation, social body, body and jewellery- narrates the process of making of this piece, which are a series of pieces that stand between sculpture, performance and jewellery.
Archeology of a ring, 2018. Photo by Mariana Martinez Balvanera
"We are used to seeing people wearing jewellery, why not jewellery wearing people?" -Pierre Degen
La Atomización de un Anillo explores the relationship and extent of jewellery, body, and space. On the one hand, the interest and characteristics of this project arise from the need to create interaction with people through a piece of jewellery that is part of a public event, a collective moment of catharsis. On the other hand, it is about giving continuity to this event through a video and the construction of pieces of jewellery resulting from the atomisation of a ring. The exhibition visualised the moment of segmentation of this marble ring into little pieces by creating a grid for an archeological archive to unveil. The grid is subtle and merges into the wall, creating the visual idea that the segments are components of one thing - and could be read as a whole - just like the pieces of jewellery that capture the entirety in a segment. As a four stage narrative the story unfold through these segments as it engaged with different bodies: the artists, a collective, the colector, the viewer.
Exhibition at Angulo Cero Galería, 2018. Photo by CoolHunterMx
Matter
Since its inception, Paulina López bet on working with hard but porous stones, with history and memory in the material and capable of undergoing the most incredible transformations without losing its materiality. This project is no exception. López opted for a huge piece of marble that he turned into a large format ring to be able to roll, break, manipulate and transform.
Montaña
Tracing the route for its destruction was another process. Finding the terrain, measuring the geography, calculating variables according to the slope and speed were also tasks to consider and in which López sought the advice of specialists.
Atomisation
Finally the day came. About two dozen people accompanied the artist on the hard day. Transport the ring to the far location, arrive, place it, push it and hope for the best. It did not take much, just a few meters in fall and boom! the ring exploded into pieces. Then came the forensic and almost archaeological work. Find the pieces, point to them, number them, inventory them and already in the artist's studio, catalog them to define their future. Some would transform into jewels, others into sculptures, others would simply remain immutable as remnants of the action, records of the moment, inert, impassive, eternal.
Exhibition at Angulo Cero Galería, 2018. Photo by Angulo Cero Galería
Social body
And this is when a second moment begins. The piece is activated and resignified when the community intervenes. The one that had remained static and observant, now had to walk downhill and look for the remains, locate and identify them. An action that when integrating the collective becomes social sculpture. The ring instead of being carried by a body becomes part of the collective, of the action.
Body and jewellery
Just as to make designer jewellery one must think about the portability and size of the body, so in this project the human scale and the consideration of the body were necessary. Matter and emptiness (in the center of the ring) mattered, complemented and dialogued.
Exhibition at Angulo Cero Galería, 2018. Photo by Angulo Cero Galería