Global Tactile Pieces Volume 2. Tokyo – Amsterdam

Artist list

How does a train journey from Tokyo to Amsterdam lead to an exhibition?
Ted Noten, one of the most revolutionary Dutch jewelry designers of our time, became inspired on the Trans Siberia Express to create a new series of necklaces. These, together with an overview of his work, can be seen at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

Especially for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Ted Noten (Tegelen, 1956) created an installation with 18 monumental necklaces he made on the occasion of a train journey, lasting several weeks, from Tokyo to the Netherlands. They are made up of objects he found or bought during this time, so that the necklaces are ‘portraits’ of the various stops along the way. With the series Global Tactile Pieces, Volume 2, Ted Noten literally takes jewelry back to the street, and into the amazing reality of the commonplace.

Ted Noten created a stir at the museum once before, by organizing a chew-your-own-brooch event, in which the visitors chewed a piece of Wrigley’s into a work of art. This was subsequently mailed back to the creator in the shape of a plated, portable piece of silverware.
The artist Ted Noten, resident in Amsterdam, trained as a jewelry designer at the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Maastricht (1983-1986) and at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (1986-1990). He became widely known with jewelry and handbags that featured various objects, such as a whiff of cocaine, cherished rings, a little dead mouse wearing a tiny pearl necklace, and some genuine pistols, that were sealed inside blocks of acrylate. This transparent synthetic material, with the chemical formula CH2=C (CH3) C (=0) ) CH3, is an indispensable and equally invisible ingredient of his much-talked-about designs.

His work regularly leads to commotion. For instance, his work of art The Pistol Saints, that was exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, was destroyed by order of the police, because it was alleged to be an illegal weapon. Another controversy arose about a number of Mercedes cars, regarded by Ted Noten as showy symbols of prosperity, that were sawn up into brooches. A red sawn-up Mercedes has become part of the Droog Design collection.